Her void-like eyes didn’t waver as she raised her hands and signed:None saw. This Nameless used caution.
She’d lied.Liedto the Sokâr while looking directly into the eyes of the Arm of the Void—the Resh’Agar.Kailorien held his breath, looking down at this girl with a critical eye.She was different.Dangerous.Yet she’d helped him.Told him the truth. Tried to protect her Host. A favor in all but name, and the Resh’Agar repaid his debts in full.
“Come,” he commanded the Attendant, and she fell into step behind him. He stopped Auryn’s protest with a warning glance.
“If you want me to take you to your room, this Attendant is going to come.”
Auryn bit her lip, her mouth pursing in a way he’d learned to recognize. She had more than a few things she wanted to say, but she was holding back.Still, she settled, and he kept walking. She had to guide him. He hadn’t been to her room in decades.
“They moved my quarters,” she explained. “I made a request…and the Sovereign Flame agreed.”
Kailorien’s brow furrowed. Why would she request a change of rooms? Hers had been a lovely chamber with a window overlooking the city. From what he could recall, it was pleasant. Warm. Hers.
He exhaled, frustrated. But that emotion quickly soured to confusion as she took him away from any of the living quarters towards the Servitor, where the Attendants stayed. They took a turn down a winding passageway into barely lit corridors. Here, the Polis was ancient, blended with stone, lacking in any of the magnificence of the rest of the Jade Lattice.
She stopped him in front of a worn stone door.
Kailorien gritted his teeth. “Here?”
“Yes, please hurry…before someone sees.”
The door creaked open beneath his hand, and the cold met him like a slap. Not the sharp bite of winter wind, but something deeper—an absence. A void where warmth should have lived. He stepped inside. No hearth. No light. Just stone and shadow.
Her room—the Sokar’s room—was a den of quiet neglect. No tapestries to soften the walls. No table or chairs to rest a scroll or a weary spine. Only a pile of books on the floor, a chipped basin tucked behind a privacy screen, and a narrow bed without canopy or comfort.
And she had asked to come here.
Her words from yesterday echoed in his memory—the Resh’Agar enjoys his luxuries—and his grip on her tightened such that she looked upat him in surprise.He inhaled through his nose, sharp and slow, and lowered her onto the threadbare mattress.
“Why,” he demanded, voice low, “is there no fluxhearth here?”
Auryn stirred, her voice barely a murmur. “I…didn’t want there to be one.”
He stared at her. “Auryn, how do you keep warm? This part of the Lattice is freezing during Ice, even during most of Dark. By the Void, is that supposed to be where youbathe?”
His eyes narrowed on the torn partition and the chipped metal basin beyond. No shelves, no towels, no cases for runes or oils.
“Where are your Lustrals? Your infusions?”
She didn’t reply for a moment.
“I don’t need them. It’s just bath water. You’re the one fixated with boiling in broth, not me.”
Kailorien ground his teeth together so hard they hurt.
“Then where is the furniture? The tables? Where do you write? Answer missives? Sign paperwork?” He took another look around. “There’s nothing here. Do you sleep bare as well?”
She pointed to the wall, and with a swirl of her hand, a row of sigils he’d never seen before appeared in a square shape. The wall wavered, like a ripple in water, and a stone door appeared in its place.
“There are some furs there,” she pointed.
He knelt and opened the door. Inside were neatly folded blankets, tucked away journals, quills, ink bottles, a few trinkets—most he’d remembered gifting her after his last Campaign—and a box with vials of healing balm.
“What is all this?” he asked as he pulled out a fur cover and tucked it around her.
“Some important things…”
“Why have you hidden them?”
