A Trickle of Soulfyre

Chapter 9 - Interception

Lyrani and Agent Phen sat in silence until a gnome ran past them, holding a cone-shaped device up to his mouth.

"The 17:15 to Wyndern is now ready to board!" boomed his voice.

Lyrani and Agent Phen gathered their belongings and took their places in the queue quietly, a contrast to their fellow passengers chattering about their trips. Lyrani wished she could feel the same excitement, but she knew what she was signing up for when she became a secret agent.

She could die. Agent Phen could die. They could fail, and Nash could die. Every trip Lyrani ever seemed to take threatened someone's death. It was no surprise she had begun to dread train stations.

Lyrani remembered well how her father had discouraged her from becoming an agent. He had gone so far as to try to force her to marry a man she barely knew, knowing that being a baron's wife would mean she couldn't apply to ECISI academy.

She could understand his concerns now, that her life would become one near-death experience after the other, that many events in the other barons' daughters' lives, like marriage, children, and balls would be replaced by missions, disguises, and stays of uncertain lengths in ECISI's hospital wing.

Lyrani could see why Lord Kavren had tried to hold her back. Being an ECISI agent was her dream, but it wasn't the kind of life any father would want for his child.

She loved that the work she did made the realm a better, safer place for its people, as her mother had before her. She would just have to make sure this life didn't kill her the way it had Lady Veyali.

She had thought it so easy before, when her father first told her the truth about her mother's death, but now she knew that things could spin out of her control. She could be dead before she could act to defend herself.

Lyrani was in front of the conductor before she could spiral any deeper into her apprehension, and perhaps it was better that way.

She closed her eyes and let out a breath. She had to keep her mind on this assignment. Not on Nash. Not on Agent Phen. Not on anything but getting to Wyndern and taking the next step of her mission.

Lyrani uncurled the corner of her ticket and handed it to the conductor, a human with rectangular spectacles reflecting firelight and wooden walls at her. He punched a hole in the slip of paper, then did the same to Agent Phen's.

"Just go straight and then turn left." The conductor gestured with his gloved hands.

Agent Phen pushed past Lyrani to get into the train first. She stifled a sigh as she followed the junior agent. She must've done something awful for Agent Phen to have this potent distaste for her. If only she could know what it was.

Lyrani was an ECISI agent, dealing in secrets and unravelling mysteries for a living. She'd solve this one in a heartbeat if she only had the time for it.

But she didn't. She didn't have a moment or a shred of focus to spare.

Wyndern, she reminded herself. She had to concentrate her mind on the journey ahead.

Agent Phen claimed the window seat without offering it to her senior agent. Lyrani took the aisle seat, slipping her backpack off her shoulders and sliding it under the seat in front of her. Agent Phen flipped her book open to where she had last read, still not breathing a word.

They couldn't be any different from the two elves who settled into the seats across the compartment, laughing about a prank one of their brothers had played on their little sister. It involved tea and salt instead of sugar. Lyrani had heard of better pranks, but she couldn't help but smile as the elf who was telling the story collapsed in giggles.