A Trickle of Soulfyre

Chapter 21 - Fangs

The ice may have broken between Lyrani and Meiyla, but there still wasn't much flowing between them by way of conversation. Neither of them was particularly talkative, and Lyrani could admit that she wasn't the most exuberant of people.

That was why they, together with their griffins, trudged through the twilit forest in silence, observed by the smudgy, jewel-toned sky. Despite the absence of conversation, at least there was no longer that tension between Lyrani and her partner that obstructed one of the most important missions of their careers, no longer words left unsaid.

Except for the details about Meiyla's mysterious boyfriend. Lyrani looked ahead, to where the other agent was a well-defined figure sitting upright in her saddle.

Despite Meiyla's evasiveness around the ECISI agent she was dating, Lyrani had still made progress with her. A mountain couldn't be scaled in a day, and all Meiyla's secrets couldn't be unveiled in one conversation.

Even so, one conversation could change everything.

Lyrani let out a breath as she pressed herself to Revenus's back to avoid a low-hanging branch that waved its leaves menacingly in the cool breeze.

She had been worried about Nash, but she had been able to move forward, do what she had to do. But after their last call, she was finding it harder to do that, to leave Vlitavia behind and power on so that the palace and the man who ruled it would always remain there for her to return to. Her mind kept going back to her latest conversation with Nash.

The king had been shaken, although he had tried to hide it. He couldn't hide anything from Lyrani.

She had been able to read the gestures and intentions he hadn't realised he was communicating when he was possessed by his grandmother. Now that he was his own man with his own mind and no desire to keep anything from Lyrani, he was an open book that she had been paging through for over a year, long enough for her agent's eyes to familiarise themselves with the writing style, the idiosyncrasies of syntax that made Nash so uniquely himself, so loveable, more precious than any gem or metal the earth could bear.

Nash was terrified, and now Lyrani was too.

If a group of assassins managed to infiltrate the elf king's palace, how long until they caught him alone and got the job done?

The answer to that question made a ball of something solid and sickening form at the base of Lyrani's throat. She swallowed it, and the heaviness settled into her stomach instead.

Isarea and Benje couldn't be with Nash every waking moment. Neither could Anesse, which pleased Lyrani, but at the same time, the advisor was protection that Nash desperately needed.

Lyrani's mouth quivered. She stiffened it, curling her fingers around the feathers lining Revenus's neck. He squawked in pain, sending a reproachful look back at her even as he continued onward.

"Sorry about that, boy." Lyrani loosened her grip and freed one of her hands to stroke the griffin's head.

He keened. Satisfied, he faced forward once again, leaving Lyrani to her unwelcome thoughts.

Even though there was no guarantee that she could protect Nash from his assassins, she wished she could be at Vlitavia with him.

But perhaps it was better that she wasn't.

She would've torn the palace apart looking for who had dared to attack him under his own roof, which was perhaps not the best way to approach this threat.

This mission needed a softer touch, one Lord Dundor would provide. His practised hands wouldn't startle the perpetrators, and his agile feet wouldn't tread so heavily that they masked the intruders' tracks.