Page 120 of The Princesses of Ruin
I’m well-read. Iknowwhat makes an object urictsa. It’s the runes designed to harness and capture arcane essence. But perhaps the dragon knows something I don’t.
“What makes it urictsa?”
He cocks his head as he looks down at the mask. “It sounds like you.”
“One of its many dangerous properties,” I say.
He crouches and grabs the mask, inspecting it closer. He’s about to put it on when I gasp. He looks back at me, his brow furrowed.
“I may look like a child, but I am not stupid.”
He takes a heavy sniff of the metal, then…licks it. The mask whispers something derisive. He tosses it back into my shawl with a disgusted shiver.
“It is of Eyzanth. Chaos. It craves pain and blood. Nothing else. This is what makes it live.”
“What has made it this way?”
“What madeyouthis way?” he parrots.
“Everything, I suppose.”
“Everything, then.”
Kaz and Adrik poured their magic, fear, and hopes into this mask long ago, when it was their only option for escape. The dark manipulator, Sybil, was their master’s favorite enforcer. She was only a teenager, but keeping the other children in line kept her from the worst of the abuse, so she did it. There was no escape if Sybil could control them.
So they made this abomination that relishes anguish, craves agony, and protects the wearer from psionic attacks like Sybil’s. Like mine.
Like Ashai’s.
If only “killing” the urictsa wouldn’t remove its magical properties. Without this mask, Kazimir will be as good as dead against her. That’s idiotic…I couldn’t let them go without me, mask or no mask. My power is stronger when I’m close and theyallneed me, not just Kaz.
But the battlefield is no place for me, especially now. I’m no physical match for any of Ashai’s soldiers, and pregnant, I’m no better than a costly distraction.
“What do you want to do?” Raenkor asks, snapping me from rumination.
“It’s a useful tool, but it’s too strong. I fear Kazimir will use it out of desperation and be lost to it. Can it be tamed?”
Raenkor laughs coldly, his boyish stature not detracting from the indifference of the gesture.
“You want to tame the god of chaos?”
“Zephrom,” I call to the goddess stalking us in the shadows. She’s always near in the Nest, but most accessible down here.
She whispers into shape, just a shadow of what she revealed to us weeks ago. Raenkor takes two steps back, then bows deeply. Zephrom notes the motion with smug appreciation.
“Does this urictsa still have a role to play in the coming conflict?” I ask, trying not to tread on her manufactured rules about revealing the future.
“That’s up to you,” she says, her ephemeral voice attempting to calm me.
Fucking gods and their bullshit.
She hasn’t brought enough of her essence forward for me to sense her thoughts, only her vague feelings. She’s not concerned for the mask, or the outcome of my decision with it—or perhaps she’s shielding from me. She is a goddess, after all.
“What will happen if Kazimir wears it again?”
She giggles. “Child, the threads of the future do not weave at my behest.”
What a nonsensical answer that means absolutely nothing. Gods, experts at shitting all over your life and then giving you a metaphor for a bath as if it helps clean things up.
