Cain carefully fastened the buttons of his shirt one by one, the silk whispering against his skin. He left the top few undone so the candlelight brushed the pale sweep of his collarbones. He smoothed his hair back one last time, exhaling slowly as if to steady himself for the night ahead.

Tonight would be the same as all the others: the soft smile, the practised touch, words shaped to fit the desires of men who wanted to believe affection could be bought. Some came for comfort. Others came to break something beautiful simply because they could. 

He’d learned to tell the difference long before the bruises taught him.

The shy ones, with their gentle trembling hands, desperate for reassurance… those customers were easy. They left coins on the table and gratitude in their eyes. But the others, those with too much wine and too little conscience, came for other reasons. They usually came in two forms: merchants with ruined fortunes and husbands with ruined tempers, men searching for someone to bleed their failures into. 

Cain remembered one night in particular.

A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, eyes black enough to swallow the light around him. He carried with him an air that made the girls still mid-laughter. Even before he spoke, they sensed what kind of man he was. The kind whose pleasure was indistinguishable from cruelty. One by one, they turned to other patrons, feigning flirtation, hoping invisibility might save them.

In that moment, his gaze found Cain’s, and it did not waver. They hadn’t even exchanged a word before the man’s hand was at his wrist, dragging him up the stairs with a grip that promised no mercy. The door slammed shut, the room shrank, and before he could draw breath, Cain was thrown face down onto the bed. 

What he remembered most was the smell. Liquor spilled across the floorboards, the sharp bite of iron in the air, the sour tang of sweat. The man’s hands were heavy and relentless, pressing him into the mattress until the world bled white at the edges. When it was over, the silence was unbearable. Only the wet rasp of breath, the sting of sweat in split skin, and the faint sound of laughter drifting from the halls below remained.

He hadn’t been able to move. Blood had soaked through the sheets, sticky and darkened in the candlelight.

Madam had found him hours later. Her face was unreadable, and her voice too calm. She’d called for physicians, the best she could afford. They arrived with their silver instruments and clean hands, cutting away the remnants of the night like they were cleaning a wound in the world. They stitched him closed, drugged him silent. He slept for days. The pain came in waves when he woke, dull and deep, like something was rotting inside of him. 

Eating was impossible; even water burned going down. Still, it was a small mercy. At least he didn’t have to face the pain of using the chamber pot.

Seven days later, the curtains reopened. The perfume returned. The same men laughed downstairs, never noticing the faint scent of antiseptic that lingered on him.

No one asked.

No one remembered.

Cain drew in a slow breath, adjusting his cuffs. The candlelight trembled on the glass, reflected in his eyes like something breaking.

Life in the Praecia Veil moved on in rhythm: blood, perfume, laughter, gold. He had learned to wear suffering like silk, to drape it so finely that no one could see the seams. 

He hoped tonight would not be like that. But if it were… well, he would make it look effortless.

Cain’s boots clicked against the spiral staircase, echoing through the Praecia Veil.  Courtesans drifted like ghosts between patrons, silk brushing silk, whispered laughter punctuated by murmurs from private rooms.

The main hall was a warm haze of candlelight, soft music, and flowing drinks. Patrons lingered, murmuring, casting coins and glances alike. Cain weaved gracefully through the crowd like a living brushstroke in the room’s painting, before locking eyes with an older man seated on a red velvet couch. Likely a merchant, cloaked in fine fabrics that spoke of wealth.

Cain approached, lowering himself onto the seat beside the man. His hand brushed lightly against the merchant’s arm, the other settling just above his knee, a touch casual enough to be innocent, intentional enough not to be.

“Scotch, perhaps?” he murmured in a low, smooth voice.

The merchant’s gaze lingered, caught on the flutter of Cain’s lashes, the soft gleam of the candlelight tracing the curve of his collarbones, the faint tremble in his lips when he spoke. Desire pooled behind his eyes, slow and heavy. Cain noticed, though he let the observation slide, letting the man believe he held the control.

Cain poured the drink with a practised tilt, letting his fingers linger a moment on the glass rim. “I hope it’s to your liking,” he said, a gentle smile curving his lips.

The man chuckled softly. “Why don’t you get one for yourself, little one?”

Cain’s eyes flicked down, briefly betraying vulnerability. “I could, but I find it easier to keep my mind… clear,” he replied, brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead. 

“How could I enjoy the company if I allowed my thoughts to wander?”

The merchant leaned closer. “And are your thoughts wandering now?”

