Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1 - Chapter 55: Chapter 55

Eril's official funeral was a sorry affair for a man of his status. With the ceremony forced inside by the dark, only a handful of people could fit into the chapel to pay their respects, and a traditional open pyre was out of the question at this time of year. Instead, his cremation was overseen by the heads of the Houses, the leaders of the city guilds, and a small number of senior priests. The corridors outside were lined with the house's acolytes and lower-ranking clergy. Harkenn himself was present, but only Nova accompanied him, and she had been consigned to the back of the chapel to keep an eye on the baron Ethred.
Eril lay at the front of the chapel under of a cloth-of-gold funeral shroud. The huge bejewelled star which usually sat in the foyer of the temple had been moved into the chapel for the ceremony, and broad wax candles burned in the alcoves lining the walls. The pews were filled with attendees dressed in black and gold, all except for Yddris, who stood near the door in unbroken black. The Unspoken had slipped inside at the last moment. One minute he hadn't been there, and the next minute Nova had happened to glance that way, he had materialised there like a shadow.
Nova hated funerals almost as much as Yddris seemed to. It was only her supervising guard that prevented her from clinging to the corners of the room in the same way; if the demon hunter took just one step to the right, he'd be outside.
Orthanian funerals were famously long-winded, and the officiator was still deep in conversation with a couple of other priests, showing no sign of starting any time soon. The atmosphere was odd. It didn't feel like somebody had died, only that something tiresome and solemn had to be dealt with, like taxes or rationing.
She hated it. Caelumese funerals were gorgeous affairs, overflowing with light and flowers and gratitude for their time with the deceased. She had only ever been to one as a young child for her own father, but even that didn't tarnish the memory. It was a celebration as much as a send-off; not a grim administrative task.
She knew she wasn't being fair; when the dark season lifted there would be a festival in Eril's honour, but she was tired from nights of examining evidence and enduring Jeorge's endless rambling, and it was the last place in the world she wanted to be.
Her lip curled at the thought of Jeorge, even though she had determined before she left the castle that she would make the most of the opportunity not to think about him. His answers to Harkenn's questions had seemed to satisfy the lord enough to allow him some measure of freedom, to her displeasure. His infected leg had become worse since Nova had last seen him, but he wasn't of high enough status to receive a bed and the attention of the castle physician; he had a makeshift cot in the kitchen which he could barely move from, and he had been using the chance to drive Nova insane. It was only a small comfort that Grace found him just as annoying - when she was there, that was. To make things all worse Grace wasn't there very often. Whatever task Kerrin had given her kept her away for most of the day, and when she did come back they couldn't speak freely because Nerahardt was always watching them.
She ground her teeth and pulled her attention back to what she was supposed to be doing; watching Ethred. She wasn't privy to a lot of the city meetings Harkenn had held to try and contain the spread of fear at the death, but she got the distinct impression Ethred hadn't been helping matters.
The baron sat in the front pew. He hadn't repeated his blasphemous fashion faux pas from the night Eril was discovered, but he was wearing more gold than black and even from behind looked impatient for proceedings to be over. As she watched, he got up from the pew and sidled up to the officiator, murmured something in his ear, and turned around to go back to his seat. He caught Nova watching him and nodded. His aura mocked her with its mirth, and only she could see it.
The officiating priest moved to the dais. The low murmur of conversation in the chapel ceased as he cleared his throat and began to recite the scripture by heart. Behind him, two other priests walked slowly to the back of the chapel, where thick, floor-to-ceiling curtains hung. They stood on either side of the curtains and laid their hands one over the other in front of them; the indoor pyre was behind, a contraption built into the stone and fed by acolytes shovelling coal at the back wall of the chapel, and a steady stream of air from outside fed through a flue system in the wall. The curtain moved gently in the air flow, dragging along the ground.
