Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1 - Chapter 18: Chapter 18

"I really am sorry," Koen said, for the hundredth time. "I didn't think..."
"I've already said it's fine," Jordan muttered. He was feeling wretched enough, and Koen wouldn't shut up. "Please, can we just forget it?"
Koen's silence made it apparent that he wasn't going to do that, but he at least stopped talking. Jordan bent his head over his knees to massage his throbbing temples, jammed in as he was with two Unspoken on the back of Killian's cart. Hap had taken the space up on the box. Nika perched delicately on a crate reading a book opposite Jordan and Koen, who were wedged together between two sizeable crates of cabbage and a barrel of mead. Every now and then Jordan thought Nika was watching him, but he had no way of confirming his suspicions.
"Are you alright?" Nika said, speaking suddenly for the first time since he had found Jordan in the alley, a thought that still brought blood to Jordan's cheeks. It was bad enough that Arlen had found him like that. It was bad enough that Jordan had almost been found with Arlen. He didn't know anything about the man, but had long since gathered that he was unsavoury company.
"Yeah," Jordan muttered, dropping his hands. "Fine."
He jumped as the cart rattled onto the bridge, and then sighed in relief when he realised how close they were to the inn. He could leave the Unspoken in the taproom and vanish upstairs. Maybe Laurel would join him, or maybe he would just bar the door and not come out for another week. Both options sounded appealing.
That plan was quickly shattered. The door to the inn opened as they pulled up outside it and a fourth figure in a cloak stepped out.
"Of course you're here," Jordan mumbled, hopping down off the cart and having to catch his balance on the edge. "Of course."
Yddris ignored him. "Where'd you find him?"
"Down a nondescript alley in the shambles talking to strangers." Nika stepped off the cart with much more grace than Jordan. His voice was icy. "I believe they're ones you're acquainted with."
"Arlen bothering you again, boy?" Yddris said, finally acknowledging Jordan's presence. "You look like shit, by the way."
"It was a coincidence," Jordan said, apprehensive. He hadn't thought Nika had known; he also didn't want his only thread of hope for a way home to be severed. It wasn't that he was unaware that Arlen could be lying. But if he really did have a way...it was worth the risk, surely? "How the hell did you know who it was, anyway?" He paused. "How'd you know I even left them?"
"I sent a runner to the castle when we didn't find you immediately," Hap said. "And while Nika and Koen went out looking for you in the quarter, Yddris came to the inn in case you made it back here on your own. As for how we knew who it was, we didn't. Yddris, however, did know that this Arlen person had bothered you before and was worried that he'd located you a second time when no one was there to intervene."
"Intervene in what, exactly?" Jordan muttered. "He only talked to me."
"That mark on his head," Yddris said, "is the mark of a Hooded Devil. You see that mark, you run as fast and as far as you can. The Devils are an assassins' guild. They also dabble in thievery, conmanship and bodysnatching. It's unlikely that it was any kind of coincidence that Arlen was in the same place you were, and it's naïve to think he would bat an eyelid before killing you if he thought he needed to."
"How am I supposed to know this stuff?" Jordan snapped, on the verge of yelling. Yddris's calmness was infuriating. "I don't know bugger-all about any of you, either, and I'm supposed to believe everything you say." He turned away. "You couldn't even tell me to my face how likely it is that I'm gonna get lumped with this stupid Gift you keep going on about."
"That's because there's no guarantee..."
"Bollocks to your guarantees," Jordan said, and to his horror his vision clouded with tears. He blinked them away furiously. "It's going to happen and you knew it the whole time."
Yddris sighed. "Not at first, actually. But you climbed off that cart practically steaming so I suppose I can admit that it seems more than probable at this stage."
"The dark mood certainly fits," Kedrick said from the inn door, wiping his hands on a rag. Jordan started; he hadn't seen the man arrive. "Never thought I'd hear you shouting like that, boy, didn't think you had it in you. You coming inside, gentlemen?"
"Aye," Yddris called, "Just a second, Ked."
Kedrick disappeared back inside, and Hap and Koen soon followed him with their heads together in low conversation. Jordan tensed, tempted to run inside himself. Nika and Yddris stood either side of him, pointedly looking away from each other, and the static magic in the air was growing increasingly uncomfortable.
"I heard you're staying for the season," Yddris said. His voice was flat.
Nika's response was equally emotionless. "I am, yes."
Jordan slid himself back onto the wagon bed in an effort to get out from between them, but Yddris stopped him with a look. "I'm not finished with you, boy."
