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She’s waiting for him to decide.
They are standing in the front room of Enver’s Lower City house in the Bloomridge neighbourhood. He is pacing back and forth in front of her as he thinks, fingers rasping over his unshaven face. She wishes he would remain still.
After a little negotiation, and the promise of a substantial sum of gold for the Temple, Morgayne has consented to dispatch someone for him. At the Sashenstar party in a tenday. They will not attend together as they have done before, but instead will remain separate. She will be disguised this time, and will stay for the whole function, until her work is carried out.
The latter stipulation is the one that picks away at her, threatens to unravel the threads of her generosity. Enver promises that the event will be on the shorter side, but still she hopes that her opportunity presents itself early on. Or, should her quarry prove difficult, that the usual smell these places carry—oozing from every pore and steeped into every fabric—will not be too pervasive. And that there will be music. In fact, she is counting on it. Apart from anything else, another chance to school a proud noble with soft hands and a small brain on some of the finer points of musical interpretation would be amusing.
“Yes” Enver muses. “Yes, I think it will work best this way. The occasion will be ideal for our purpose.”
She nods. “I will prepare.”
“Remember you will not be able to wear black. You are not in mourning. Might I suggest a nice rich p—”
“On the contrary, I will be in mourning for the evening I could have had, were I not doing this for you, Enver.”
“You cannot mean that, my dear. You wound me” he says, pressing one hand over his heart. Her eyes follow the movement then flick back to his. “You have your task, and I have the distinct feeling that you will enjoy it. Do I not keep you entertained?”
Morgayne sighs. “I suppose.”
“You will manage.” Then he smiles, and she finds herself smiling back, and it is as it always is.
He glances down and adjusts the sleeves of his shirt, the gold rings on his fingers catching the candlelight. One of them seems to be new, she notes. She does not recognise it, and it’s pristine in a way the others are not. Also, he is wearing it on his index finger, which is usually where any new additions go—until they are replaced by the next, of course.
“Regardless” he continues. “Pick your attire sensibly. You delight in making me worry about this.”
Control. Fielding the minutiae of every situation, however insignificant they might seem to another. Trying to mold things into the shape he prefers. It is his way. She finds it frustrates as often as it amuses. From time to time, she finds it fun to unseat him, to make him bend when that is what he would have others do.
“Stop fussing, Enver.”
He ignores her and walks over to a side table, speaking over his shoulder. “Anyway. Sit down, make yourself comfortable. I have some new wines for you to try.”
“No thank you.”
“Don’t be so dismissive. Sit.” He indicates a chair by his desk, and the thought of sinking into it appeals so strongly that she nearly complies.
She stands firm. “I cannot stay. I am expected back at the Temple.”
Undeterred, he picks up a bottle and a glass. “Surely they can do without you for one evening. Just stay here with me.”
“No. It is important that I attend.”
She knows that he understands this, that he is familiar enough with how she and her people operate—he’s always listened with interest to what she is willing to share—yet, as with all things, he still pushes to see what he can get away with. Sometimes, she feels like one of his projects.
Enver’s wide smile starts to fade, no longer reaching his eyes. He places the bottle back on the table with the others. He scowls, mouth pressed into a thin line, his earlier congeniality all but evaporated, his disappointment bitter. He is tired, and she has denied him. Chafed against him a few too many times for one evening.
“Yes, well, don’t let me keep you any longer, High Primistress.” The title is soaked in venom that she doesn’t deserve. “Return to your moonstruck sycophants in your dingy temple.”
She picks up her cloak from where it lies over the back of a chair. She waits to see if he has anything else to say. He does not.
“I will see you next tenday, then” she says, and turns to leave.
✧──────✧
The evening arrives, and she is waiting for her opportunity.
After surveying the large room, Morgayne has settled in a place off to one side by an open window. This will assist with the smell, she reasons. The air is thick with it; perfume and flowers, sweat and meat. She wills herself still, and smiles thinly at those who pass by—enough to be polite, but not enough to invite more than a few lines of conversation. Her arcane disguise is simple, beneath notice. The dress is not black.
Her objective for the evening is easy to keep track of. He mostly stays in the same corner with two or three others, drinks the same drink, laughs the same laugh. He will die the same too. She takes her plan down from her mind and holds it up to the light, turns it over. It is solid.
Her other interest is, of course, Enver himself.
