Spawns
NOX
And her.
Now Nox understood it. Not enough to justify dining with a corpse on the off chance it might be her, but enough to understand why Sevrin wanted her, why the whispers had always been so loud.
She was beautiful in the way that made rooms tilt as she moved through them, and she had just thrown Yvara across the courtyard with a power that impressed even Nox.
Nox stepped forward, her most charming smile in place. "You are quite lovely. Hello, princess of Veynar." She bent into a curtsy and rose, taking Asharin's hand. "I have heard much about you. It is a pleasure."
She let her intunar reach outward, looking for something, anything, the smallest crack in the surface.
She almost stumbled. It was not that she found nothing. It was that the moment she reached, something pushed back, a force meeting hers with the particular quality of something that had been waiting to do exactly that. As though it had felt her coming before she arrived.
Asharin smiled sweetly. "A pleasure to meet you, Princess."
Golden eyes. Everyone had always said there was another golden-eyed princess, but where Nox's were pale and cold, Asharin's were burnished and warm, the color of something that had been heated through and held there.
Matron Oramin stepped forward before Nox could pursue the thought further. "Princess, we are so pleased you have returned safely.” She pressed forward with the particular warmth of someone who had spent years making herself indispensable.
Nox allowed herself a moment of quiet satisfaction. One of her deathmages was already in position. Information, access, and if it came to it, removal. Everything she needed would be handled without her hands ever touching it directly.
"Stop."
The word came from a woman in plain clothes with a severe face and dark eyes. She passed the infant she was holding to a broad woman beside her and stepped forward. Larkin's attention moved to Nox. He did not look nervous. Only curious, which was its own kind of warning.
Sevrin stepped forward. "Is there a problem?"
The plain-clothed woman moved past him toward Oramin.
"You will stay away from the children and the Princess.
" She bent into a deep curtsy toward Colsar and then Asharin, murmured something low under her breath, and the Matron dropped to the ground.
The carefully maintained surface of her dissolved as she fell, the deathmage hidden underneath suddenly visible and entirely exposed.
The woman in plain clothes turned to Sevrin. "It appears you have an infestation, Majesty."
Fuck.
Deathmages were nothing, she reminded herself, even as her jaw tightened.
And this princess, for all her gold and her army and her feral husband, was a small insect compared to what Nox was capable of at full strength.
The problem was that she had not eaten properly in weeks, and feeder food was considerably less plentiful here than she preferred.
Sevrin's small collection of humans in the dungeon was frankly pathetic, an embarrassment of resources by any reasonable standard.
In Morrath, food had been plentiful. Power had been plentiful.
Everything she needed had been within reach at any hour.
A few days, properly fed, and she would be stronger than Asharin, her shitspawns, and this entire parade of vermin she had arrived with combined.
Sevrin began issuing orders. Soldiers moved in, closing around the creature. And then his eyes moved to Nox and they held, and behind them was the particular quality of a man running calculations he had not yet finished.
He likely suspected she, or at least Yorali, was involved. But Sevrin knew an accusation without proof was useless. The golden princess remained calm, as though deathmages were merely a nuisance to be dealt with later.
Perhaps they were.
Nox looked back at him with wide innocent eyes and said nothing. Sevrin held her stare a moment longer than was comfortable before turning back to the proceedings.
She would deal with that later. The plain-faced woman, however, was another matter entirely. Nox filed her away quietly and thoroughly. She would be one of the first she killed when she returned.
"Stop."
Asharin's voice was cold and feminine at once, and there was something in it that made the soldiers hesitate before they had decided to. She smiled calmly. "Have it share a cell with my sister.” The dog prince looked at her approvingly.
Nox tried not to roll her eyes. The golden whore had the aura of someone who wanted to be villainous but was inherently good.
Villainy doesn’t suit you, golden whore. A real villain would have killed Yvara on the spot, or left her with a torturer who could slice her open cut by cut.
Amateur.
Sevrin frowned. "We know nothing about it. It could harm her—"
"Fuck you, Sevrin," Colsar said.
Nox looked at him properly for the first time.
She had always heard he was cold, rude, controlled to the point of cruelty, less powerful than his brother but somehow more dangerous for it.
What he was in this moment was none of those things and all of them at once, and far more attractive than anyone had bothered to mention.
The muscle alone was doing a great deal of work.
Asharin's eyes found hers one last time. Then she leaned in, close enough that only Nox could hear her. "We will get along just fine," she said, "so long as you do not touch what is mine."
Nox noted the red marks on her neck. She had the distinct bearing of a well fucked princess. Now she was even more curious. Teorin was masterful in bed. Sevrin’s cock was infamous in brothels for its girth.
She could take all three at once, if she chose, had Teorin not just angered her in a way that defied logic. Besides, Colsar and the golden whore had just dismantled her Matron Oramin plans. That alone made him undesirable.
Sevrin, on the other hand, was unwell in a way she found interesting.
If Teorin had truly betrayed her, then perhaps she will kill Asharin.
An efficient way to vent her anger. Then wear her skin and fuck Sevrin until he gave her Morrath, Veynar, and anything else she wished for.
The thought pleased her. Rumor has it Sevrin fucks his Morraks.
She had done much, but never that. Wings and fangs and a dead woman’s skin in the bedroom all at once.
I do not need to be jealous of you, golden whore. I can take it all.
Colsar stared at Nox for a long moment, his face entirely cold.
Nox ignored it. “I am sure we will, Princess. Regretfully, I must leave Rathmor to handle some personal matters.” She smiles. “But no worries, I will return.”
She would be doing considerably more than handling personal matters.
Teorin fucking Rathmor had some explaining to do.