Page 118 of The Crown's Awakening
"You are not Yorali," he says.
She raises her chin. "I am from Veynar. My husband sold me to the Yorali court."
Axar smiles. It is a slow smile, the kind that does not reach anywhere it should. "You, my dear, will be particularly useful."
She does not ask why. She is smart enough not to.
Ivernet descends from the upper rail with the particular soundlessness of someone who has never needed to announce herself.
"The King demands five hundred and forty," she says. "He returns within the fortnight. They are to be ready."
Axar looks at the pit. Then at the guards. He lifts two fingers.
"The strongest," he says simply. "You know what to do."
He nods toward the small group his people have pulled aside throughout the selection. The cook, the laundress, the mason, the girl from Veynar, a handful of others.
"Tell his Majesty I have hand selected his household staff," he says. "As requested."
He is already walking toward the stairs when the screams begin.
He does not look back.
The Wielder
NOX
Nox is in her chambers when Larkin knocks. He does not wait long. “A messenger,” he says through the door, his voice low, already knowing she will not appreciate the interruption unless it matters.
“It had better,” she replies, not raising her voice.
The man enters, bowing briefly before stepping past the light and into the darker edge of the room. “There has been word,” he says quietly. “Teorin Rathmor has been found. He will come to Eryndor under cover of night. One night only. He requests an audience.”
Something tightens in her chest, gone just as quickly.
Beside her, Larkin frowns. “Eryndor?”
“The eastern court of Veynar, you imbecile,” Nox says. “Did you never learn geography?”
The messenger inclines his head and slips back toward the door.
A knock sounds almost immediately after.
Nox exhales. “Come in.”
A servant steps inside. “The king commands your presence.”
Nox smiles, thinking of the last time he insisted on playing dress-up on a corpse.
“This should be interesting.”
Nox follows, already expecting another round of silks and decisions that do not concern her. The attendants move quietly as they usher her in, carrying bolts of fabric and half-finished garments, their hands careful, their eyes lowered. The air changes the moment she crosses the threshold. It smells wrong. Sour and heavy in a way that presses into the back of her throat before she even reaches the center of the room.
Sevrin sits at his desk as though nothing is out of place. He does not look up at first. He is eating. The bowl in front of him is shallow, porcelain, filled with something white and thick that clings to the spoon as he lifts it. Fraisah. The scent confirms it, coating the air with something sour and clinging that does not leave. Nox studies it for a moment before her attention shifts to him. “How was dinner with the undead corpse?” she asks lightly.
Sevrin does not pause as he takes another bite. “Most unpleasant.”
That earns the smallest lift of her brow. He says it as though it were an inconvenience, as though he had been served something poorly prepared rather than confronted with something that should not exist.