The priest recited in monotone. Nova was familiar with the Orthanian scripture, had heard it enough times over the years; Faellian seemed to get a kick out of bringing her to every funeral he attended, knowing that the weight of grief and sadness in the atmosphere brought her low for days afterwards. She felt it now, a burden on her shoulders, a blue gloom setting in over her thoughts. She wished Jeorge's leg was well enough for him to walk, purely so that he could have suffered with her.
Ethred was infuriatingly well-behaved, even though she watched for even the smallest transgression. Something to liven the boredom if nothing else. But as the priest went on – and on – Ethred listened with almost caricatured raptness, as if he'd never heard anything so gripping in his life. Her attention wandered to the pale stone walls and the flickering candles, and the brewers' guildmaster in the third row who wouldn't stop coughing, and the Orthanian priest on the side-lines who kept picking his nose. She found herself watching Yddris, too, whom by her third glance was standing in the doorway, barely in the room at all.
She couldn't shake the feeling that the baron was mocking her, and she was grudgingly impressed that he could keep up the charade at all. Her previous experience with the baron, long and unpleasant as it was, had left her with the impression that the man barely had the attention span for buckling his belt without getting distracted.
"Lord Orthan, who art watching over this humble gathering," the officiator droned, and Nova suppressed an almost hysterical urge to laugh at the idea that anything about the Orthanians was modest, "protect us from sin and from the terror in the night, and help this bless'd soul upon his pilgrimage to your embrace. May the light shine on him."
"May the light shine," the gathering repeated.
The priests ranged along each side of the chapel stepped forwards as one at a gesture from the speaker, and took places at each corner of the coffin. The officiator went to open the curtains just wide enough to allow it through. She thought she saw glowing embers in the gap before the coffin concealed her view and the curtains were drawn shut. One of the bearers vanished behind them, and then followed the dull clank of the tunnel wall sealing shut.
The gathering sat in silence for a long while. Someone cleared their throat, another sniffed. The curtains stopped moving.
Lord Harkenn led the exit; he was the first to stand up and make his way down the aisle, stopping to collect her. Though his face was a mask of composure and respect, his eyes flashed as he accepted her chain from the guard, a warning that she'd better have been paying attention like he'd told her. Over the lord's shoulder, Ethred winked before sweeping out. Yddris had vanished.
She had been expecting it, but it still gave her a start to steer away from the temple doors and into the main hall, all the way to the end where the curtain – all curtains, she thought – concealed the passageway leading to Eril's private office. The lord led her in silence, her guard tailing them. Yddris waited inside as if he'd been there the whole time.
The room held the eerie quality of still being occupied, it was so clean. Nothing had been moved, and there was no astral signature of pain or fear, which meant the late head of House Orthan hadn't come here at all on the night he was killed. It was as if he'd just walked out to get a breath of fresh air and would be back at any moment.
"Anything immediately obvious?" Faellian asked, glancing over his shoulder and gesturing for the guard to close the door. Ethred had not been told about this part of the investigation.
"No, sir," Yddris said, "I don't believe he had been here in a while."
Faellian threw a look Nova's way, and she nodded her agreement.
"Search it anyway," the lord said, "there's always a chance..."
He trailed off and scanned the room with a faint frown. Nova realised he was uncertain, and it was understandable but unexpected. The lord was the kind of bullheaded leader who was right even when he was wrong, and uncertainty didn't wear well on him.
Yddris started opening desk drawers. Faellian thrust Nova's chain at her and gestured for her to join in. The Unspoken's aura was also uncharacteristically jittery.
She tried one of the drawers and found it locked. Without a word, Yddris leaned over and produced a thin blade from his sleeve. He twiddled it in the lock for a few seconds until it clicked, and then he drew it open.
"Oh, fuck me," he muttered. He pulled out a dark glass bottle, pulled the cork and sniffed it. "Demonfire."
"Do tell me you're joking," Faellian snapped, stalking forward with his hand out for the bottle. Yddris surrendered as if eager to be rid of it. The lord took one sniff and cursed in what Nova thought was about five different languages.
