Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1 - Chapter 47: Chapter 47

The Hallow Festival was a welcome reprieve from the monotony of normal life in Harkenn's household; a break in the cycling days of sleeping in her cage or on the kitchen floor, sitting in the lord's study until she was so bored she could weep, beatings and insults sprinkled liberally through the hours, day after day.
The traditional Hallow dinner –which included all the heads of the Houses and their prominent clergy, the guildmasters, and the richest merchants for miles in every direction – always brought her to the point of begging to get it back.
The extravagant ballroom, which was only used twice a year, was filled with long tables seating the glittering upper echelons of society. The heads of the Houses shared the high table with Faellian. The Varthians took up one table by themselves, their sheer size effectively halving the number of people the enormous table could accommodate. Servants ran back and forth along the rows, replacing empty pitchers of wine and mead and removing empty platters. The vaulted ceiling above, with its polished gold ribbing and cream-coloured stone, reflected the light of the chandelier back into the room, banishing the dark for one last night.
Nova tugged at the tight fabric of her outfit, which was stuck to her skin with sweat. She had danced on every table tonight, on some more than once, and she was exhausted. Her spine and shoulders ached and her joints protested from pulling moves and poses they weren't up to anymore. Her skin still crawled from the stares. She was glad to be behind the high table now, out of sight of everyone, even if she was chained to the floor.
The worst had been from Grace. Despite the sea of eyes on her at all times, Grace had managed to make Nova acutely aware of her no matter where they each were in the room. On the few glimpses she'd got, Nova had found Grace frowning. The room was too crowded to read her aura properly without standing beside her, so at first Nova hadn't been sure what to make of it; then Grace had demonstrated a surprising talent for interrupting guests with drinks or food at the exact moment they were about to make a grab for Nova's leg or backside.
She couldn't see much of the hall through the gap under the table, but it sounded as if the dinner was going on much as it had been, with no sign of ending any time soon.
To her disappointment, the baron Ethred hadn't been forced to sit at one of the long tables, instead allowed a seat on the far end of the high table. Every now and then Nova caught him staring at her, a sinister glint in his eye. He was insufferably smug about something, and the fact that she didn't have the first clue why made her nervous.
She picked at another bit of the stale bread she'd been given. She didn't know how many days old it was, but it tasted like it was on the cusp of going mouldy. It certainly hadn't been baked that day, so she supposed Faellian had foreseen Lady Kerrin's insistence on Nova eating and brought some scraps with him. When she still lived in Caelum, she would never have imagined she could hate someone as much as she did Faellian. Sometimes he left her alone long enough to almost forget the extent of her hatred, but he always reminded her eventually; with the chaos of the portal, the Unspoken death and the early arrival of the dark season, the lord hadn't had time to make her life more miserable. He had more often banished her to the kitchens to be out from under his feet, but tonight, when she couldn't get away from him, had brought it all rushing back.
She was chained to an iron ring in the floor behind Faellian's chair, so she could only see the backs of the heads of house sitting in front of her. Eril had been unusually quiet, and had barely touched his drink. Usually at this stage in the evening he was two bottles deep and roaring drunk.
"Drink up, Eril," Faellian drawled, seeming to notice at the same time. He sprawled in his chair, already inebriated himself. Nova curled her lip. "Why so miserable? Going to be plenty of misery going around as it is these next few months."
From what Nova could see of the Orthanian head's face, he looked he had already received a fair share of misery. His usual pompous air was gone. He just looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.
Nova straightened. The head's aura was filled with guilt. Anger. Fear. She cocked her head. Next to Eril, Ethred was smiling.
"I'm fine, my Lord," Eril said, and took up his glass. Nova didn't think he drank any of it when he lifted it to his lips, but Faellian didn't notice.
"Good man," he said. As soon as his attention was diverted, Eril put down the glass.
Nova sat back on her heels, thinking. It was possible that someone was trying to kill Eril; assassination attempts were far from unheard of, and the baron Ethred – who would get the house seat in the event of Eril's death and who had been throwing his weight around recently – had been acting strangely all night. Or perhaps it was just a manifestation of her exhaustion; dreaming up mad theories and wishing to see the whole lot of them march into the mountains and not come back. Ethred deserved prison, but Eril lacking an appetite was hardly anything to get excited about. It was more likely that the baron thought he had a good chance of cornering her after the dinner to make her life difficult.
