"It is on your face."
"It can still wait."
That almost earns something from me. Almost.
I close my eyes briefly, then open them again. "If he comes near me," I say quietly, "I will handle it."
Colsar looks at me and something in him tightens and then holds.
"I know," he says.
And this time he means it.
A knock comes at the door.
Colsar’s head lifts slightly at the sound, his attention shifting even before the second knock lands, quieter this time, more controlled.
“Enter.”
Arabar steps inside and closes the door behind him without haste.
I do not move. I watch from the bed, Fiorakis still warm where she had been.
His eyes move once across the room, not lingering on me, but taking in the space and exits before settling on Colsar.
“You should be resting, Majesty,” he says.
Colsar does not respond to that. “Report.”
Arabar inclines his head slightly. “I retraced the path you took and every safehouse you visited. The coordinates you were given did not match the route laid by the underground network.”
Colsar does not look surprised. “The man who gave them?”
“We found him,” Arabar replies. A brief pause follows, just long enough to matter. “He had already turned when we arrived.”
“Thren?”
“Yes.”
Arabar’s voice stays even. “What was left of him was already changing. We put him down.”
Another pause. Then?—
“He carried a purse of fresh coin. Untouched.”
Colsar holds out his hand. Arabar places it in his palm. Thrykin silk. Rathmor’s sigil, embroidered into the fold.
Colsar lets out a quiet, humorless sound. “Always lying,” he says. “Always pretending to be something else.”
A brief pause.
“Teorin.”
The Companion
NOX
Nox arrives to Rathmor in noise. Too many voices and too much movement, hands reaching and attendants circling her as though she might disappear if they do not touch her quickly enough. She hears every word they whisper before she has even cleared the entrance hall, the ones about hoping it was Princess Asharin, the ones about cruelty, exchanged in low voices between people who do not understand that the woman they are whispering about can hear every syllable.