"There's documents, too," Yddris said. Nova picked them up and scanned them, sensing the reluctance in Yddris's aura.
"They're account summaries," she said, but before she could get further Harkenn snatched them from her hand.
"I should have known." His voice went strangely flat. "Night take the conniving sod."
"Is something the matter?" Ethred's voice made them all stop. He stood in the doorway to the office. Though his face was the picture of surprise, Nova could tell instantly that he had been expecting them.
"A great many things," Faellian said tartly, shaking off his surprise. "Starting with the illegal demonfire production chain this temple has been funding."
Ethred blinked. "I don't know what you mean."
He did. Nova narrowed her eyes. "He's lying, my lord."
"He'd better stop before he finds himself in my cells," Faellian ground out between his teeth. "And by proxy loses his right to the Orthanian seat."
Ethred's face darkened. "And you would take her word for it? Tell me, my lord, where was she at the time Eril was killed?"
"In the dungeons, speaking to the Angel whose presence this temple didn't declare, on my orders," Faellian snapped. "And this line of questioning will only embarrass you. She is watched at all times."
"She has no obvious motive to harm Lord Eril, at any rate," Yddris added.
"Ah, but her people might," Ethred replied, "Disturb the civil order, get in through the cracks. How do you know she's not in contact with anyone?"
"Oh, please."
"You don't know everything, I'm afraid, Faellian," Ethred said. Nova wanted to punch the smug look off his face. "Have you asked her about her involvement with the otherworld girl yet?"
Bastard.
From behind, she saw Faellian stiffen.
"Don't allow the years she's spent with you make you complacent," Ethred said, in a tone of faux concern. "She is Lucifer's niece, after all."
She bit her tongue against the barrage of abuse she wanted to inflict on him and waited for Harkenn to respond. A small part of her whispered 'I told you so', and it was right – she had known this would come one day. She cursed herself for almost believing that it wouldn't.
"I'll bear it in mind," Faellian finally said, voice frigid. "In the meantime, you'll allow us to continue this investigation unhindered and cease pretending that I'm stupid."
Yddris had already returned to searching the drawers. Using his knife he had picked the lock of another one which contained only more papers and a well-thumbed copy of Orthanian scripture. The demon hunter got down on his hands and knees and peered under the desk, which seemed a strange enough thing to do to stop the lord and the baron posturing at each other. Yddris reached under the table and withdrew a knife, and then stared at it as if he couldn't believe what he was looking at.
The knife was bloody. It was old, dried blood, but recognisable as such. Nova thought she'd seen a dagger like it in one of the display cases in the temple hall; silver and steel, ornately carved, and the distinctive shape of a Caelumese blade.
Everyone's eyes had turned to her.
Ethred grinned like his nameday had come early.
Nova stared at the blade and frowned. There was no astral trace on it. There were only a few instances where blood contained no clues that she could find as to whose it might have been. One of them was age, and other was...
"Animal," she said. "That's animal blood." She glared at Ethred in a challenge, and the baron certainly seemed to have lost some of his smugness. "You can ask Nerahardt to confirm it if you wish, my lord, but if any human had been killed with that blade as recently as Eril's death I would still be able to sense it."
"Yddris?" Faellian growled.
"I'm not as attuned as Anarabelle, my lord," Yddris said. He peered at the blood up close. "But if this was human, she's right, it was much too long ago to have been Eril's."
Despite Yddris's concurrence, Nova didn't like the look in Faellian's eye when he glanced at her. Suspicious as he might be of Ethred, his hatred of the Caelumese won out every time. They both knew he had become complacent – though she was never going to be the one to say it – but if she ever got the opportunity to smother him in his sleep, she would only ever be doing it for herself. Her uncle could serve as a Firebull's chew toy for all she cared.
Not that she thought she had the remotest chance of convincing anyone, despite the overwhelming evidence.
