The Crown’s Awakening (The Ashen Crown #2)

Prologue

NOX

Brinette, daughter of the Duke of Opithin, is going to die before the tea cools.

Nox clocks it before the cup is even poured, which is almost unfair, considering the woman hasn’t technically done anything wrong yet.

This is who Asharin kept close?

The same Asharin that Sevrin Rathmor has gone half-mad over?

The same Asharin that Teorin Rathmor is heading to Alarna with?

Making Sevrin the perfect target, and Brinette, in all her dullness, a necessary stepping stone.

Brinette pours the tea herself, every movement precise without looking forced, like she has been trained since birth to make even the smallest things feel intentional.

She’s poised, composed, and irritatingly competent.

She has clearly spent her life practicing how to be tolerable, which is, in its own way, offensive.

Asharin was a poor judge of character. A decent princess would have fed Brinette to the undead ages ago. Though even the undead would need to be ravenous to tolerate such dullness. A horde, perhaps. Alarna was known for those.

Alarna, Alarna. A lovely place, by all accounts. Divine artwork. An impressive theater. A worthwhile visit.

If you can get past the undead at its wards.

Why must all good things be inconvenient?

Teorin better not fuck this up.

Brinette watches her with careful attention. “It’s important to hold the cup like this,” she says, demonstrating with two fingers and a slight tilt, everything technically correct and still somehow lacking.

Nox shifts the veil a fraction and drinks. “Like this?” she asks, angling her head just enough to appear uncertain.

“Yes. Exactly.” Brinette smiles encouragingly.

Nox smiles. Inside, she is already calculating how much longer she intends to endure this.

She sits here veiled as a bastard daughter from Gyarin, a distant branch of Brinette’s extended family, sent off under the polite fiction of refinement.

It is a thin story, but thin things hold in places like Veynar, where no one wants to press too hard on anything that arrives properly introduced.

Brinette had accepted it with only a brief pause. That had been promising. This is not.

Larkin is an idiot, and this time she may actually kill him for it, because of all the possible marks he could have suggested, all the women with real influence or at least the illusion of it, he has given her this. And now she must sit here and listen to this woman explain how to hold a cup.

Brinette leans forward slightly, still composed, still entirely convinced that this matters. “If you’re to remain at court, you’ll need to understand these things. Presentation matters. Especially here.”

Especially here.

Nox nearly laughs at that, because if this is what passes for presentation in Veynar, then the entire kingdom is built on things that almost succeed and never quite arrive.

“Yes,” she says lightly, setting the cup down with deliberate care, already better at this than the woman instructing her and finding that fact more irritating than satisfying. “I’ll be sure to remember that.”

“Tell me,” she continues, as though the thought has only just occurred to her, “is it always so quiet here?”

Brinette hesitates, and the hesitation is small but real, which at least gives Nox something to pay attention to.

“Lately, it has been.”

Nox lets her expression shift just enough, curiosity layered with something softer, something that invites explanation without demanding it. “Why?”

“You haven’t heard?” Brinette asks, lowering her voice, though there is no one close enough to overhear.

Nox shakes her head. “I’ve been traveling.”

“Well…it’s the princess.”

Nox stills, only slightly, just enough to sell the moment. “Princess Asharin?”

“Yes,” Brinette says, glancing toward the windows as though the walls might be listening. “There are rumors. No one knows what truly happened. Only that the king—” She pauses, adjusts. “That something happened. And she is gone.”

Gone.

Nox leans back slightly. “Gone?”

“No one knows where,” Brinette says. “Or when she will return.”

Nox leans forward, lowering her voice to match. “And the king?”

“King Sevrin has said very little.”

A wise choice. Nox marks it and moves on.

“Is he cruel?” she asks, almost idly, trying to hide the hopefulness in her tone.

Brinette hesitates. “I wouldn’t say—”

“Powerful, then,” Nox corrects, because that is the only answer that matters.

“Yes,” Brinette says after a moment. “Very.”

Finally, something that might justify her time. She wonders if he is powerful in the fuckable sense of the word, but she can tell that Brinette has the lust level of a dried prune so asking would be a waste of time.

A girl at a brothel once told her he has a fiery temper and impressive girth, though she was not a reliable source, given the volume of clientele. She imagined most men called themselves kings in a brothel.

Nox lets the silence stretch, then leans back as Brinette, clearly relieved, returns to safer ground.

“Now, about posture—”

Fuck this.

She moves without warning, closing the distance in a single motion, her hand locking around Brinette’s throat as she drags her forward across the table, porcelain shattering as it hits the floor, tea spilling in dark streaks that at least add something of interest to the room.

Brinette reacts quickly, faster than expected, but it is too late for that to matter, and Nox laughs softly as she leans in, her mouth finding her neck without hesitation.

The taste is immediate, warm and real and finally worth her attention. Brinette struggles, there is strength there, actual resistance, and Nox appreciates it, almost. But certainly not impressive enough to make her want to stop.

Brinette is quite talented. Even her blood is disappointingly dull. The movement slows, then fades, then stops entirely, and Nox pulls back only when she’s satisfied, letting the body fall to the floor with a dull, unimpressive sound.

“There,” she murmurs, straightening slowly. “Worth the tea.”

She studies the body, already losing interest. Then lifts her hands as smoke begins to curl from her fingers, dark and thick as it spreads across her skin, the air growing damp and heavy as her form shifts beneath it, reshaping into something new.

When it clears, she turns toward the mirror. Brinette looks back at her. Same face. Same composure.

Nox watches her reflection, then smiles. “Perfect.”

She adjusts her posture slightly, easing into the role, already improving it.

“This will do.”

She snaps her fingers.

Larkin appears in the doorway. “What do you wish me to do with her?” he asks.

Nox glances once at the body. “Make sure she stays gone,” she says lightly. “However you prefer.”

A pause. “And next time you promise me something exceptional, try not to lie.”

Larkin inclines his head. “It will be done.”

Nox looks at herself once more, faint amusement threading through her expression.

Veynar thinks itself refined. She smiles.

That can be corrected.