It always feels different, watching him from a distance. She has, after all, done it more times than she cares to admit. He has no shortage of devotees. And detractors, she sees that too. Icy glares, smiles that are all teeth, murmuring behind hands and glasses and fluttering fans, too proud to admit that he stokes their interest for all the same reasons they would malign him for.
At present, he stands with a younger man, a handsome thing with brown curls and a flushed face that gazes up at him with unabashed admiration, hanging on his every word. She wonders if she looks at Enver like that. She also wonders if this is who he will take home tonight, and what price he might extract from between the young noble's lips. The thought threatens to burn a hole in her concentration, so she douses it.
Her attention flicks back to her target. She clenches her jaw as the man laughs raucously again, and a spot at the back of her skull starts to prickle.
Then, to her dismay, she turns back to see that Enver has left his conversation partner and is making his way over. He takes his time, pausing along the way to say a few words and shake any extended hands. When he reaches her, he dispenses a bow—a slight bend at the waist that lets her see down the front of his low-cut jacket and shirt. They stand there smiling politely like any other couple meeting on a crowded floor. She waits for him to speak, wonders what he will say first. It will certainly not be an apology.
It turns out to be the opposite.
“I don’t like the look” Enver says, almost through the side of his mouth, as they both watch the harpist on the small stage.
Morgayne turns to him, a sharp movement of her head that she can’t stop. “Is this your way of flirting? Do you say things like this to all the men and women who catch your eye at a party?”
He softly snorts, then takes a sip of his champagne. Hers has not been touched; the glass and its contents are merely something to occupy her hands with until she has use for them.
"Only the most vexing of creatures" he says, after he swallows.
She does not take the bait. “What bothers you about the look?”
Dark eyes study her for a moment. “It isn’t you” he replies, a shockingly soft and earnest expression on his face. Something twists in her chest, but she pushes the feeling aside.
“Enver, that is rather the point.” She sighs, a wash of exasperation. “How did you conclude that this was me anyway?”
“I know you” is all he says, as if that is explanation enough. The puzzle of it needles at her.
“I see.”
A man, red-faced and jovial, claps Enver on the shoulder and mumbles words of greeting. When he has passed by, Enver replaces his conjured false smile with a genuine one—it's subtle, but she has learnt the difference on his face—and looks down at her.
“Have you been rude to anyone yet, my dear?”
“No. Not yet. But should it be necessary, the circumstances" —she pauses and gestures inwards to the thing that is not herself, that he doesn’t like— “are ideal I think.”
Enver steps a little closer, leans in a little more than is appropriate for who they are pretending to be. His richly perfumed scent, and something distinctively him underneath it all, is stronger now. She has to stop herself from taking a deep breath and drinking him in.
“Have you heard any interesting things as you’ve been making your way around the room?”
“Oh yes” she says. “Although you will know their true value better than I.”
“Then I shall look forward to your report.” One gold-adorned finger taps on his glass as he thinks. She feels the sound at the back of her teeth.
“My house, in two or three days?” he suggests eventually. “Or perhaps my workshop? I have some things to show you that I think you will like. I’ll write you a note tomorrow.”
“Alright” she replies casually.
Smirking, he steps back a little and holds out his hand. Time for a performance, she realises. She slides her fingers over his and he gently grips them, bends and presses his lips to the skin just above her knuckles. His breath is warm, and his eyes never leave hers. Shifting his hand upward, he brushes his thumb over the patch of scales that are both there and not there, in this form. Her cheeks flush, and she feels a brief blaze of irritation.
The feeling solidifies then; that this whole evening was probably a test, an experiment, her it’s subject, and that Enver is having fun while she—well. It’s debatable.
“Happy hunting, my bloody hand” he says quietly, as he straightens up and lets her go.
As he walks away, combing one hand through his pushed back hair, Morgayne realises she has been holding her breath. It releases in a rush, and she turns back to her task.
Fortunately, a chance presents itself ten minutes later. Her target excuses himself from his entourage, declining the offer of company, and makes his way to the doors.
Anticipation ripples, a thread pulls taut, and she tails the man out of the main hall as saliva pools in her mouth.
When she sees him enter a small side room, she waits a few moments, then slips in behind him. He gives a start as she appears, almost drops the small tin he is holding. Initial confusion quickly gives way to a smile, a lascivious, ugly thing. He’d consider her a whore before he considers her a threat. So many of them do.
