A Sprinkle of Stardust

Chapter 35 - Treason

The curved door handle was warm against Nash's palm. A trail of carved stars flowed along it. Nash didn't smile at the familiarity of them, only gritted his teeth.

How dare they be intact when Nash was in pieces?

He shouldn't have come here. He should've known it would only make him feel worse.

It was only the possibility of closure that tightened his fingers around the handle.

With a little push, the door swung open silently, and Nash stepped into the apartment.

Lady Trelle's bedroom was like a corpse. The dressing table was bare of cosmetics, the floor clear of slippers, and the coat stand empty of cloaks and fur stoles. The luggage was gone, destroyed for fear of the weapons they might contain.

The room downstairs was silent, no soft-footed lady-turned-maid wandering between the bed and the wardrobe.

Everything that had made this apartment warm and happy and alive was gone.

Lyrani was gone.

Nash could hear her screaming his name, but it was distant, like a voice trapped in a glass. He listened to the memory, but its sound petered out, leaving him as lost and uncertain as he was before.

He wandered to the window. There were no signs of struggle in the room, no broken furniture, no cracked mirror, just a startling absence of the former occupants that told Nash nothing about the previous night's events.

Lyrani and Lady Trelle could have simply left in a hurry to tend to an emergency in Irylen, but that was one lie Nash couldn't make himself believe.

Something tripped him up. He grabbed the wall to keep from falling and looked down to see that his feet had become entangled in a green garment. He stared down at it, trying to remember where he had seen it before.

In his mind's eye, he saw it hugging a black-haired elf's slender frame as she entered his apartment. He remembered liking that colour on her.

Nash reached down to free his feet. As his fingers brushed against the material textured with the veins of leaves, an image flashed in his mind.

The dress slipped from his fingers, falling to the floor as Lyrani watched him with wide, terrified eyes, wearing nothing but her cloak.

As Nash stepped out of the dress, he nearly toppled over. Luckily, the bed was within reach, ready to stop his fall.

Perhaps it hadn't been the best idea to drink. Nash needed his balance and his coordination to navigate this cursed palace, and he didn't have either when he was drunk.

But there was no better way to forget.

He let out a bitter laugh.

Forget what?

Nash didn't remember much after Lyrani told him she wanted to be his. He remembered being deliriously happy. He remembered teasing Lyrani until she couldn't breathe even though he had been frantic with need for her.

Then there was a blank.

Fragments of the rest of the night flickered through Nash's mind, taunting him with the knowledge they had that he didn't. When he reached out for them to piece everything together, they dissolved into nothing.

What Nash did remember was waking up to the news that Lyrani and Lady Trelle had been arrested for treason—conspiring to murder him.

Relax, said the voice in his head. They won't get me this time.