Eryndor, The Eastern Court of Veynar
Nox likes Eryndor. It is the Queen Dowager’s domain, where order exists only where she chooses to look, and it is common knowledge she rarely looks at anything but herself.
Sa’sharos sits at the edge of that neglect.
The air inside is thick with smoke and something sweeter beneath it, something that clings to the back of the throat and refuses to leave. Bodies press too close, too careless, feeding out in the open like no one here has anything left to lose. Threns, mostly. Exiles. Creatures that were pushed out of their own lands and found something worse to become here.
Music bleeds through the walls, uneven and loud, blending into the low hum of voices and the sharper sounds that cut through it. Laughter. Struggling. The dull crack of bone somewhere deeper in the room that no one turns to acknowledge.
Sa’sharos. Even the name feels wrong. Nox steps inside and lets the skin fall. Brinette dissolves off her in a slow curl of smoke,slipping away from her shoulders, her face, her hands, until there is nothing left of it. Her own form presses back into place, stronger, more defined, more real. No one reacts, because this place doesn’t care who you are. Only what you take.
He’s where he always is. Corner, cloak, hood drawn low, though it does nothing to hide him. It never has.
Nox crosses the room without hesitation, ignoring the hands that almost reach for her and the bodies that shift just a little too late to get out of her way. Someone offers her a pipe as she passes. She takes it without looking, bringing it to her lips as she drops into the seat across from him.
“Did you start?” she asks.
Teorin doesn’t move much, only a slight tilt of his head beneath the hood. “I waited.”
Nox exhales slowly, the smoke curling from her mouth as she studies him. “How thoughtful of you.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he says. “I was bored.”
She snorts softly, leaning back in her chair, one leg crossing over the other as she lets her eyes move over the room again. “You’re always bored.”
“And you’re always late.”
“I only rush toward the things I find interesting,” she says with a shrug.
Then she looks closer. There’s a woman between his legs. Nox doesn’t react at first. Just watches, slow and quiet, smoke drifting from her mouth as she studies the movement, the lack of restraint, the way he lets it happen like it means nothing.
“You disappeared after the ship incident,” she says.
Teorin’s hand rests lazily in the woman’s hair, not guiding, not stopping. “I was busy.”
“You didn’t send word.”
“I don’t die. You of all people should know that."
“The girl, Asharin. Did you take care of it?”
“It’s done.” Her words were sharp, final.
Nox hums softly. “Good." Then she looks down at the woman between his legs again. “Come here, sweetheart,” she says.
The woman pauses, just for a second, then pulls away from him and turns, crawling toward Nox like she’s been called to it.
Teorin’s hand drops. “She wasn’t finished,” he says.
Nox doesn’t look at him. The woman reaches her, mouth already parted, and Nox catches her chin, dragging her closer. Her hand slides down the woman’s leg, slow, deliberate, her nails grazing skin just enough to draw a reaction.
Then higher. Her fingers brush the woman’s throat. A pause. Then she snaps it. The crack is clean. The body drops immediately, folding at her feet.
Nox doesn’t hesitate. She crouches, dragging the body slightly, her mouth finding the leg where she’d already marked it, pulling blood free without urgency.
Behind her, Teorin exhales. “I wasn’t finished,” he says again.
Nox pulls back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand before letting the body fall fully to the floor. “What did I tellyou,” she says, finally looking at him, “about letting them touch what is mine?”