Jordan stopped and sat still, ashamed of himself already for his outburst. He had known Arlen was probably trouble; no one with good intentions threatened someone with a knife the first time they met them. He looked up at the darkening sky. No blinding light appeared there, no portal. It probably never would. The tears rose again with a vengeance as he moved his gaze downward and settled on the hulking silhouette of the castle on the other side of the river.
He jumped as the wagon rocked underneath him. Yddris settled beside him, staring across the river too. Nika had gone when Jordan turned to check.
"You, um...don't get on, then?" Jordan asked.
"That's one way of putting it," Yddris muttered. "You got a headache?"
"I've had one all day." Jordan swallows. "It gets worse when I'm around one of...I mean..."
"Magic?"
"Mhm."
"I didn't tell you outright because I thought it was so improbable that someone non-native to Nictaven would manifest a Gift," Yddris said. "I knew you wouldn't panic like a Nictavian would because you wouldn't know what it meant anyway. I brought you here because I thought that perhaps you would manifest some strange otherworld version of a Gift, but you've followed the pattern exactly."
Jordan frowned. "Was it anything to do with Arlen?"
"No. He knows where this is. If he wanted to get to you here, it's been well within his means to do so and he's chosen not to."
"Why does he keep talking to me?"
"I don't know." Yddris shrugged. "But not knowing is worse than knowing when it comes to the Devils. Steer clear of him. I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you that whatever he's offering you won't be worth the price." The Unspoken got up and jumped down from the cart. "Come in and get some food. I wasn't kidding when I said you looked like shit."
Jordan nodded, feelings mixed but oddly soothed. His headache was finally beginning to fade. He even mustered the energy to give Yddris a smirk as he got down off the wagon.
"I think that's the longest unbroken conversation I've ever managed to get from you."
"Get inside, you little shit, before I throw you."
Jordan chuckled, mood brightening further when he found Laurel waiting for him with a tankard of ale and some food at a nearby table. Koen had joined her, and Nika sat a few seats down in the corner, unmoving. Yddris took a sharp turn towards the bar and joined Hap and Kedrick instead.
"How are you feeling?" Laurel asked, before Jordan even sat down. He met her eye over his ale and looked down again, cheeks heating. Koen snorted into his beer.
"Alright," Jordan grunted, glaring at the Unspoken. Koen pretended not to see it.
"Oh, I forgot to get you some bread. Back in a second," Laurel said, jumping up and scampering off before Jordan could say he wasn't that hungry.
"Hey, Koen," Jordan said, pushing some vegetables around his plate. "What's that over there?"
He pointed to a far corner of the inn, and when Koen turned to look, Jordan leaned over and dropped broccoli in his drink.
-
The inn was silent and all the lights were out when Jordan woke with a start. His dreams, which had been lurid and feverish but which he had already forgotten, left him with chills. His sheets were sodden with night sweats.
He sat up, running his fingers through his damp hair and trying to remember what it was that had woken him up. Koen was snoring lightly on the bed against the wall, still in his cloak with the hood pulled up. Even at night the Unspoken didn't remove them.
Outside in the dark something howled. Jordan looked to the window, heart pounding, but the night was absolute. He strained his ears but didn't hear the howling again.
He lay back down, waited a moment, and then got up with a sigh to strip off his wet shirt. The room was cold, but it proved soothing to his still-burning skin. A draught was coming up through the floorboards, and the windowpane was ice cold against his fingers as he went to look out into the street. He could only see the faintest glimmer off the surface of the Aven. The rest of it was gaping blackness. When he blinked the ghosts of his dream flashed behind his eyelids and made his heart pound, even though they were indistinct.
Shuddering, he glanced back at Koen and then picked up their candle which had been sitting on the window ledge, holding it ahead of him to find his way to the door and slip out onto the landing. His shoes were sitting by the frame outside and he slid them on before tiptoeing to the top of the stairs. As he passed Yddris's door he slowed. A shadow passed over the chink of light under the door and he held his breath for a moment.
"...and what did you suppose I would do then?" Nika's voice hissed from inside.
"Night take me, Nika, I don't know," Yddris said. He sounded tired. "I wasn't thinking, was I?"
"Clearly not."
Jordan cringed and tore himself from the door before either Unspoken twigged that he was standing outside. Whatever argument they had had, he didn't want to be caught in the middle of it. He didn't want to be caught in the middle of anything with Nika. The man was terrifying and Jordan didn't even know why.
