A Sprinkle of Stardust

Chapter 39 - Defeat

A little girl with black hair and bark-brown eyes.

Nash had done the first thing that came to mind. He had plucked a deep blue flower from the ground and held it out to her.

She had rubbed at her eyes. "I like cornflowers," she had said with a shy smile.

Lyrani had said the very same thing under the stars a few days ago. Since then, this memory had been fighting to free itself from the depths of Nash's mind.

At the beginning of the week, all Lyrani had been was the maid to one of Nash's guests, albeit strangely familiar. In the days since, she had become so much more.

What were the chances of her finding her way here, to the only other elf who knew what it was like to have Rayn take away someone he loved?

To Nash, it betrayed the hand of some higher power, something even greater than Rayn.

Lyrani's mother had destroyed Rayn once. The spirit was right to fear that Lyrani would be the one to do it again, perhaps for good.

Was it too much to hope for that Lyrani could defeat the spirit before it got to her?

A sharp pain shot through the left side of Nash's face. He bit back a cry.

He was as helpless now as he had been at Veyali's funeral.

A flower couldn't bring the little girl's mother back from the dead, and Nash couldn't stand against Rayn for much longer.

She had been growing stronger and increasingly impatient with him since Lyrani had arrived at the palace. Rayn, like Nash, knew that she had met her match.

Nash didn't realise Benje had entered his apartment until the other elf spoke.

"Nash." Benje stood in the doorway, eyeing the liquor. "You're going to kill yourself if you continue like this."

Making no reply, Nash uncorked the first full decanter his hands landed on.

Death wasn't Nash's worst option. There would be no more headaches, no more pain. It seemed like the only way Nash could stop Rayn long enough to give everyone working against her time to end her.

"Nash!" Benje crossed the room and snatched the bottle from Nash. "I know you miss your charming assassin, but I won't let this continue. Everyone is talking."

"Let them talk." Nash reached for another bottle.

Being ridiculed as a lovesick fool was better than being feared as a heartless tyrant. It was truer of Nash too. He hadn't been aware of the massacres he had ordered, but he had known exactly what was happening every time he saw Lyrani Esch.

"Nash!" Benje pulled the second bottle from his grasp. "Stop this right now."

Nash spoke without looking at the other elf. "I'm the one who commands you, or have you forgotten that?"

He heard Benje's sharp intake of breath. He braced himself for a lecture, for Benje to storm off, for him to be abandoned for good.

Nash had crossed a line.

To his surprise, Benje stayed.

When he spoke, his voice was as sharp as the lines carved into the crystal decanter in his hands. "I haven't kept pulling you back from the edge of despair every damn time for you to give up now. You have a death wish? I don't care. You're not thinking straight, and I won't let you choose your fate in this state."

Nash shook his head as he laid it on his hands.

There was no way out. No Lyrani. No alcohol. Rayn would always win. If Nash fought her as Livh and Veyali had, he'd only meet the same end.