She wouldn't make it easy for him. A night in her cage was worth a good chance at breaking Ethred's nose.
Though she watched both the Orthanians out of the corner of her eye, nothing else happened. Eril engaged in conversation with Ula, the head of Varthi, and Ethred eventually got bored of smiling mysteriously and got up to talk to some friends on one of the tables. She finished off her bread and tried to find a comfortable position to spend the next few hours in.
She'd forgotten that there was dancing in the last part of the evening, just before everyone parted ways. She supposed she blocked it out of her memory for the rest of the year, like she did with so many things. But as always, the staff had cleared plates and glasses as quickly as possible once everyone had finished eating, early enough that the dance wouldn't leave everyone rolling around with cramps before the first song ended. The guests got up and began to drift and mingle, and then stable hands and household guards entered to move the tables to the sides of the hall. A string quartet had been playing quietly in the corner all through dinner, barely heard over the chatter, but they'd been joined by the rest of an entire orchestra and several Varthian drum-beaters.
There would be five dances, one for each house, excluding Nict, which did not dance. Nova couldn't recall exactly why, but supposed it had something to do with being a small sect of crumbly old men obsessed with death.
"My lady?" Faellian said, standing up and sweeping into a bow before Kerrin. He was remarkably steady despite the alcohol.
She accepted his hand with a delicate smile. A space opened up in the middle of the hall, and Faellian led Kerrin down the dais steps by the hand, into the middle of the floor. They both bowed to their audience, and then the orchestra took up the tune of a popular Kelian hymn which Nova had never learned the words to. The high table had been moved out of the way, leaving her exposed on the dais platform, but no one had eyes for her. They never did, and she didn't blame them; the lord danced well, and both partners were striking. Slowly, couples from the surrounding crowd stepped into the circle and joined them in the dance.
"Nova." Grace had sneaked up to the dais. She wasn't stupid enough to climb the steps and sit with her where everyone could see, but she was as close as she could get. "Are you still hungry?"
Nova glanced across the hall. Most of the room was dancing. Ethred spiralled past with Medra of the Heretical Orders on his arm, eyes boring into her until he moved away.
"I'm always hungry," she said.
Grace also glanced around the room, and then threw something towards her. It landed next to her hand; a small sweet bun they had served for dessert at the tables, studded with spiced fruits and crusted with sugar. As Nova snatched it up and put it in her mouth, the sweet cream filling burst over her tongue, and for a moment she forgot where she was.
"Thank you," she said sincerely, when no one yelled at her to spit it out. It had gone unnoticed.
"Do you think he'll let you stay in the kitchens tonight?" Grace asked. She had a smudge of sugar on her face.
"I don't know," Nova said. "It depends how drunk he gets."
They both looked over at Faellian, whose monstrous height still made him immediately obvious despite the number of people in the room. He didn't look all that drunk. He was now dancing with one of the rich merchants' wives in attendance. Just across the hall from them, the head of Varthi, Ula, was dancing with Eril. The Orthanian looked sufficiently distracted from his earlier misery, dancing with a woman twice his height; as the crowd cleared just for a moment, Nova saw that his feet weren't touching the floor.
Grace had followed her gaze. She snorted.
"Oh, no," she murmured, trying to stifle giggles, "She's just carrying him around, isn't she?"
"Yes." Something rose in her throat, and then she laughed. She clapped a hand over her mouth. No one could see her laughing; Faellian would instantly be onto them, and she'd never be allowed in the kitchens again.
Grace pressed her lips together to stifle her own laughter. "How come there aren't any Unspoken here tonight?"
"They never come," Nova said. "They can't be spared in the dark season."
"Yddris is up here all the time."
"Yddris would throw himself off the ramparts before he was ever caught dancing."
"Oh." Her face fell. Nova squashed a pang of jealousy, even though it was totally irrational that she could expect herself to take priority over Jordan. Then she realised what she had just thought and glanced over at Grace, face heating. It felt like a deep pit had opened up beneath her, ready to swallow her whole.
She liked Grace. She usually didn't get past liking anyone, and that was always shortly before they did something to put her off them entirely. But she liked Grace, and the feeling wasn't going away. If anything, it was getting worse.
She cursed that night they had spent together on the kitchen floor, and in the same instant realised that it wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't.
When she next looked over, Grace had slipped away, and the baron Ethred was looming over her. His hand was outstretched.
