Page 107 of The Princesses of Ruin
“They were fed and allowed to breed without fear of injury or competition. They kept us from the light. They made usweak!”
A ripple of red moves through the crowd. They raise their limbs and gesticulate wildly. Slowly, they calm.
“Now we have the chance to be strong. Now we have the chance to make friends of the surface again, to be the people we were meant to be.”
Vek’ihr turns to us.
“Today, we make a promise to you, to the Ki’ah Ohn and the selkie. We will not eat your flesh unless willingly surrendered. We will not hunt or hurt you. All we ask in return is a place in the light where we will not be hunted or hurt, and that this unbreakable oath be passed to your descendants for all time.”
He holds two of his tentacles out for each of us. The ends of them glow with a soft orange that’s nothing like his communication lights. This is his magic.
He’s a high-blood magus. A royal bloodline. Some long-ago hero of his people. But he was last hatched. In their old ways, he was a servant despite his power.
Now the old ways are gone.
Reina doesn’t hesitate. She grabs his limb in hers as blue surges down her arm.
“I promise.”
Her magic fuses with his and a flowing orange mark appears around her wrist. A twisting design, not unlike her scars, glimmers along Vek’ihr’s tentacle, then solidifies in blazing blue.
His gaze locks on me. “Can you make this promise with me?”
Can I make an unbreakable pact with a creature I’ve called enemy for a long,longtime? If I don’t, will they all turn on me here and now? What will happen to Reina then? Will they hold her hostage?
“There is no hidden agenda. We only wish to return home. To destroy the Verdant Drown that infects our shallows, and to grow. To become a people worthy of the light. To trade and transform, learn and lead. To makeart. To love.
“It is an idea we’ve whispered in the shadows, but it has never lived in any one of us. There was no room, down here in the dark, to grow love. No resources to trade for time spent enjoying one another. Fleeting affections existed but were quickly quelled. Ripped apart and fed to the Serpent.”
“That’s horrible,” Reina whispers, her voice warbling on the edge of tears.
Because the consequences of not making the pact far outweigh the benefits, I will overlook the past. Because we need to leave soon, and an escort to the surface will be essential, I will forgive his transgressions.
Because I couldn’t bear to watch Reina become a captive, traded for the favor of some other selkie willing to give it, I will align with my enemy.
I lift my hand and grip Vek’ihr’s offering. “For love, then, I can make this promise.”
Chapter thirty-eight
Zane
“Be careful,” Scarlett says.
“Iambeing careful,” I grumble, aligning the dropper with the beaker secured between two spindles.
I adapted Adrik’s method for isolating magical signatures from blood—used for crafting Scarlett’s potions—and applied the same process to the spider venom. By separating the arcane essence from the biological base, I was able to extract the active proteins responsible for pre-digesting their food. In the raw form, the venom is too volatile, but with the right binding agents…
The amber drop of Sheesahng’s venom hovers over the beaker. This is it. I know I can make it safe for male consumption, and females who haven’t yet developed their own venom sacs.
We don’t know what’s inside the egg yet—or if it’s alive—just that it’s slung tight to Scarlett’s chest, resting against the warmth of her bare stomach. All we know is that it’s going to need this venom for many years as it develops.
If it develops.
It may have been too cold for too long.
My right arm is bound in a tight sling against my chest like the egg is against Scarlett’s. We’re not sure if I’ll ever regain full use of it, but I have six spindles to make up for it. One arm is an easy sacrifice to make to protect Scarlett and, despite my reluctance to admit it, for a creature like Iksah, too. He’s curled in the corner under the dome of stasis runes. His emaciated body is a constant reminder that if I fail, it will be his end. And the baby’s, too.
The dropper releases the single ochre drop into the beaker, and a cascade of golden webs shoots through the white base solution. The lines of light spread like fire, eating up the replicator potion and transforming it. The possibilities for the replicator potion are endless, but for now, they’re critical in saving Iksah’s and the baby’s lives.
