What Now?

[Oriena]

A quiet Nox was a strange thing to experience. He didn’t speak for a long time and Ori let herself drift. It didn’t surprise her that Sasha hadn’t taken the advice, which was what she presumed from Nox’s silence. He wouldn’t be hard to track down, even if he was trying to lie low from the Atharim, and smoking him out might even be entertaining. He deserved to squirm before she flicked that packet of drugs back in his face.

Ori didn’t move when Nox got up to receive the food order. Her thoughts were idly content on ideas of petty vengeance, which was a damn sight more pleasant than considering the fragility of her own mortality. She propped herself up properly in the bed but didn’t vacate the comfortable spot to eat. Her scarred legs were outstretched, the styrofoam box balanced on a pillow.

“Shame,” she said, though she didn’t sound entirely sorry about it. “Since he has hunters on his tail.” Her lips hooked a savage smile. Nox would probably take it personally, the suggestion he’d left someone to the wolves. Not that Sasha was defenseless. Her slyness was because he was a powderkeg; too much power and not enough sense. It was the Atharim chasing him who were in trouble now he was learning what he was truly capable of.

The detail Nox revealed didn’t escape her, either. She hadn’t actually asked how he had lost his power, and probably wouldn’t. It might not have even occurred to her as a possibility except the ijiraq had imbued her with some very old knowledge in an effort to forge a weapon of her, and she therefore knew how it was done. In theory, at least. But he made it sound like it had just happened, unprovoked.

His change of subject flicked her eyes up, but if it was a look that would have burned up most others, she doubted it would bother him. “I know,” she said, and rolled her eyes, turning back to her food. She wouldn’t stop him from digging up what he could, but it didn’t mean she wanted to talk about it. The possession hadn’t been by choice, but Nox knew that already; he’d been there. And she’d made the oath to the ijiraq willingly at the time, albeit the alternative had probably been biting the dust. Destroying the tablet was the only way the creatures themselves knew how to grant their own freedom. Nox already knew that too though.