"No," she said instinctively. "Absolutely not."
He grinned, the shadow of a threat in it. "Surely you wouldn't deny me the pleasure of one dance."
She looked past him, desperate. She saw Grace, who had escaped to a corner and was watching them closely, chewing on her fingernails. From the middle of the dance floor, Faellian's gaze promised pain if she refused.
Swallowing down revulsion, she took Ethred's hand. To anyone else it might have looked like he lifted her to her feet like she was a lady, but his grip was crushing. His hand was hard and calloused from years of holding a sword, with the strength to match it. She was sure he had been gifted his title for services in the Caelumese war. She wondered how many of her people he had killed. Did it please him, to see her broken like this?
She was making herself feel sick. Though her body ached from all the dancing she'd done already, she made herself stand straight and walk with purpose, as if the mere touch of the man beside her didn't make her want to vomit. He led her into the centre of the floor, perilously close to Faellian's watchful eye. She wouldn't get away with anything, and Ethred's smile said he knew it. Behind them, the orchestra struck up the song for the Orthanian dance, and Nova wondered just how many noble Orthanian ladies would gladly see her head roll to be in the position she was in now. Looking at some of the faces around her, seething with indignant rage, she wondered if anybody knew what a piece of lecherous scum he was. And him, in line to rule the most influential holy house in Nictaven. She could have laughed, if the urge to cry wasn't stronger.
She had no real role in the dance; she went where Ethred took her, spun when he bid her to, endured his hands on her hips as he lifted her and set her down again. When he spun her out of Lord Harkenn's earshot, he leaned in and said, "Enjoying yourself?"
"Immensely," Nova ground out, keeping her expression neutral for appearances. "My heart flutters with joy at the honour, my lord."
He narrowed his eyes. "Good." He leaned even closer, until she could smell the mead on his breath, "I'm going to have you, Anarabelle. One way or another."
She stumbled. He steadied her, flowing into another move so quickly it would only have looked like a mistimed step. She glared at him. "Is that a threat?"
"I didn't do you the discourtesy of pretending you were stupid, Anara, don't patronise me."
"Don't call me that."
He leaned. "Call you what? Anara?"
She shuddered. She was two steps from throwing him off and running out, night take the consequences.
"You're disgusting," she whispered.
"I'm ambitious." He patted her cheek condescendingly, and then looked over at Eril, who had escaped Ula and was sitting in the corner looking very unwell. "It was nice dancing with you."
She hadn't noticed the music stop. The dance had flown by, while still managing to feel agonisingly slow. No sooner had Ethred left her side, Faellian was there, his grip tight on her arm as he marched her back to the dais. She tripped on the last step and was forced to scramble after the lord on her hands and knees to stop him throttling her with her chain.
"What did he say to you?" Faellian hissed. He knelt to lock her chain to the floor.
Nova blinked. "What?"
She barely saw his hand move, but the next second a searing pain flashed over her cheek. "Just answer the question."
She contemplated how much to tell him. She didn't want to help him – she never did – but the alternative always managed to be worse. Ethred plotting his way onto the Orthanian seat would be a nightmare.
"He threatened me," she said quietly. Faellian pretended to be fumbling the bolt, but he wasn't at all inebriated, she realised; he'd been pretending as much as Eril was, he was just better at hiding it. "He said he would have me, one way or another. And that he was ambitious." She glanced past the lord's shoulder at Eril, who had gone yellowish and clutched an empty soup tureen in his lap.
Faellian threw the chain away without locking it. In an exaggerated act that everyone else was too drunk to see through, he exclaimed, "Night take me, what's the point? Brillan? Brillan!"
The house butler came hurrying up the edge of the hall, or as hurried as he ever was, materialising as if his arrival had been planned. It probably had.
"Get her out of here," Faellian mumbled, followed by a drunken swing towards the crowd, which had paused to watch the proceedings. "I thought we were dancing, ladies and gentlemen."
Laughter echoed around the dance floor, and the music started up again. Just like that, Nova was invisible to them all once again.
She was glad to get out of there; she'd never been allowed out of the dinner early. Brillan led her out at a brisk pace.
"The angel has requested to see you," the butler muttered.
Nova scowled. This night must have been cursed for her to spend it all in the presence of revolting men.
