A Sprinkle of Stardust

Chapter 4 - Conviction

Darkness was a comfort to Lyrani, the only element where she felt at home. She could sink into it as though it was a cloud, the only soft and welcoming part of a life riddled with violence and harshness.

She could usually find peace in the night, but now, lying in her bed with only the moonlight streaming through her window for company, it was impossible for her to keep her mind from wandering to those places it was best not to venture.

The shadows fluttered with Lyrani's agitation as if they too wondered how they could carry out a task that nobody else had been able to do.

Lyrani trusted her instincts. It was the only thing that had gotten her this far in her job. When a knife was sailing through the air, heading straight for her heart, there was no time to think before dodging it.

Her life moved too quickly for her to overanalyse every decision, which was why this feeling felt foreign to her, this wondering whether she had made the right choice at the briefing earlier...

Lyrani stood by what she had said. Lord Dundor believed the king was behind the attacks he had mentioned, but Lyrani wasn't convinced. She had been on the ground more than the director of ECISI. She had seen for herself the situations that came to Lord Dundor from the mouths of informants, and there were some things that were impossible to describe in a report.

The ECISI agents talked among themselves about what they saw. It was the knowing smile a fairy flashed after an agent interrogated him. It was the way a group of banshees fell silent upon seeing an elf.

It wasn't discrimination. It was more than that.

There was unrest throughout the realm, and it was centred on the elves, the most powerful of all the clans except for the humans. Nobody could challenge them while they were united under a monarch, but if he was gone, nothing would stop the other clans from harnessing the chaos.

King Nash had no known heirs. If a civil war for the throne broke out between the three elf states after his death, the infighting would leave gaping inroads for scavengers.

The elf king posed a threat that needed to be dealt with. Perhaps he was the cause of the elves' tension with the other clans, as Lord Dundor had suggested, but surely there was another way to handle this.

If Lyrani could gather evidence to strengthen the case against King Nash, she could expose him and kill him with a clear conscience. Sitting back and doing nothing after the everything that had happened at the briefing was not an option, but killing the king without evidence to back Lyrani up was an uncalled-for extreme.

Lyrani didn't have the luxury of time. She would start digging up evidence the next day. When the case became substantial, she would present a new plan to Lord Dundor.

Lyrani's mind writhed so restlessly that she hoped she might be able to pull together some semblance of a way forward, but her thoughts were too disorganised, scattering like leaves in the breeze.

Lyrani turned onto her side to glance at the clock on her bedside table. She saw through the darkness to the clock hands that told her it was nearly midnight.

Morloy wasn't home yet. A dull heaviness settled into Lyrani's stomach.

Morloy usually told Lyrani if he was going to be late and why, but she hadn't heard from him all day. She couldn't help the concern niggling at her.

She had heard the whispers at ECISI that afternoon. Her fellow agents had talked of the fire at the fairy village Loweim in low voices as if that could remove the unfortunate event from reality.

Fairies, despite possessing some of the most powerful magic in the realm, were nowhere near as learned as elves. They hadn't been able to handle the injuries, so elf healers were called to the scene. That was probably where Morloy was at this late hour.