Shen Surin

Her smile is cordial; her prices are not.

Appearance

Shen is an elf with flowing silver hair, pale skin and a regal bearing.

In The Outcast Knight

Shen is the elven owner of Moonlit Serenity, an elves-only house of pleasure in Luna's residential district, to whom Ferrin owed a debt he could not pay. Ferrin warned that she accepted only cold coin or colder flesh, and that from people she found interesting she demanded a spectacle for her masked noble patrons.

When Fi and Usso came to settle the debt, Shen received them in a private chamber, mocked Ferrin for sending meat instead of coin, and declared the debt forgiven on condition that they entertain her by stripping the warrior bare, body and soul. Drugged incense filled the room. Under its influence Fi was stripped and sexually humiliated before the patrons and Shen herself, while Usso was lost in his own memories. Shen then dropped a heavy purse into Fi's lap on top of the cleared debt, praising them for giving her patrons truth. The ordeal haunted Fi for the rest of the book, and Fate Mistwreath later drew on the memory to weave her illusion.

After the books

In the wake of the Scorched Sky, her house becomes a ledger of who begged, who paid, and who bled, proof that vice survives every regime. Known in Luna’s underlight simply as Shen: proprietor of the Moonlit Serenity, broker of pleasures, secrets, and favours.