APRIL SYLKRANA, the only daughter of the High Queen, has to make things right. When a series of assassinations breaks out in the Imperial City, April takes matters into her hands and investigates, distracting her from a plot against her and the crow...
After all, these streams were pockets of wind forming in the atmosphere at random times, stemming from storms rolling over the territories below. The winds would blow so hard it would create an avenue to carry sound at a greater and louder rate. Plus, these streams would prove easier to handle for an average air sprite since they wouldn't need to exert effort in controlling the breezes with their synnavaim.
April knew of this because she spent at least a whole year filling her head with technical information from the tomes she read in the Palace's archive.
"With that issue in trade out of the way," Adviser Ardan spoke up, bearing up his own board with sheets of parchment clamped against it. "It's time to turn our attention to more pressing matters."
April didn't miss the pointed look the Adviser had thrown towards Corlas. Ardan flipped to a specific page in his board and turned to Elami. "What do you think we should do about the growing cases of murders in Lanteglos," he asked. "Do you foresee it as something that can affect us up here?"
Elami rolled her shoulders just as April raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "If that murderer learned how to fly and get past our immigration gates, then maybe we should start worrying," the Potentate said.
April slumped in her seat. What kind of tuscan crap was that answer? Of course, this news would affect them in terms of other races questioning the High Queen's rule and ability to stop these threats to her subjects' safety. And when the people lost faith in the Imperial power, they could cease to be the Imperial race. It's not a good face to show to the past Sylkrana queens.
"Until then, we should remain vigilant and wait for the Seelie Court to do something about it," Elami continued. "About these rumors of murders, we shouldn't be too worried."
"But they're murders," April blurted before she could think twice about it. The Advisers and Elami whipped towards her like she had just said she farted rainbows. Seriously, these fools have the most jumbled priorities. "Shouldn't we be concerned, at least, to check what was going on? It's not every day someone decides to just strike people down. Who were the victims?"
It took a whole minute for Ardan to realize April was asking something from him. He fumbled with his sheets and came up with the information. "A private investigator and an informant," he said.
April narrowed her eyes. "And it doesn't concern you that these people might have stumbled something important and they were murdered for what they know?"
"So what, Princess?" Elami flashed April an annoyed look. "It doesn't concern matters in Falkirta. I know out of the two of us, you're the one dying to be the High Queen, but you're not. Until that day, your place is here, in the Floating City. Until then, you turn your eyes to the things that's going to affect the air sprites as a race and not anything else."
April pursed her lips. Elami scoffed. "Besides, what are you going to do?" she said. "Fly down there and threaten the Unities to work with you with a maige cutter?"
Oh, that's low. That was a long time ago, when April was a clueless child. Now, she's an adult capable of harnessing her anger. But, seeing Elami's smug smile, April wouldn't mind unleashing it all again. After all these years, these people still couldn't let that go and it has gotten past just harmless jokes. This was a personal attack against April, telling her to shut up, to never try anything because of her mistake more than twenty years ago.
To prove she has learned her lesson of not growling like a mad animal whenever she felt threatened, April returned Elami's smile, clenching and unclenching her hands over her waist at the half-hidden snickers from the other Advisers. "Has your office started picking at your white hairs?" April tilted her head to one side. "Your jokes are becoming stale."
She meant to add "hag" or "witch" into it but decided against it. She didn't need to make more of an enemy in Elami. If push came to shove, April could even use the Potentate's help in the future. After all, a Caizu doesn't just rise to the top with their family name. It has to involve experience and cunning as well.
Things April has to learn as fast as she could if she were to survive in this court who clearly couldn't move forward from the April they met a long time ago. She has to get her own court under her control or else she'd suffer the consequences somewhere down the road. The worst thing it could happen was when she was well away into her eventual reign.
That's what she was determined to do after the meeting had concluded and she was on her way back to her room. A thought wormed its way into her head and she quickened her pace. When the doors to her room flung open, the maids sitting on her lounge chairs and one on her bed snapped to attention.
April ought to reprimand them for treating her room like their rest house but she swallowed her anger and nodded at them. These people have dealt with a lot during their time of service in the palace. They deserved to at least feel like a noble once in a while, even if it's using April's things and sitting on her bed.
She strode past them as they hurried to file into a neat line near the wall beside the door. Decorative vases, desks filled with figurines and dusted tomes, and a shelf brimming with more fiction stories stood behind them. She ducked through the opposite doorway from her bed slotted against the middle of the adjacent wall, emerging from the consequent room she treated as her study. More shelves lined the walls in this new room, bearing all kinds of tomes tackling the things April had been interested about over the years. Some of these she pilfered from the archive, others she requested a copy of from the merchants in Starvale.
But she didn't come here to read. Her eyes landed on a slanted desk that was good for painting, drafting, or just plain writing. A small lantern with a radiant light rod curved from its pedestal beside the table, providing her with the needed support for her vision. Her rear sank into the cushioned, high-backed chair close to the desk.
Her left hand plucked the quill slotted at the rim of the desk. A few notches down sat the niche for the bottle of ink. She dipped the quill into the bottle, watching the stem darken as it absorbed the ink. Grabbing a fresh sheet of parchment from her supply from the drawer beneath the desk, she began to write.
Dearest Mother, it has come to my attention that there are murders occuring in Lanteglos.
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