The kill is quick and efficient, the ear-to-ear cut precise, drawn into existence by a hidden blade produced from her dress. The iron-smell sings to her blood and her sinews, seeps deep into her very marrow. She would stay and take more but she’s not sure what time there is, and, in truth, she is done with the place.
This kill is not for her Father, but Morgayne calls out to Him anyway. He does not answer.
Then, and only then, does her mind return to Enver.
She pictures him, as easily as breathing. Sitting in a chair by the terrace window of his bedchamber, wearing one of his gaudy silk robes and sipping his rich, strong Tashalaran coffee as he reads of her success in his morning newspaper.
Despite herself, she feels it, crawling up from the depths of where she keeps her guilt and all the other things that eat away at her.
A yearning for his approval.
✧──────✧
Almost two years later, she is waiting for the right moment.
Morgayne knows his routine, is familiar with enough of it for her plan to work. It should be easy. All in all, she is very much looking forward to this.
The time arrives, and she lets herself into the downstairs study of his Upper City manor quickly and quietly. It’s a space that she has long enjoyed existing in, with its tall bookshelves stuffed with thick tomes, the plush chairs, chaises and rugs, and the large fireplace that she likes to sit in front of until her skin bristles with the heat and Enver clucks his tongue at her.
And, of course, there is the new thayan blackwood desk that he has taken to fucking her on.
She approaches it, self-aware enough to laugh at herself as she takes care to avoid the open books and the half-written schematics, and instead clears a spot in the middle to place her gift. The thick cloth that contains it should protect the surface, for all the time it will be sat there.
Contented, she turns to leave.
But then—a new consideration. She quickly turns it over in her mind until it pleases her.
She finds she wishes to observe his reaction first-hand, but with time running out the preparation will have to be swift. So, picking out a spot in a dark corner across the room, she reaches into her component pouch, speaks the verbal command accompanied by the required hand gesture, and waits.
Several minutes pass by, and then she hears Enver’s footsteps in the hallway. She knows the sound, knows it well—although now it seems different, in the way it does when he is favouring one leg over the other.
He enters the room, starts to walk over to the desk, but comes to a sudden stop as his eyes fall on that which he was not expecting to see. Frowning, he lights a couple more candles, then moves closer and unwraps it.
A heart. Meaty, robust and fresh, not long since cut from the chest of a political rival who had stepped on his toes a few times too many. Twice, to be exact.
After a steadying breath, Enver peers at it, reaches in with the lighting taper and slowly removes the signet ring pushed into the severed aorta. He holds it up to examine it, and Morgayne sees it glint as it catches what light it can. He chuckles—a low, dark sound laced with something like triumph—then shakes his head as he opens a drawer and tosses the ring into it.
The remainder of the present is re-covered.
Focused and still, she watches as Enver pours out some whisky and then sits down and flicks through some papers. She’s curious as to how long he will remain. The answer comes a few minutes later, when he stands up with a wince, picks up his glass, and heads for the door.
It happens there.
She feels the want roll over her like a wave as she watches him pause in the doorway, gauntleted fingers tip-tapping on the frame in a staccato of thought. He glances back into the room. After a moment more he sighs and leaves—to retire to bed, she supposes.
She could follow him. Follow him up to his bedchamber, peel everything off, all of it, all of her, and what was left would slip between the sheets to feel the warmth of him. He would smile, eyes soft and dark, and welcome her with the flat of his tongue and the press of his clever fingers. She can see it all in her mind, map out how it would go. Her pulse quickens, and an ache settles between her legs like a weight.
Shrugging off the invisibility spell like a cloak, she takes two paces forward out of her hiding place, then stops. Breathes. Her eyes close, and her hands ball into fists, the nails digging sharply into her palms, and it’s just enough to bring her back to herself. She refocuses, turns around, and leaves via the same way she arrived before she can change her mind.
She tells herself that she can feel her Father’s approval, from somewhere behind the shadows, as she slinks home in the dark.
That is her consolation, and she clings to it.
The letter arrives the next morning, first to Candulhallow's, then to her.
Sceleritas refuses to hand it over at first, and this is how she knows who it is from. After some persuasion he shuffles closer, gives a final whimper of protest, and holds out the offering.
It is short.
