Motif · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

The Ring of Divine Suffering

Frank Q's revenge: +5% to all stats and the Marked for Death skill — mark a crawler, gain a permanent stat point when they die, and heal nothing until they do. Yvette wore it and marked Carl; that is why she could not heal, and why her mother killed her. Carl wears it until Mordecai explains what the sixth-floor hunters do to its owners.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 2 — Hills Cyclops
• Chapter 3 — The Scavenger's Daughter
• Chapter 19 — What's in the box
• Chapter 40 — The Book of Voodoo
• Chapter 45 — Asher
• Chapter 60 — The last rampart
• Chapter 65 — Graupel
• Chapter 67 — The Big O
• Chapter 69 — A deity has fallen

Progression

Marked for death by a god, and survived (ch. 2); a box that may only be equipped by a crawler marked for death (ch. 3); the elbow web is the tattoo one gets from using the ring, and Carl knows of one other living crawler with it — a key (ch. 19, ch. 23); Frank Q, feeling crushed by it all, remembered (ch. 40, ch. 45); an urge fought at the Capitol to mark Ren or Khulan, as he did Miriam (ch. 60); a god's tornado-squiggle over Louis (ch. 65, ch. 67).