Page 4 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter four

Kazimir

T he weight of her in my arms, against my chest, is enough to drive me mad. I’ve needed her for so many nights, and now that I have her in my grasp, I don’t know if I can let her go.

The purple-hued scrawl of my love sparkles at me from the desk. The runes pulse, demanding my attention. Looking at them causes a sense of unease, but I stare, holding Alyse tighter.

Ashai means to kill my dragon with these runes, and I need to know what they are so we can fight her.

I carry Alyse to bed and use a puff of magic to blow back the sheets. I kneel at the edge and lay her down on the mattress, tucking her legs under the thick down blanket that wards off the cold of encroaching winter.

Alyse moans, rolling to her side and tucking into a ball. I pull the covers up to her shoulder and kiss her cheek. “Be at peace, my love.”

The shimmering runes flare in the corner of my vision as I gaze down at the anchor of my universe. Her auburn hair curls around her ears and lays fluffy on the pillow behind her. I want to bury my face in it and hide away with her in dreams.

Tonight. She promised .

I turn, my eyes unable to leave her as I grab the pages off the desk. I move to the door and drink her in as I open it slowly.

“She’s safe under my gaze, Reaper.” The whisper of the Nest—Zephrom—makes me start. I feel the warmth of the goddess in the room, rolling over my skin like the prickle of hot needles.

I turn away, ignoring thoughts of distrust for the goddess.

The voices and footsteps of Spiders in the stairwell echo through the well-lit hall.

I turn back to our door and reinforce the sound-dampening ward.

My purple magic seeps into the wood in the scrawls of Nol’Ther’s silence and Zephrom’s order.

I fold the papers in my hands once and march toward the stairs, pulling my urictsa mask from my breast pocket as I go.

It’s fixed in place before I descend the stairs.

My mind settles with the familiar, comforting weight of my shield, and Spiders part for me.

I enter the war room beside the kitchen and find Zane.

When the Spider updating him departs, I step in. “New intel from inside the palace,” I say, passing him the pages. “I want to go to the Ink Blot. Get Mason on these.”

Zane looks at me with a blank expression, his mask even better than mine. He unfolds the paper and scans it. His brow furrows and my patience wanes.

“Jenson,” he calls out, and a younger Spider approaches him with a salute. “Make a copy, then take it to the Ink Blot—”

“I will take it,” I interject.

Zane raises an eyebrow at me. “Your time is far too valuable to be spent running down rune translations.”

I purse my lips because he’s not wrong, but I still need to know what these are. It needs to be done right, fast, and diligently. I need to do it myself .

“There is no task at present more demanding than understanding her weapons and weaknesses,” I say.

Jenson shrinks away as Zane stands up taller and faces me. “You are a lord of the Underbelly. We need you to be handling more high-level matters.”

I can’t stop the way my head jerks back, but I manage to tamp down on my scoff. “Such as?”

“While Jenson is making a copy so we can keep the original safe here, and collecting materials from Mason and the library in old Pryce territory for your later research —if you would’ve let me finish my sentence—you could be crafting weapons for our nomaj Spiders, or training the younger ones with their magic, or hunting to improve our food stores for the coming winter. ”

I resist the feeling of shame from his snide stab.

“Jenson is a nomaj. He can’t do many of the things you can, but he is quite good at running important errands like this one,” he says, then nods the soldier off.

Jenson bows shallowly. “I’ll return by sundown.”

Zane thanks him and turns back to the table. It’s cluttered with stacks of requests, overlapping maps, and various tokens that represent different team leader positions within the city.

“What would you have me do until sundown, Spider Lord?” I say.

He side-eyes me with a tiny smirk. “I believe weapon crafting would be the best use of your time, but you are a lord, too, Reaper. I’m simply advising you on how best to wage war with us.”

I bite my tongue. Once again, he’s not wrong. He’s commanded the Spiders for nearly a decade. He knows how to operate within a group…

And I don’t .

“I’ll take stock on what’s running low in the armory and be in the dungeon replacing them until Jenson’s return,” I say turning my back on him.

“Kazimir,” he calls, his voice barely raised above the rabble in the hall.

I glance over my shoulder at him, impatience eating away at my mood.

His eyes glow brighter for a moment, their teal power filling the air between us. “Thank you.”

I feel the foreign truth in his words. He’s grateful I’m here, and that I’m helping. But I know it’s not enough. More. I need to do more.

I manage a grunt and turn back for the dungeons.

The armory is in sorrier shape than I imagined.

Boxes that used to be overflowing with stun grenades and sleep potions sit empty, a few broken pieces left.

The scant tactical vests are run down, straps broken, punctures and rips going through pockets and holsters.

It’s a wonder we’re holding out in this war at all.

Footsteps on the stairs pull my attention, and I turn to face Cecillia. She rounds the corner with her attention on the clothes in her hands. When she finally looks up just a few feet from me, she starts with a yelp.

“Looming just for laughs, are you?” she asks, holding her chest.

“I didn’t laugh.”

She scowls. “What’re you doin’ down here?”

“Taking stock.”

“Do ya ever say more than five words at a time?” She moves toward the row of disabled vests.