M
Why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you follow me? Why do you deny yourself, and more importantly, me? It would do you good to step out of the shadows every now and again, darling.
E
How could he—? She bristles, crumples the letter into a ball and throws it over her shoulder. A few minutes later, it is retrieved, smoothed out, and folded properly into the box with all the others.
✧──────✧
She is staring at the ceiling, waiting for morning. And for her Father’s disapproval. But so far, there’s nothing. A hollow space.
Morgayne glances through to the adjoining room, sees the remnants of their indulgences—books and loose papers, a half-empty platter, drained glasses of wine. It must have been the latter, she thinks, that had them end up in bed, sweat-slick and twisting the sheets. That, and the honeyed words she swallows so readily it sometimes embarrasses her. He’s good at it all, good at her—master of people that he is—and that lodges something nameless in her chest. She should pull it out and give it back to him.
Enver is still asleep beside her on the modest bed in the back room of her small safe house, the covers pulled down around his hips.
She takes the opportunity to study him.
He looks peaceful, like this. Features relaxed, his lips slightly parted, broad chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. She looks at the scars that mark what she can see of his skin, wonders what tried to break him and if he managed to break it back. She wonders if he works in his dreams, if he toils in his mind as he does in waking. She wonders if he convenes with his god as she does with hers. Most of all, she wonders if he dreams of her.
She feels it, then. The fresh need simmering in her core as she watches him, as she thinks of how they closed out the night before.
A hand hovers over his chest, but she hesitates, curling the fingers back into a fist. Enver then stirs. Perhaps the life he’s lived has him sensing innately what others would not, or perhaps he is just a light sleeper, no matter who his bedfellow is. And there have been many of those, she knows that.
His eyes open, blinking a few times before his gaze falls on her. Smiling lazily, he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her to him. She thinks she should get up and return to the world, leave the bubble they’ve created for themselves—but she finds she doesn’t want to.
One hand anchors around the back of her head, into the base of her braid. He presses his hot mouth to her collarbone, then up the column of her neck, then to her lips. They kiss for a while as she threads her fingers into his messy hair, and lightly tugs. He groans, and pushes her onto her back, the weight of him heavy and warm as he presses against her.
“Stay” he says, in his sleep-voice.
She feels him thicken against her thigh as the other hand continues to explore her skin, cups the swell of her breast. A thought dislodges itself from the back of her mind, tries to spear through the building haze of pleasure. The request is odd. He is imploring her to stay when the house is her own, when his departure should be feared first. It was a gift from him, yes, but it’s hers in most of the ways that matter—or so she tells herself. Then his roughened palm brushes her nipple and she feels the disquiet start to slip away, like sand through outstretched fingers.
Enver’s hand drifts downwards and slips between her legs, already fallen open for him. Her body betrays her, as it always does. It has given up so many secrets to this man and his hands and his tongue. He sighs into her skin as he slides his fingers inside her, and her blood roars hot in her veins.
“I think you want to stay” he murmurs, rough and low, to the hollow of her throat. The words vibrate pleasantly against her skin, almost as if she is saying them herself.
He starts to lift his body over hers, but she decides she wants to tip the scales.
Swift and sudden, she throws Enver on his back and straddles him, then pins his arms by his head. He grunts in surprise at the abrupt renegotiation of their terms, an almost imperceptible flash of fear in his eyes. She feels a spike of triumph.
Leaning in, she softly breathes his own name onto his mouth. “Enver…” she whispers, and the effect, the reward, is immediate, like the flick of a switch.
His breath hitches, his jaw tenses, and he rocks his hips upward as much as their proximity will allow. She bites back a moan. He tries to kiss her again, but she pulls back just out of reach. He exhales, slowly, shakily, his eyes half-lidded and hungry in the low light as he shifts underneath her thighs.
How hard his heart must be hammering, she thinks, even as she aches to lay her head against his chest and listen to its rhythm. How she longs to close her fingers around it, feel it beat for her—just as he’s told her it does, in a half-whisper along the shell of her ear as they stand in a corner at one of his parties.
But not yet.
“Stay” he chokes out, voice thick with need. “Take from me.”
She’s not sure if it’s a command or a request, but when she releases his wrists and his hands rush to lift her hips, when she sinks down onto him with an ease that makes them both groan, when he breathlessly praises her and tells her of her worth—she decides that it doesn’t have to matter for now.