"His trial is in two days' time," Brillan continued, as if he hadn't noticed. "And his Lordship wishes to know what he has to say for himself ahead of time."
She suspected that most of what Jeorge had to say to her would never reach Faellian's ears, but she stayed silent. He probably just wanted to gloat to make himself feel better.
Jeorge, however, did not look inclined to gloat when they reached the dungeons. As Brillan led her up the passage towards his cell, his white-knuckled grip vanished from the bars so he could press his face to them. The whites of his eyes showed large in the gloom.
"I'll wait upstairs," Brillan said, casting Jeorge a disdainful look, before handing Nova's chain back to her and leaving. She contemplated following. She didn't want to talk to Jeorge anymore than she'd wanted to dance with Ethred.
Jeorge Nerahardt looked sick; his hair was matted with grease, his eyes and cheeks sunken. The feathers of his wings were tattered and clumped together with filth, and sores on his neck and wrists stained his skin rusty red. Before she could even start to feel pity for him, she reminded herself that she'd been in his position before, and that he had been the one to put her there. Her hand twitched, reaching for the stumps between her shoulder blades, and then quickly dropped before Jeorge saw. He seemed too distracted to notice.
"I need to talk to you," he said, a feverish glitter in his eye. A thick, cloying smell of rot was emanating from somewhere on him. She looked down; his ankle shackle had broken skin and become infected. Even Angel blood wouldn't heal an infection like that. He'd need to lose the leg just to get free of the shackle.
She rocked back on her heels, instantly cautious. This had every danger of just being the ramblings of a fever-mad prisoner.
"Talk, then."
"There's something coming," he said. "Something really bad. You need to get me through this trial alive."
She almost laughed. Only the pathetic state of him stopped her. "Why? You put me in this position ten years ago, and I had to save my own life. Why should I help you?"
"Because this is bigger than us, Anarabelle," Jeorge said, pressing his face into a gap in the bars. "Lucifer's coming. He's bringing a fucking army with him. He's going to take Shadow's Reach."
"He didn't manage it last time."
"He didn't have allies last time."
Nova narrowed her eyes. "What allies?"
"Orthan." Jeorge clutched the bars. "That mad crime lord who lives in the dead quarter. He sent one of his cronies to question me. Some bloke with a blind eye and a fucking great scar. I think they were testing if I would break."
"And did you?"
"I told them Lucifer sent me."
"And did he?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
"To try and figure out what the plan really is," he growled. "And I was doing a good job until you told that arsehole lord to arrest me. Eril didn't suspect a thing."
"I doubt Eril's in on it," Nova said, saying it as she realised it. She had a good idea who in Orthan was, though. "Eril's an obstacle." She scowled, "So remind me why that means I need to help you."
"Because you know damn well what will happen in that trial," Jeorge said hoarsely. "They'll find any reason to have me hanged or enslaved. Harkenn won't listen to me, he'll think I'm stirring things up on Lucifer's behalf to cause panic. But if...but if you said I was telling the truth...."
Nova cursed her ability to tell truth from lie in that moment; she so badly wanted Jeorge to be lying. But there was no hint of deceit in his aura, only desperation and pain.
"You couldn't care less about Shadow's Reach."
"Picture it," Jeorge said. "Unspoken start vanishing, pressured until they turn themselves in or get wiped out, all that knowledge we still need lost or turned on the people. The Orthanians running the Reach, all friendly with the city's most prolific crime lord, and Lucifer ruling over all of it, with the same regime we were trying so hard to end. It's everything we ever fought against, Anara, and it will happen if no one figures it out in time."
"Lucifer killed the Unspoken?" It would be just like her uncle to be so complacently short-sighted. The annexe was protected from demons by magic the Angels had long since lost, irreplaceable, not replicated anywhere else in Nictaven; if he didn't want to rule over a wasteland, he needed the Unspoken alive.
"He's paying for someone to do it, and that one won't be the last if the guild doesn't cave. There's no amount of money I wouldn't bet on the probability that he came up with the method, too. Anara," he reached through the bars, beseechingly, and she stepped out of his reach with a shudder, "you have to get me out."
"It would have been nice to see this kind of courage at my trial," she said coldly. She needed to think, and she couldn't look at him anymore. "I'll see you in the Assembly, Nerahardt."
"Anara, wait!"
She stalked back up the passage, head swimming and heart constricted.
She hoped Grace had saved her some more food.