“Sometimes. ”

She scoffs, shaking her head as she hangs up the repaired vests and grabs the next section of damaged ones. “You get that girl to sleep yet?”

I frown at the term girl being applied to my dragon but nod. “Yes.”

Cecillia turns with her arms full of damaged gear. “And have you rested?”

“Some.” I find myself falling in step with her, offering my hands to take some of the load. She rolls the top of the pile into my grasp, and I walk with her to the stairs.

She clucks her tongue in time with the click-clacking of her shoes on the stone steps. “You kids, so willing to sacrifice yourselves not even realizing that’s exactly how we get less of you.”

A Cecilliaism, as the Bloodletter would say, but one that does make sense. “I think we’re all just doing our best.”

She hums, an eyebrow raised to a critical point.

We arrive at the second-floor room that used to be—if Zane is to be believed—a teleporter of some kind that now serves as a storage and crafting room.

Several shelves of goods line the walls to the left, and boxes of materials sit in organized piles between them.

“Get whatever you’re working on and sit with me,” Cecillia says, finding a table to the right and sparking the magus light to life. An orange glow hums across the table, and she pulls up two chairs.

I set the pile of vests down next to her and wander into the stacks. Used grenades sit in a box near the back, most of them in reparable condition. I sort through them and create two piles, one that I will fix and refill, and the other to return to the forge for recrafting.

The wall behind the worktable holds all the tools I need, and I bring a selection over on a wheeled cart.

I take it down to the alchemy lab, and Adrik gives me an acknowledging grunt as I collect the different powders and liquids necessary.

He looks weary…giving too much of himself.

It makes me wonder if the less we’re getting is transferred into his work. What a catastrophe that could be.

Cecillia is already weaving golden light between her fingers when I get back, fixing the rips and broken straps. I sit next to her and set my mind to solving the problem in front of me.

With my magic we’ve been able to reduce the amount of black powder in each shell, relying instead on pressurized air to help disperse the chemicals.

I fill each section appropriately, then condense a cubic inch of air down to the size of my pinky nail before capping the shell.

The striker is bent, so I remove it and use a small magus torch to get it back in shape.

While it cools, I move on to the next grenade. The spring is snapped and there’s debris in the primer. I use the coiled wire to create a new one, then power blast the debris with air, earning me a very ruffled look from Cecillia.

The work flows as such. Each problem is a little different, just enough to keep my thoughts from wandering to the bed upstairs.

At least too much.

Cecillia groans as she gets up from her stool, and suddenly I realize I’m down to my last grenade.

“We need some cushions for these torture traps,” she says as she pushes her hands into her lower back and stretches. I check my timepiece and sigh. Despite how much we both accomplished, it’s only been two hours.

I promised Alyse I would wake her, and the urge to go up and see her, hold her, press my lips against her warm skin and entangle myself with her, is great. But I know Cecillia is right. She needs to rest to be able to give any more of herself .

I help Cecillia carry the fixed vests back to the armory, depositing my creations in their appropriate buckets, too. We collect more ingredients on the way back and dive into the work again.

Each completed grenade is one step closer to ending the queen’s reign. Each weapon I help craft or improve is a Spider’s life saved, maybe even my dragon’s life. I am doing important work. Necessary work.

The Spider Lord’s appreciation rings in my mind, feeling a little less foreign, a little less uncomfortable.

There’s a loud clack on the doorframe and my attention snaps to the nomaj, Jenson, who somehow managed to sneak up on me. I stand as he rambles on about what he was able to get, shuffling through the books in his arms. I take the top of the pile and lead him to another workstation.

“Ya can’t just leave these volatile substances next to me,” Cecillia calls, pointing to the very inert components on the table.

“I’ve got it, sir,” Jenson says, depositing the rest of the books with me.

The nomaj quickly and efficiently cleans the grenade workstation as I shift through the titles before me, laying them out in neat stacks by date.

At Zane’s direction, Mason has been importing dark magic texts from wherever he can find them, so the resources have grown significantly.

And there’s promise in what he’s collected.

There’s hope.

I just have to find it.

The nomaj picks up the last box and heads for the door.

“Jenson,” I call, stopping him.

The boy looks at me with exhaustion, but respect. “Sir?”

“Thank you. ”

A smile pushes back his fatigue, and he nods. “You’re welcome, my lord.”

I return to my workstation and set out a clean book with a pen, then find my seat. When Jenson is halfway down the hall, Cecillia humphs loudly.

“What now?” I ask.

“Nothin’, my lord. ” She draws out the words playfully.

“Don’t you start, old lady .”

The neck of my shirt pulls uncomfortably tight, and a pathetic, choked sound escapes my mouth. She laughs behind closed lips, a high, musical noise.

I pull on the magic threads and they come undone, easily releasing me. I ponder my revenge as I watch her work. Perhaps I will send a gust of wind into her bread bowl, covering her in flour. Or ruffle her hair every time she sees Gareth to fluster her.

She glances over. “Plotting?”

“Yes.”

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t scare me.”

“You have no idea what hells you have unleashed,” I murmur, turning back to my books.

I’m going to get that old woman good.