A Change in Plans
NOX
Nox enters the palace as if it belongs to her, and in every way that matters, it does.
The banners along the walls bear King Fyris’s crest, the sigil carved into every arch as if the place had been cut to fit him.
The moment she crosses the threshold, her magic unravels around her, a slow, suffocating dark that seeps along the walls and climbs the high arches, gathering in the corners and along the vaulted ceilings until the air itself seems to recognize her, to bend and thicken beneath the weight of her presence.
“Where the fuck is he?”
Her voice carries through the hall, not raised, yet impossible to ignore. A servant breaks from the line along the wall, already trembling. “In his chambers, Your Highness.”
She moves before the words have fully faded, her path already decided, her body following a route it knows without thought or hesitation, because this place has never been foreign to her, not truly.
“Iva fucking Noxa,” a voice calls after her, bright with irreverent amusement.
She does not slow as Avaneer falls into step beside her, his presence as careless as ever, his grin audible even before she turns her head just enough to acknowledge him. “Fuck off, Avaneer.”
He only laughs, unbothered, keeping pace with ease. “Always so mean. Always so rude. My cock’s bigger than my cousin’s, you know.”
She does not give him more than a single glance before her hand lifts, the motion almost lazy, almost absent of effort, and the power that answers her surges outward in a violent sweep, catching him mid-stride and sending him crashing into the far wall hard enough to rattle the corridor and pull gasps from the servants who dare to watch.
His laughter follows her anyway, unbroken, as if the impact means nothing at all.
Nox continues forward without looking back, the palace shifting around her as she moves deeper into it, the halls drawing tighter, the light dimming where her magic lingers, her presence alone enough to part the space ahead of her without a word.
Guards begin to fall in behind her out of instinct, drawn to her as everything in this place is, but she cuts the movement off with a single command, her voice low and final as it threads through the corridor.
“Go away.”
They stop where they are, as if the air itself has turned solid around them, while she continues on, unimpeded, her focus pulling inward, her anger refining into something far quieter and far more dangerous than the edge it had been when she entered.
By the time she reaches his chambers, it has become controlled, patient, something that waits rather than burns.
She does not knock. She steps inside.
Teorin is not where she expects him to be, and the absence of him at the desk, buried in maps and half-truths, feels wrong in a way that unsettles her more than if he had been there pretending.
He stands near the bed instead, already dressed in travel leathers fastened with care, blades arranged within reach as though he has been preparing for departure long before she ever stepped into the hall, his movements controlled in a way that immediately grates.
He looks up when she enters, and there is no flicker of surprise, no shift to suggest she has interrupted anything, and that quiet certainty presses at her patience.
“You lied to me.”
The words leave her easily, though there is more behind them than she intends to show.
He does not answer.
She moves further into the room, the door closing behind her with a soft, final sound that seals the space around them, the air thick with something unspoken that neither of them moves to break.
“Teorin,” she presses, her voice tightening despite the control she reaches for, “why did you lie to me?”
“I don’t need to explain anything to you, Nox.”
“A decade,” she says, and the word catches in her throat before she can shape it into something smoother, something less revealing. “A decade of my life, and you lie, not about something small, but about everything. Our plan. Our future—”
“The plan is off.”
He says it as if it carries no weight, as if it costs him nothing to dismantle something she has spent years building beside him.
Her breath holds in her chest, her body going still in response she cannot quite suppress.
He looks at her then, and whatever had once been familiar in his expression has been stripped away, leaving something distant enough to make her skin prickle.
“Was that always your play?” she asks, quieter now, the words slipping out before she can temper them.
“Did you use me to weaken Rathmor so you could walk in and take it clean?”
He does not answer.
“Say something,” she snaps, and the control she has been holding fractures just enough for her power to answer the shift, her hand lifting as the goblet on his table tears free and slams into the far wall, shattering on impact in a spray of glass and dark liquid.
He does not react. He bends only to fasten a blade to his leg, his focus never breaking.
“Why?” she demands, the word pulled from somewhere deeper than anger.
And then her voice falters. Her thoughts turn back without permission, circling moments she had pushed aside, details that had not aligned with the version of events she had accepted, the way his eyes had changed, the way the room had darkened in a way that had nothing to do with strategy or ambition, and the realization comes slowly, unwillingly, pressing in until she cannot ignore it.
It does not fit. Teorin has always despised weakness, has always torn through anything that tried to claim him, and she has never been anything that could hold him in place.
