The sun of the late afternoon coloured the streets of Solaria in a palette of shiny yellow. Sarenya had to act quick, if she wanted to stop her target. Her king wished for an accident, so she had to arrange one. A mild breeze stroked through her long, blonde hair. She sat on her horse and put her hood over her head, to hide her face. On her mount, she rode through the streets to catch up with the messenger and his guards. When she could see them in the distance, she dismounted and began to climb up a nearby wall in an alley. She planned to hit them from above. She assessed the situation: The city gates were just up ahead, but, luckily, the streets were getting more crowded, the closer one approached them. Countless people were flooding in and out, their horses and formation was making it hard for the party to proceed through the masses. Her best chance were the water barrels and crates stored all over the roofs. If she could time it right and push one of them over the edge, gravity would solve the problem for her. The assassin made her way from roof to roof until she caught up and passed the messenger. Quickly, she moved two barrels to the edge of the roof and a crate just behind them. She waited until they were just underneath her and kicked the crate with full force. The barrels went down, crashing onto them. Without hesitation, she kicked the crate again. It went down and crashed on the party of foreigners as well. Screams were heard, naturally, the people panicked and tried to scatter in all directions. Sarenya took a careful look over the edge, to inspect the results of her assault. One of the barrels seemingly hit a guard point blank. He was crushed, the other barrel missed by the looks of it. The crate however, had killed a second of the messenger’s guards, he laid dead on the spot. Unfortunately, the messenger himself seemed to be unharmed. Damn it! Sarenya frowned. The man and his remaining guard looked around to try and spot the cause of the accident. Sarenya ducked away instantly, so she would not get spotted. She had to improvise, and fast. The tumult was still going, as Sarenya climbed back down from the roof she from the crates and barrels down from. She had to do something, anything! Her glimpse fell on a little boy. Judging by his clothing, he was a gamin. An idea came to Sarenya’s head. It was pretty desperate, but better than nothing. Sarenya dragged the stray to a backyard and handed him a gold coin. The assassin told him to steal the messengers purse. He then was to run back to her as fast as he could. The assassin opted the messenger would, hopefully, chase the boy down to the lonely backyard, where Sarenya could overwhelm him. As to the nature of his disposal...she could think on this later. She ran risk of the messenger sending the guard after him, or that they both chased the boy down, but anything was better than the two of them reaching the gates and escaping.

Elsurion walked in circles in his chambers. He still could not believe this! Why had Leopold II terminated the contract? The king slammed his hand on the table in utter frustration. Nothing of importance happened between the two kingdoms in the past two years. Leopold II offered his condolence when Elsurion’s father passed away. The king visited Ayumir a few times and vice versa, and that was it! There was literally nothing he could think of that would justify this course of action! Solaria paid well enough, never did Leopold try to renegotiate the price of the crystals and, let’s not forget, he told himself, otherwise, the contract is still ongoing. So, what in Solaria’s name was going on? It drove him mad. He needed those crystals! The kingdom needed them! What should he do? He wanted to know the reason for this! As no explanation was given, Elsurion figured that he would not get one by asking either. A spy. He would send a spy to Ayumir. Perhaps he could find out what was really behind this. On a side note; the choice of words just seemed to be off: “I have decided to replace our agreement with a much more lucrative one”. He did not speak of a new trading partner per se, but of a more lucrative agreement. Elsurion maybe was just seeing things, but this bothered him. Could he have figured out how to use these crystals for himself? No, that was pretty unlikely. He did not seem to be a sorcerer. A magic wielder could feel the presence of another such person, Elsurion knew that feeling from his father all to well. Bloody hell! There were so many possibilities! No further ado. Elsurion called for Marius, it was time to do something.

Luck really was not on Sarenya’s side today. The boy managed to snitch the messengers purse, but only the guard chased down the boy, the messenger was left behind. She bet on the wrong horse it seemed. The alley was a dead end, and the guard caught the boy eventually. Sarenya had not yet been discovered by the guard, so she used that advantage. She ran towards him, jumped and drove one of her two daggers into his back. Caught off guard, the man stumbled and sank to his knees. He remained like that for a second, then dropped dead. Sarenya looked down at the boy. “Let his clothes be. Take everything else that is of value to you. Then run.” If the guard was stripped from his valuable belongings, this would most likely look like he had been mugged. There was no need to let anyone know of an assassination-attempt.