They found nothing else suspicious in Eril's quarters aside from some damning evidence that the temple had been avoiding more taxes than Faellian had thought; no clues whatsoever about his death. Everything was disturbingly normal, and they found nothing to suggest Eril feared someone or had seen his death coming. They left Ethred more sullen and evasive than usual. Even so, something had shifted; Faellian handed her back to her guard the minute they exited the room, and barely glanced at her on the long ride back to the castle. Anticipation burned like a hot coal in her gut; if he didn't suspect her in Eril's case, this was about Grace, and things were about to get miserable.
He took her to the kitchens himself, with Yddris trailing a short distance behind them. Nova was grateful for his presence, though it wouldn't stop what was coming.
Jeorge sat bolt upright in his cot when he saw who entered. His leg was heavily bandaged and he winced at every small movement, but that didn't stop him trying to get as far from the lord as the cot allowed. Staff all around the kitchen froze with expressions in varying shades of surprise, before returning hurriedly to work. Grace wasn't back yet from wherever she went during the day, and Nova supposed that was one small mercy.
"Look at this," Faellian said. He gestured, and Yddris held out the knife they'd found in the temple, which he'd wrapped in a handkerchief to preserve the evidence. With a wary look at the demon hunter, Jeorge took it.
"It's Caelumese," the Angel muttered, and frowned. "Did you need me to tell you that, my lord?"
"No," Faellian snapped. "You blithering twit. Look at the blood."
Jeorge looked again. "Calf's blood."
"You can tell that?" Yddris asked, sounding grudgingly impressed.
"Don't compliment him," Nova muttered, and then darted a furtive glance at Faellian, but the lord was pretending she wasn't there.
"It was one of my stronger suits at the academy," Jeorge said. "All medical scholars are required to engage with the astral study of, ah...entrails. For identifying the dead, you understand."
Faellian cocked his head, nose wrinkling. "And your people call us barbarians when you read guts to identify corpses?"
"It's an art," Jeorge said, sniffing, but had the good sense not to contradict the lord outright.
"It's starting to seem like it was planted evidence, my lord," Yddris said. "If I'm not being too forward in the suggestion."
"No," Harkenn muttered. "I appreciate honesty." He glared pointedly at Nova and then barked at Jeorge, "What do you know of the otherworld girl?"
"Almost nothing," Jeorge said frankly. "She is very rarely here, my lord."
Nova scrambled to cover her surprise. Jeorge knew she and Grace were closer than they were supposed to be, and their attempts to hide it in front of him were just a point of principle. He knew, because he could read it in Grace's aura if not in Nova's. The otherworld girl was damnably obvious.
"You know that slaves are forbidden from over-involvement with staff," Faellian continued, undeterred. "Have you seen evidence of any such involvement?"
"I have not, my lord."
"Do not lie to me." Nova was relieved to see doubt threading through the lord's aura. His only means of detecting a lie was under scrutiny, and that would work in her favour.
"I'm keener to save my skin than that, sir," Jeorge said.
Faellian looked far from happy, but couldn't force the point. He turned his glower on her. "If I catch you so much as looking at her in the wrong way, the punishment will be severe," he said. "And Yddris's apprentice is going to make the same thing crystal clear to his sister, is he not, Yddris?"
"If you wish, sir," Yddris replied unhappily.
"I will call for you later this evening," Faellian snapped at her, tying her chain in a knot around the iron peg in the kitchen wall the maids used to hang spare laundry lines. He never tied her up down here; he was angry. She knew it was partly Ethred's fault, but her stomach rolled all the same.
"Sounds like you're in a spot of trouble," Jeorge said, once Yddris and the lord had left.
"Shut up."
"Thank you also works."
She glared at him. "We're even. I still have enough slack in this chain to strangle you with, and it's not like you can get away. So shut. Up."
She turned resolutely away from him, and watched as her once-banished loneliness came rumbling back into view with open arms.