To Heaven's Cataract (November Event Thread)
“This isn’t happening…”
Duffy clenched his fists. The candles in the room flickered, as though a chill breeze rolled through the study or a ghost haunted him. The east and west walls were crammed with books, piled haphazard wherever they could fit. The soft light of the dozen half spent wicks sent demons scrabbling up the dusty shelves and pirouetting over the cracked plaster moulding on the ceiling.
“It really is.” Lilith folded her arms across her chest and leant against the rotting frame of the study door. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her spinning head as reality clashed full force into the troupe’s late evening celebrations.
“Say it again, then. Just to be sure.” The bard looked to his sister expectant, wavering on booted feet and trying not to down the rest of the whiskey in the cut crystal glass in his trembling hands.
“Somebody that looks suspiciously like you just killed Queen Valeena. In her own bed.”
Duffy knew Lilith would never lie to him. She did not have the gall to try a practical joke, either. Her face told the bard that she was being truthful, and that only made him worry more.
“Well, we both know it wasn’t me. So, who or what the fuck did it?” He sputtered. “Wait. The Queen is dead?” His world exploded in a combination of blurred vision and a tingling sensation in his stomach.
“Arden has his suspicions. But we have a bigger problem.”
“Bigger than matricide?”
“There’s a battalion of city guards and Knights Brae searching the city for you.”
“Ah.” He drained his glass.
“We have to do something about this, tonight.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on staying in with a good book.”
Lilith pushed away from the door and pointed to one of the shelves. Duffy followed the gesture and raised an eyebrow, missing the point through fatigue and inebriation. The claustrophobic environment leant ill forebodings to the growing sense of disaster.
“What am I looking at?”
“I recommend Treatise on Law in the Free Isles.”
“Oh. You’re so bloody funny. Why don’t you put that sharp wit to good use and lend me a sharp blade instead?” Duffy wandered to the desk at the heart of his study and gingerly picked up the black hilted katana resting on an ornate stand.
“Ruby and I have damage control to tend to. There’s a quarry of do-good-ers already roaming the palace grounds at the behest of the king. The ransom for the murderer…for you, is quite enticing.” She pulled a tanto from her belt to taunt him, and let the purple haze of the spirit trapped within snip away at the last tattered threads of his heart strings.
“There’s no I in team, huh?” He sheathed his blade on his hip and ushered the assassin out into the landing. “Fine. If you hear anything you’ll know where to find me.”
Lilith clucked and walked to the top of the grand staircase leading down to the black and white marble tiles of the Winchester House ballroom. She rested a hand on the polished wooden orb atop the banister.
“Oh, and where’s that brother dearest?” Her eye glinted with mischief.
“Putting my bastard head on the block.” He smirked weakly and disappeared in a whorl of blue ribbons and a faint rush of drums.
Lilith pranced down the stairs, hobnails thundering and heart racing. She sheathed her blade and raced out into the night air of Scara Brae, the race to reveal the truth of the matter afoot.
