Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Odette's people's proverb — never stare into the blinding eye of the Bedlam Bride, lest obsession blind you to all else — and, by the end of the eighth floor, a tattoo above Carl's sternum: an eye Shi Maria pokes into him with ink from a toraline root while she wears his body, that blinks once and hides. 'I am a part of you… Keep me with you and gain my power, or set me free.' The escort quest survives the tearing of her card.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 1 — Porthus; Welcome to Faction Wars
• Chapter 54 — The Waffle Maker; Hellik's message
• Chapter 58 — Sultan Rishi the Usurper

Progression

Still open at the book's start, a quest update and a tattoo (ch. 1); Rosetta puts an ice-cold hand down Carl's shirt against it (ch. 11). The quest to bring the Bride to Larracos fails, and Carl wonders whether she is gone and how she killed a whole room (ch. 17); a jolt in his chest is not her (ch. 47); Vinata is driven mad by it (ch. 54); a voice in it says 'You're always on rails […] You're a puppet' (ch. 62).