A Sprinkle of Stardust

Chapter 25 - Curiosity

The grass tickled Lyrani's feet as she strolled through the forest. The leaves cast shadowy patterns over the ground. A light breeze ruffled her hair.

It felt like Lyrani was heading out for a normal lunch with her friends, not going on a date with a murderer. Feelings could be so deceiving.

No, she wasn't being fair. A murderer wouldn't apologise to her after his crime. He wouldn't plead innocent and beg her to let him explain himself. He would revel in the pain and death he had caused. Lyrani had met enough killers to know that.

She had seen men gloat about the lives they had taken just before they gave up their own at the blade of a guillotine. Each time, she wondered if it had been worth it.

Crime didn't pay, not in the long term, not in the way good, honest work could. Didn't these people have consciences? Lyrani couldn't imagine living without one.

A playful gust of wind pushed Lyrani's short white dress up. She tugged it back down.

Nash had implied they were going swimming, so Lyrani didn't put on much clothing, but now she was wondering whether she looked improper. She was too underdressed to meet a king.

She shook her head to herself. Why did she even agree to meet Nash?

He was unstable and dangerous...but he was also alone and scared. Lyrani had seen the desperation turning his eyes frantic the previous night. When she had opened the door and found him on his knees outside, clutching the letter he had written to her, she had felt his pain like it was her own.

She hadn't meant to feel anything for him at all. It had snuck up on her despite the barriers she had put up the night she knew King Nash Astor could undo her with a single smirk.

Lyrani's keen agent's eyes had spotted the white flowers lying on the ground far below where she and Nash had been standing. Had he brought them for her? Why had he decided against giving them to her?

Lyrani combed her fingers through her hair before weaving it into a loose braid falling to her shoulder blades.

She had so many questions, and the closer she looked into this mystery, the more scuttled out of the woodwork. Perhaps she would get some answers today.

That was the only reason she had agreed to meet Nash. At least, that's what she told herself.

Truth be told, Lyrani wasn't sure whether she was here for Nash or the mission, and that terrified her.

The prestige of the status or the thrill of the kill wasn't why Lyrani became an agent. She became an agent to help people.

When that meant killing an earl who moonlighted as a criminal or a crooked elf governor, it was simple. Taking their lives meant saving countless others. The mathematics of it was on Lyrani's side, as was the law. Now, it was more complicated.

The mathematics of this case was too complex to comprehend, and the law didn't say whether a man should be punished for crimes it wasn't proven that he had committed.

Lyrani stepped over a tangle of roots protruding from the soil, wandering deeper into the forest.

She had been on tough missions before, but none as difficult as this one. For the first time, Agent Lyrani Esch was confused.

Everything she had seen and heard about Nash conflicted. Her thoughts pulled her in countless different directions, and the solution didn't become clearer, no matter how hard she thought. All the same, she had one certainty.

Nash wasn't the villain.

Something else was.

The same thing that had accosted her in Queen Rayn's apartment, that had used Nash's voice to speak to her the day Irylen was attacked.