Deliciously Unwell
NOX
The dressing chamber is arranged for selection rather than comfort. Gowns line the walls in careful order, silks layered by color and weight as though the act of choosing them matters more than wearing them ever will.
Nox enters without hesitation, Brinette's posture held just well enough to pass. Her attention moves over the dresses first before it finds the man who has arranged them.
Sevrin stands with his back to her, one hand resting against a chair as he studies the garments before him. Strength sits easily on him. When he shifts, the fabric at his shoulders draws slightly, enough to suggest the muscle beneath.
"I know I usually have Yvara model them," he says, as though the thought had already been resolved. "But that is simply not possible."
Nox inclines her head and steps further into the room. Her attention lingers on him briefly before returning to the gowns.
He is attractive in the way men like him often are. Built for command. For possession. For taking what is placed before them and assuming it belongs to them. He would be good in bed, maybe.
His fixation is more interesting.
She has seen it before, the way certain men attach themselves to things that do not return what they take. Not because they expect anything in return, but because they do not require it. The repetition is enough. Whatever holds their attention becomes sufficient.
Asharin has become his.
"They are beautiful, Majesty," she says.
"They are insufficient."
Her fingers pass lightly over a sleeve before moving on. Yvara's absence presses at the edges of the room. Noticeable without explanation. She does not ask.
Sevrin lifts a gown slightly, studies the way the fabric falls, sets it aside. "Tomorrow," he says, "I will have a means for them to be tried on. At that point, I expect a decision."
"A decision for what, Majesty?"
He looks at her sharply. "Which dress she will wear upon her return."
The irritation in his expression fades as quickly as it came. "I am not entirely certain whether she will return here," he continues, "or elsewhere. But she will require the correct one."
Elsewhere.
The meaning is immediate. Morrath.
That stops her.
Morrath is not a place one brings someone to be kept. It is not shaped to hold anything gently. What enters it is subject to it in ways that are not easily undone.
Would he actually bring her there?
He might. She understands that now. He is not refining this into something controlled. He is letting it extend as far as it will go.
She finds that interesting.
"Would you like to tell me about the last time you had dinner with her?" Her tone is gentle, the question placed where it will be accepted.
He looks at her then, properly, and something in him shifts.
"Yes," he says.
He speaks at length. The arrangement, the pacing, the way she followed the structure he imposed. He speaks of her posture, the angle of her hand, the moments she resisted and the moments she did not, each detail treated as though repetition might preserve it.
Nox listens without interrupting. Without guiding. She lets him speak. When he finishes, the room holds the absence of his voice briefly.
“I found this soothing," he says.
"I am glad, Majesty."
She curtsies and withdraws, leaving him with the gowns and the version of Asharin that exists only in his mind.
The corridor outside is empty.
Larkin falls into step beside her, his presence folding into her pace without drawing attention. He bows his head slightly. "How was it?"
"He is deliciously unwell," she says.
Larkin says nothing.
"He must be furious." A trace of amusement surfaces. "Nothing he touches is her."
Her thoughts shift then to Yvara, Asharin’s half sister.
The King’s favored bedmate, if the rumors were true, the one he intended to crown.
And yet she had seen no sign of her. Not a glimpse, not a name spoken aloud.
Even the absence carried through the palace strangely, avoided rather than forgotten, as though it had been agreed upon rather than explained.
Nox lets the thought rest without comment.
They walk on, the palace closing around them once more.