Unless—
“I know who the key is,” she says, watching him closely, hating the way something inside her waits for a reaction, for any sign that she has struck something true.
He gives her nothing.
“Teorin,” she says more quietly, pulling her control back into place even as her power hums faintly through the room, “I will not forgive this unless you explain—”
“I will not explain,” he cuts in, the interruption clean and absolute. “So don’t bother forgiving.”
The words leave no room for anything else.
“This is for her,” Nox says, stepping closer, her voice lowering into something colder, more precise. “You would throw away everything for her?”
Something shifts within her then, hardening into something far less willing to yield. “Then you have no interest in Rathmor,” she continues, each word placed with care. “I will take it myself. Perhaps I will marry Sevrin.”
Teorin laughs, the sound low and edged with something that works against the control she has forced back into place. “Sevrin is obsessed with succession,” he says. “You’re a feeder.”
“And?”
“You won’t give him heirs,” he replies, as if the conclusion is obvious, inevitable. “He won’t make you his queen.”
He looks up at her, smiling. “Not that it matters. Veynar is mine. “
The words are meant to sting, but a slow, cruel smile pulls at her mouth.
“He doesn’t need to worry about succession anymore,” she says, her voice softening in a way that carries far more threat than volume ever could.
“You should have bonded her when you had the chance. She’s already given the dog king two shitspawns. ”
His composure falters then, barely, his hand closing against the edge of the desk just enough to betray the reaction he would otherwise deny. It is a subtle shift, nearly imperceptible, but it is enough, and she catches it.
“You would betray me,” she says, and the words come quieter now, heavier, threaded with something she refuses to name. “For her?”
He chuckles.
“Ivanoxa,” he says as he steps closer, his presence closing the distance between them until it feels as though the space itself bends around him, “you should know by now I don’t do anything for anyone but myself.”
The words are heavy in a way that resists easy definition, something that could be a lie just as easily as it could be the truth, and in the end it makes no difference at all.
He draws himself upright, his attention already shifting past her as though she has been reduced to something incidental, something already dealt with. “There is no plan,” he says, his voice even. “There is no us.”
The impact of it moves through her slowly, becoming deeper than anger, deeper than anything that would show on the surface, something that tightens quietly and refuses to break.
“There is only you getting the fuck out,” he adds, as if it is nothing more than an instruction. “I have somewhere to be.”
She studies him for a moment longer, taking him in with a quiet that feels almost unnatural, as though she is committing the entirety of this moment to memory, every detail, every fracture, every piece of him that no longer belongs to her.
Then she smiles. The expression unfolds with careful control, unhurried, stripped of anything that might resemble warmth, leaving behind something far colder.
“I hope this was worth it.” She turns before he can respond, the movement fluid, untouched by the tension that lingers in the room, and she leaves without looking back, carrying that control with her as though nothing inside her has shifted at all.
The ship is ready when she reaches it. Larkin meets her at the ramp, already reading what she does not need to say. She boards without slowing and he falls into step beside her. She gives him one word.
“Morrath.”
The orders move instantly across the deck as the ship pulls free from the dock, the shoreline already slipping away behind them.
Nox stands at the edge, her hands resting lightly against the railing, her expression composed once more.
He lied. The thought remains, but it no longer burns. Yet his words stay with her.
You won’t give him heirs.
She hadn’t expected those words from him. Teorin had never treated succession as something worth discussing before. Then again, he had never treated the bond as anything less than a necessary means to an end. It doesn’t matter, though, because underneath all of it, the motive remains the same.
This is about power. And she has always been far better at taking it.
Fuck him. None of it made sense, but it didn’t need to. He had betrayed her. In the end, the answer is simple. Revenge.
She watches the water stretch ahead, dark and endless, her thoughts coming into alignment one after another like something clicking into place.
The plan does not need him. It never did.
A hard pain hits her chest. Years spent planning a life together. But she will not cry. She will not scream. The plan will remain.
Veynar. Morrath. Both will be hers. She will kill the king of Yorali. She will remove this golden nuisance of a queen. And her shitspawns.
Once she is queen, Sevrin will name an heir, and when he does, Teorin will be full of pain. And regret.
The ship cuts forward through the dark as Morrath rises in the distance, something ancient waiting beneath it, something that has always answered to strength alone.
Nox’s eyes deepen as she looks ahead.
Gates. Children. Feeders. Threns. Golden fucking queens. Her father.
Soon.
All of them will belong to her.