In the corner booth sat a man unlike the others who haunted the Praecia Veil. Tall, poised, every thread of his clothing chosen with meticulous precision. The faint gleam of candlelight caught his blond hair, painting it gold, though nothing in his expression was warm. His dark brown eyes seemed calm at first glance, yet the longer one looked, the more they shimmered with something perilous. In the glow, they resembled honey: sweet only to those who hadn’t yet tasted the sting.

He sat one leg crossed neatly over the other, with a cigarette poised between his fingers. Smoke curled upward, lazy and delicate, like it feared to touch him. Two courtesans leaned into him, their perfume heavy, their laughter soft and coaxing. They spoke against his skin, lips grazing the sharp line of his jaw, but his gaze was elsewhere. 

And then Cain felt it.

The weight of that gaze. 

Their eyes met across the haze of perfume and candlelight, and something inside him stilled. There was no lust in that look, no hunger, only the quiet patience of a man accustomed to waiting for things to come to him. It was a gaze that studied rather than desired, measured rather than took.

For a heartbeat, Cain forgot to breathe. There was something dangerous about stillness like that. Something that made his pulse flutter against his throat.

The man looked away, exhaling a thin ribbon of smoke, as though nothing had happened at all. 

Cain returned to his performance, yet he found his movements slightly lighter, his smile a fraction more cautious. The man in the corner didn’t shift, didn’t speak, but the weight of his gaze followed every subtle tilt, every soft flicker of an eyelash.

He took the merchant’s hand, his touch featherlight. He took his time tracing slow, idle patterns across his fingers before letting them rest on the heavy gold adorning them. The jewels glittered in the candlelight, emeralds and sapphires that caught the room’s glow and threw it back like tiny fragments of envy. 

He smiled faintly. “Would it be too forward of me to ask,” he murmured in a voice just above a whisper, “how a man such as yourself can so carelessly wear such things in a city like this? Aren’t you afraid of what might happen?”

The merchant chuckled, low and smooth. “I bear no affection for these trinkets. They’re just objects. Easily replaced, if you know the right people.”

Cain tilted his head. “The right people?”

“Business is good,” a hint of pride curling at the edge of his words. “I have connections across Zidor, though Xaweth remains my heartland. If I want something, I get it. But…” he leaned back, swirling the scotch in his glass. “When things come too easily, they lose their taste.”

Cain’s lips curved. “And yet you still come here,” he said softly, “to buy the company of others.”

“Ah,” the merchant countered, smiling. “That’s different, little one. Objects and people are not the same.”

“No?” Cain asked, his tone silken and dangerous. “Both can be bought, for the right price.”

The merchant’s eyes darkened, intrigued. He slipped one of his rings free—an emerald set in gold—and caught Cain’s hand again, turning it palm-up. “This,” he said, setting the cool metal against the boy’s skin, “I could lose without care. Someone might steal it, and I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep.”

He slid the ring slowly onto Cain’s slender finger, the gesture intimate and possessive. His gaze lingered. “But you…” His voice dipped lower. “From what I’ve heard about you, I think I’d be very sad to lose you from my grasp.”

Cain let his hand linger, the emerald glinting between them. Then, with a soft laugh, he drew his fingers back. “Careful, he said, eyes half-lidded. “You’ll make a man believe in sentiment.”

Their conversation lingered. Flirtation bleeding into laughter, soft touches growing bolder as the merchant emptied glass after glass of scotch. The amber burn of liquor made his words looser, his smiles slower. At some point, Cain realised the man from the corner had vanished. In his place, the two courtesans who’d been draped over him were now laughing freely, wine glasses raised, their attention claimed by a pair of handsome new patrons. The air shimmered with perfume and candlelight, filled with easy laughter, as though nothing or no one had ever been missing at all. 

Cain leaned in close, his breath ghosting against the merchant’s ear. Whatever words he whispered were too soft for anyone else to hear, but they made the merchant’s breath catch, his pulse visibly quickening beneath the thin fabric of his collar.

With practised grace, Cain rose and offered his hand. The merchant took it without hesitation, his fingers lightly brushing over Cain’s pale knuckles. The merchant stood, enchanted, letting Cain guide him through the haze of smoke and perfume before they disappeared up the candlelit staircase.

The door closed behind them with a quiet click, sealing away the muffled sounds of laughter and music below, and with them, the last trace of innocence the night still held.

Outside, Seviel exhaled decay and breathed in the night. Inside, candles trembled, velvet walls swallowed the moans and murmurs, and coins slid across tables like tiny, golden confessions.
In Seviel, beauty does not bloom.
It withers slowly, and people pay to watch.