Page 262 of The Crown's Awakening
Nox lets out a quiet breath that is almost a laugh. Almost.
"Interesting," she says.
There was no time to probe. Yvara was a thread worth pulling. Teorin now threatened to unravel everything before she could.
Perhaps it was time for new fabric.
She takes another look at Yvara. Then she turns and walks away.
The docks are quieter at night, though never truly still. Lanterns burn low along the edge of the water, their light stretching thin across the surface as ships shift gently against their moorings.The air carries salt and something older beneath it, something that reminds her, briefly, of home.
Nox does not slow as she approaches her vessel. The crew sees her coming and moves at once, bodies straightening, voices cutting off mid-conversation as they scramble into place. Larkin steps ahead of her without needing instruction, clearing the path, and she boards without looking at anyone, her attention already fixed on what comes next.
“Prepare the ship,” she says, her voice even but edged in a way that leaves no room for delay. “We leave now.”
There is a brief pause, the kind that comes from men who are accustomed to command but not to urgency without warning.
“Your Highness,” one of them begins carefully, “we were not scheduled to depart until?—”
She turns her head just enough to look at him. The rest of the sentence dies where it began.
“We leave now,” she repeats, quieter this time. “Or I will find someone else to sail this ship.”
That is enough. Orders ripple outward immediately, ropes pulled, sails adjusted, the deck shifting beneath her feet as the ship prepares to break from the dock. The crew moves with the efficiency she expects and nothing less. The Yorali sigil marks each sail, two crossed swords in the shape of an x. Larkin steps into place beside her. “Thrykis?” he asks, though he already knows the answer.
“Yes,” she says. “And quickly,” she adds, her gaze moving out over the water as the final lines are released. “I have business that will not wait.”
The ship pulls free, the distance between Rathmor and the shore widening with each passing moment. Nox remains at the edge of the deck, her hands resting lightly against the railing, her expression composed once more, though the tension beneath it has not eased.
He lied to me. Almost a decade of us, and he lied.
To the fucking Princess of Yorali.
The thought returns as the land begins to fade, clearer in its direction. She did not sacrifice or care for much. But she had for him. For years. A betrayal simply would not do. A smaller softer part of her hoped there was a misunderstanding to be clarified.
“I need to have words,” she says after a moment, her voice low enough that it does not carry beyond the space around her.
Larkin does not ask with whom.
“With one of its princes,” she finishes.
The water stretches ahead of them, dark and open, the path to Thrykis already set.
The Council and the Feeder
SEVRIN
The next morning, the council is called. Sevrin enters the chamber expecting resistance and finds it already waiting for him. Colsar stands at the far end of the table as though he has taken position rather than accepted it. Behind him stands the same silver-haired man who had announced their arrival in the courtyard, his quiet authority unchanged from then, the kind of presence that does not need to announce itself twice.
Off to the side stands a man with dark hair. He looks younger than the others, the strands falling across his face, his expression carrying the faintest hint of amusement. The posture is wrong for a servant. Wrong for a guard. Too relaxed. Too certain.
The name comes to him a moment later. Kentan. A prince of the beastlands who was not a beast at all. “What makes his presence necessary here?” Sevrin says. “This is not a Shalvar matter.”
“He is my uncle,” Colsar says. “He serves as one of my private advisors and strategists. He is alsoadjasarto the young prince and princess, a role of personal trust. His presence is more than required.”
Kentan’s expression shifts, something like pride touching his face. Sevrin looks between them, measuring. What had he done to earn that kind of trust from Colsar?
He feels it then. A small shift, unwelcome. Colsar does not trust him, not with anything that matters. And yet he trusts that one with the children. Sevrin has no one he would trust in the same way.