She turned around and ascended to the roof once more, she needed to get an overview.

Albrecht started to wonder what took the guard so long. One could call the messenger paranoid, but he suspected all these events to be related. Came these…barrels or crates, or whatever, really just crushing down on them by pure coincidence? He doubted it. The king wanted him dead! Him! All of them! Perhaps he hired some mercenaries to make their deaths look like an accident? By Ayumir! No! Surely the remaining guard was already dead as well! He had to get out of this death-trap as fast as he could!

The messenger looked around like he was chasing ghosts and immediately started making his way through the crowd as fast as possible, pushing peasant away left and right. Sarenya realized, that she had failed her assignment. The messenger surely smelt a rat at this point and he was getting away. She had failed her king. She…had failed. She would have to take the indignity to report her failure. His deep blue eyes would look down on her in disappointment. Because of her, the messenger would run back to his liege and report that an attack on him had commenced, surely exaggerating heavily in the process as well. Perhaps this would even cause the rest of the contract to be terminated as well, or worse, a war would break out between the two kingdoms! All because of her. She thought again of the king’s eyes. She knew that many feared them, but Sarenya did not. She could lose herself in them. Sarenya looked at the messenger, getting further and further away. After hesitating a moment, she climbed down again. No, she would not face that look in his eyes. She would find a way to stop the messenger and cover up his assassination as ordered. The assassin got back to her horse and chased after him, hoping, that she could yet stop him.

A knock on the door informed Elsurion that Marius had arrived.

“Come in.”, Elsurion said and turned around.

“You have called for me, ‘your majesty’?”, Marius said and bowed. The way he underlined ‘your majesty’, dripped of shier sarcasm. No one at the royal court beside Marius would dare to speak to Elsurion that way.

“’Curtsey’ first, as always old friend.”, Elsurion replied with a smirk. Marius was his childhood friend. More precisely, Marius was almost like a brother to Elsurion, as the king lacked siblings. Marius always had a quip up his sleeve. He was bold, glib and slick. Perfect for the task at hand. Elsurion’s smile faded.

“Marius, I received dread news.”

Marius gave him a curious look and raised an eyebrow.

“We will no longer receive arcane crystals from Ayumir.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Leopold II cancelled that part of the contract. Now, we are just another kingdom they trade with!” Elsurion got angry again.

“Why did he do that? Did you pay so cheaply for the crystals?”

Elsurion’s eyelids narrowed. “Terrific Marius, thank you. Truth is: I don’t know.”

“How can you not?”

“Today, a messenger from Ayumir delivered a letter. It simply said, that he replaced our agreement with a ‘more lucrative one’, whatever that is supposed to mean!”

“Ominous. But, just for the record: Why are these crystals so important to us again?”

“The fertility spell Marius. I need to cast it every once in a while, so our land stays surpassingly fertile.”

“Ah yes, your magic…thing.”, he nodded in an overdramatic fashion.

Elsurion rolled his eyes. “Our economy will greatly suffer from this!”

“I see, I see…”, Marius made a calming hand gesture. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Depends. You have been to Ayumir before, have you not?”

“I have.”

“Have you ever been to the royal court or have you had business with the royal guard at Ayumir?”

“No? I only went there to visit the city, took a trip into the mines too, the upper levels are a tourist attract...”

“Yes, I know that. So, you are not generally known there, I conclude.”

“Not that I know.”

“Good. Then I want you to go there and provide reconnaissance.”

“Reconnaissance? For what?”

“Regarding a possibly new trading partner! Unrest among the people, anything that could help us figure out what is going on.”

“Hm. Free vacation.”

“Solaria help me…”, Elsurion whispered and rolled his eyes once again. Elsurion trusted Marius with his life, but by Solaria the king wished he would take things more seriously. “Be on your way Marius. Go and see what you can find out. Something is fishy here, I know it.”

Marius, turning serious at last, bowed. “I will be on my way shortly Elsurion.”

With that, Marius left. Elsurion walked over to the window and let his eyes dwell in the clear, blue sky. His thoughts wandered to Sarenya. Why had she not yet reported back yet?