✧──────✧
Time to wait for him, again.
Morgayne slips into the welcoming warmth of Enver’s private chambers, through the thick damask curtains and into the room proper. The only greeting is provided by a startled servant who stammers something unintelligible and beats a frantic retreat.
Her attention is immediately drawn to the neat pile of books on a table, and the handwritten note positioned on top. It’s all no doubt placed there with intent, to direct, to funnel, as he always does. Of course, she opts to ignore it, and instead sits down at his desk, her fingers sifting through parchments and papers in a leisurely search for less sanctioned entertainment.
It doesn’t take her long to find something of interest. She lands on a large sheet of sketched designs, tentative schematics for a new project. It’s one she recalls him describing to her several nights ago as they sipped wine and traded affable barbs after dinner, before she let him pull her into his lap and hold her. He gets his best ideas on evenings like this, or so he’s told her, with a sincerity that makes her want to believe him.
Morgayne considers the drawings for a moment, then reaches for quill and ink to add something of her own in one of the few free scraps of space. Something for him to find later, to briefly chafe at and then, with a slow-spreading smile, realise she’s right.
Consider the biological here, in synergy with the mechanical. Affords better flexibility. Synapse cable wiring—better propagation? A column of support (slightly curved) to bear the weight? Needs more mobility. Lengthen the bottom portion, raise the centre of gravity—allow for balance adjustments. Plus, it will look more imposing. You’ll enjoy that part.
Satisfied, she returns all that was borrowed to their original places, then moves to the chaise in front of the fireplace. She decides to examine one of the proffered books after all. It’s pristine, leather-bound and thick, subject esoteric, just as she prefers. She’s barely even lifted the cover before the door opens, and Enver saunters in with a loud sigh and hands raised in supplication to her patience.
He removes his coat as he crosses over to where she sits, throwing it on a chair. It promptly slides off and onto the floor under its own weight, but he shrugs, leaves it where it lies. He’s been drinking a little, that much she can tell. It’s there in the subtleties, weaved into the way he stands, in the unhurried movements, in the loosening of his face and shoulders.
“Good evening, my dearest assassin” he says, with his disarming smile.
She rolls her eyes and pats the cushioned seat by way of invitation. He remains standing, looking at her with a strange intensity that makes her chest begin to ache. A question starts to form on her tongue, but he abruptly bends to press the book closed and toss it to one side, then sinks to the floor before her, hands slowly sliding up her thighs towards her hips.
“This won’t be good for your knees” she says quietly, in a voice that sounds far away, like it isn’t her own—like it’s the voice of someone kinder, someone used to caring, someone who knows what to say.
Enver offers no response, just turns his head and gently lays it in her lap. She stiffens, a half-formed protest stuck in her throat—but then swallows it down, deciding to pull on the threads of indulgence and deal with the mending of it later. She starts to stroke his hair, fingers of one hand carding through the thick black strands, the other running over the top of his back as he hums in apparent contentment. The vibration of it thrums pleasurably in her bones.
Morgayne decides to fill the silence. “How was your meeting?” she manages.
“Terribly dull and frustrating. I simply cannot get them to agree to the terms. I’m uncertain what recourse I have left.”
With a light pressure, she runs her fingers up and down the side of his neck, then smiles as she realises what he is getting at. Of course. “You’ll persuade them. You might not even need me, in the end.”
What she can see of his lips curves into a smirk. “I will let you know if I do.”
Something left unsaid hangs in the air between them, but neither moves to take it down and examine it. It lingers, like everything else. A log shifts in the fireplace.
“I thought it was going to be a meeting of minds” he mumbles into her thigh. “Imagine my abject horror when none showed up.”
“Even yours?” She laughs, and it feels a little easier again, even as the ache in her chest blooms.
He huffs out a breath, more of a sigh than a laugh of his own, but the amusement is in it all the same. His hands lightly squeeze her hips, and she lets herself sink into the warmth of him.
“Are you able to—”
“I can stay. I presumed you would ask, and it is fortunate for you that my schedule happens to be clear.”
“You have anticipated me twice already this evening, my dear. You have seen through me.”
“Yes” she responds, feeling the muscles move underneath his shirt as he shifts. The moving parts below the surface.
Do you approve? she wants to ask. But doesn’t.