He hurried down the stairs, urged on by his bladder and a desire to avoid putting himself in the way of Koen getting revenge for the broccoli stunt earlier in the day. The privy was a pot in the courtyard, and while the chill in his bedroom had been a shock, it was nothing compared to the icy blast that hit him as he opened the back door. He sighed in relief as it swept over him, easing the prickling on the surface of his skin. Goose-bumps erupted over his arms and his extremities went instantly numb. It was probably a bad idea to be out in it fever or no fever, he thought, but the alternative was pissing in the chamber pot while Koen was sharing a room with him. Koen didn't seem like the type to wreak revenge half-heartedly, and Jordan had had enough experience with his head shoved in the toilet in his school days to avoid tempting fate.
The wind had put out his candle immediately, but there was just enough light from another candle in the casement overhanging the courtyard for him to find the pot by the reflection on the ceramic. He left the inn door open behind him in case he had trouble finding it again and went to relieve himself, and prayed that nobody noticed the inn getting cooler. The wind against the sweat on his skin was now cold to the point of pain, and as it whistled through the gaps in the courtyard fence, he almost missed the faint noise from the other side of it. He turned to look over his shoulder, but dismissed it as one of those night-time city noises when he didn't see anything. He tried not to think of the city he was in, but failed and was almost too paralysed by a sudden paranoid terror to do his trousers back up.
The second growl was louder and more convincing.
The Listener from the island flashed in Jordan's mind and he scrambled for the door, slamming it shut behind him and standing for a moment in the dark taproom trying to calm his pounding heart.
Something threw itself against the door. Jordan let out a hoarse scream and ran in the direction he thought led to the stairs, only to hit a stone wall. He grunted and then groaned as his forehead smacked against a brick. The phantom pain of his last encounter with the inn's stone walls and floor erupted into violent life, turning his vision scarlet. He turned blindly when he heard footsteps, panic rising when he realised he still couldn't see.
"I can't see!" he cried, as someone grabbed his shoulder and held on to him. Something was snarling nearby in the red darkness. Someone else was barking instructions. "I'm blind!"
"There's just blood in your eyes," Nika's voice said from beside him. "You're not blind. Calm down, Jordan."
"Blood?"
"You did hit the wall very hard."
"What's there? What is it?"
"It's a Bone Wight."
"A what?"
"Yddris is dealing with it. There's nothing to worry about."
"I'm still worried! Why wouldn't I be worried about something called a Bone Wight?"
"Jordan, please."
He cowered as something crashed nearby, followed by the sound of splintering wood. He was suddenly aware that Nika's hands on his bare shoulders were warm – too warm, hot in fact. He used the back of his hand to try and wipe some of the blood from his eyes, and a gap cleared in his vision for long enough to see that the whole taproom was bathed in green light. In the centre of the room stood a figure brandishing a weapon that seemed to be made entirely of luminescent green glass, and opposite them was the demon. Jordan swallowed another scream, and when he next blinked his vision went dark again.
"What were you doing in the courtyard anyway?" the Unspoken demanded, still sounding too calm and still standing too close. A thin whine set up in Jordan's ears, joining in with the pounding of his heart. "You can't leave shelter at night; this is what happens if you do."
"Peeing," he gasped. A bead of sweat rolled down his face and fell, hitting his chest. "Also, nobody thought to mention that rule to me before I...you know...broke it?" He swallowed, and it felt thick in his throat. The heat rocketing through his body was searing. "Christ, I think I'm gonna pass out."
"Sit down," Nika said, taking forceful hold of him again. Jordan's struggle was feeble, and he allowed himself to be lowered to the floor. His head felt like it was sitting in a bubble.
The next moments passed by him as if in a dream.
Something screeched. Yddris's voice called Nika's name and the man left Jordan's side, though Jordan didn't see where he went. Something cold and hard and stinking of leaf mould brushed against his face. Something hot and slimy pooled on the leg of his trousers. There was a voice, and screaming. Fuzzy shapes moved in what was left of his field of vision.
Heat pooled in his stomach. He was blearily aware that something was pinning his legs to the ground.
Demon.
Something whispered it to him – or perhaps it was a thought; one of the few that actually made sense. The rest was a neon scramble of words and images that didn't follow each other.
"Jordan!"
He jolted. A girl's voice – was it Grace's? Was he home?
He opened his eyes. The thing staring back at him wasn't Grace.
Acid yellow eyes peered at him through the gaping sockets of a deer skull, blinking wetly with translucent vertical lids. Jordan's heart stopped as the clawed grip on his legs tightened and another string of drool fell into his lap.
"Jordan!" Laurel screamed again.
Jordan screamed too. He thrust his hands out ahead of him out of instinct, and the heat in his body tightened to point of pain before spilling from his palms in a torrent of emerald flames.