The News
SEVRIN
Rathmor Palace
The painted room holds its silence.
Color covers every wall, Asharin repeated in different moments that never quite resolve.
Veiled, turning, standing with that composure she chooses when she is deciding what not to give.
The painters have learned the structure of her face and still miss the mouth, still soften it into something that does not belong to her.
Light from the ceiling lanterns spreads across the plaster and lifts along the painted fabric, the illusion close enough that he can stand here and not look elsewhere.
Sevrin stands near the center of the room, one hand in the hair of the woman kneeling before him, the other resting against the wardrobe door he left open.
The golden wig falls around her shoulders in arranged waves that echo the figure on the wall.
Her movements are practiced and careful, her breath uneven as she works him, and he watches the painting rather than her, his attention fixed on the version of Asharin that is closest to correct.
A knock sounds at the door.
"Go away," he says without looking.
"My lord." Cofaris, from the other side, his voice controlled in a way that carries urgency rather than calm. "It cannot wait."
Sevrin's hand tightens once in the woman's hair, interrupting the rhythm. Another knock follows, firmer.
"Enter."
The door opens. Cofaris steps inside and stops near the threshold, his eyes lowering as the room resolves itself around him.
"My lord. There has been an explosion at sea. The ship was destroyed. There are not believed to be any survivors."
The woman's movement falters for a fraction of a second before Sevrin pulls her away from him, the motion abrupt and final, her breath breaking as she is forced back.
"Leave."
She rises quickly, the wig shifting as she gathers her clothing, and exits without looking up. The door closes behind her.
Sevrin remains where he is, his attention still on the wall.
"That is not accurate," he says at last, his voice quiet, the certainty in it even as his hands tremble once before he draws them behind his back and stills them. "And if Teorin has any part in this, it would be exactly the sort of deception he would play."
Cofaris steps further into the room. "Why would Teorin be involved, my lord?"
"I do not know," Sevrin replies, "only that I am now learning she had been slipping away to the forest to meet with someone before this, and there is no one more likely to linger there, to take what is not his, than Teorin Rathmor."
The name holds between them.
Sevrin turns from the wall and crosses the room, his hand closing around a small bronze weight on the table and sending it across the space. It strikes the far wall and drops, the sound contained and quickly gone.
"I am not convinced," he continues, his voice steadier now, "but if she is not alive then she has likely become undead, and that changes nothing."
He faces Cofaris.
"I still need her here. At my side."
Cofaris lowers his head. "Do you wish to ready the ships for Morra—"
"There is no time." Sevrin turns back to the wall, to the version of her that holds his attention longer than it should. "I have already prepared for this. We will use the ones kept in the Deep Levels."
"Yes, my lord."
He looks at her a moment longer.
“Open them,” he says. Then he leaves.
The painted room returns to its silence.
Below it, the Deep Levels do not stay quiet.