Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1 - Chapter 74: Chapter 74

"Where are you going?" Grace hissed.
Jordan paused with his feet over the side of the bed, then sighed and rolled over to the other side. Grace's eyes glittered at him from her pallet on the floor.
"Piss," he said. "Have you slept at all?"
"Have you?" she shot back, sitting up. Her hair had grown past her shoulders in the time they'd spent in Nictaven. She looked gaunter, more adult than back then. The stare she levelled at him reminded him strongly of their mother, and the memory it sparked made him wince.
He dreaded to think what he looked like to her.
"Course not," he muttered. "Back in a minute."
He got out of bed. He should have been thrilled that Grace was staying with him until the castle repairs were done – something Harkenn had agreed to, he suspected, purely to shut him up – but all he felt was faint annoyance most days. He was glad she was safe, but he couldn't look her in the eye anymore, and she'd taken to snapping at him more often since he'd refused to tell her about his discussion with Harkenn. She also, he guessed, missed Nova more than she wanted to admit, and found the number of Unspoken in the house unsettling. He didn't blame her, exactly, but it was hard not to acknowledge the resentment smouldering in the pit of his stomach whenever she flinched at someone addressing her, or spent too long getting dressed with his bedroom door closed.
And it was also because she would be able to leave in a week or two, and he would still be here, suffocating in the collective grief of the Guild and trying not to crack from the nerves he felt, waiting for the moment Arlen sent for him.
The house was quiet, buzzing gently with magic. Several more Unspoken were staying with Yddris now; there wasn't room to get between the bedrolls in the attic. He knew he wasn't the only one awake; he could sense that nobody was finding sleep easy to come by tonight.
The breeze hit him like a cold slap as he stepped into the courtyard. Yddris smoked on the bench under the eaves; they said nothing to each other by way of greeting. In the aftermath of the siege, the need for it seemed to have dissipated.
"Is Nika back yet?" Jordan asked.
"Aye." Something about Yddris's tone was off, but Jordan didn't press. "Is your sister coming today?"
"I haven't asked," Jordan said. "Is she allowed to?"
"Anyone who wants to pay tribute can come," Yddris said through another cloud of smoke. "She just can't lay a flame on the pyre. That's guild only."
Jordan's throat tightened, and he croaked, "I'll ask." A silence passed between them, and then he said, "What happened to you that day?"
Yddris grunted. "Is that why you've been funny with me, boy?"
Jordan shrugged and joined his tutor on the bench. He absently touched the bandages at his shoulder as the wound prickled, like it always did when he thought about the attack. It had been very slow to heal; sometimes it still bled when he washed, though it had been days. Nika had stitched it up, but it had a habit of unravelling or coming loose. No one said it, but Jordan knew it wasn't normal. There was no better medic in the Guild; Nika's stitching wouldn't unravel by itself. But his magic had returned to normal, and that was good enough for him for the time being.
"Everyone has limits when it comes to magic," Yddris said suddenly, surprising him. "We've gone over it briefly before, I believe."
Jordan nodded, suppressing a shudder. The night in the slum quarter weeks before didn't seem as traumatic anymore through the lens of his recent experiences, but the eyeless, soulless victims still regularly visited his dreams. Yddris had taken him then, he remembered, because Jordan had been trying to find a way out of training. He was feeling stupid for it now.
"With more experience, you get to know those limits very well." Yddris's pipe created a haze in the air before them, which parted lazily around the Unspoken's arm as he gestured. "The danger with the inexperienced is the likelihood of going straight from doing just fine to incinerating yourself in one jump, and not being able to stop in time. If you know how to push it without going over the line completely, you get what happens to idiots like me. I went up to the very limits, not so much that it killed me, but it was a bad idea all the same. I wouldn't advise it unless it's a very last resort."
"That night...with the Fleshmonger in that house..."
"You were certainly in danger, boy," Yddris grunted, "Not gonna lie about that. But you did pull back."
Jordan nodded, twisting his fingers in his lap and then untwisting them again. "I'm assuming you know about my meeting with Harkenn."
"Oh, aye." Yddris knocked out his pipe on the bench, sounding like he had a very deep scowl on his face. "I got an earful, too, don't you worry. You heard anything from them yet?"
"No," Jordan said, swallowing. The expectation of receiving a message from Arlen or Marick any day now had followed him around the house like a spectre since the strange encounter with Marick in the castle. They had been so persistent, and yet as soon as he agreed, it was radio silent. It unnerved him more than he wanted to admit. Did they know what Harkenn wanted from him?
"They'll come," Yddris murmured. "Don't you worry."
His tone sent a chill down Jordan's spine, but in the next moment he had returned to his usual nonchalance. Jordan coughed as his tutor clapped him hard on the shoulder. "How about coming to get breakfast with me?"
An hour or so later, the Devils felt like a much more distant problem. He and Yddris had set out to get hot food from a nearby tavern – Jordan in a borrowed cloak of Koen's that left his ankles exposed, as Jesper had never returned his – and when they returned, everyone was up and moving around. The air was heavy with anticipation for the funeral vigil. Unspoken milled around the room like no one quite knew what to do with themselves; Jordan saw wringing hands, muttered conversations, the occasional shoulder clasp. He helped Yddris lay out all the food on a trestle table from the cellar, and a few individuals came up to pick over it. Most barely gave the table a second glance.
"How's your shoulder today?" Nika asked, appearing behind Jordan as he turned away from the table. Once, that might have made him jump, but Jordan was learning to pick out Nika from the hooded crowd almost as well as he could Yddris and had sensed him arrive. The Unspoken's voice was light and offhand, but the air around him betrayed the weight of grief and fear on him.
"Prickly," Jordan said, trying not to stare at Nika's shaking hands. "But not painful. Are you going to eat something?"
"Oh," Nika said, distractedly, "No, I don't think so. Maybe when we get back. My stomach's doing a very convincing impression of a cannonball."
Jordan, whose stomach also felt like it had dropped to somewhere around the region of his feet, nodded. After a moment of hesitation, he grasped Nika's elbow, feeling the man flinch under his grip, and led him into the hall. His bedroom door was closed and he could hear Grace moving around inside; he stopped just out of her earshot.
"I never told you," he mumbled, glad Nika couldn't see him blushing, "what name I picked. I meant to tell you days ago." Nika visibly brightened a little, and Jordan took it as encouragement. "I, er...chose Thorne. And if it's okay, I'd rather use that one more often now." He glanced over at his bedroom door and swallowed down the lump in his throat. "Just please don't use it in front of my sister."
"Of course," Nika said. He grasped Jordan's elbow back, tighter than before. "Thank you for trusting me with it."
Jordan's face burned as Nika nodded and re-joined the group in the front room, back straighter than before. Clearly telling Nika had meant more than he'd assumed it had, and he almost wondered whether he should have. He shook it off and knocked on his bedroom door.
"It's me," he said.
"Come in."
Grace perched on the side of his bed with Ren in her lap, encouraging the shadow-runner to jump after a piece of string she was wiggling in the air. Ren wriggled, tensed, and leapt after it as Grace threw it across the room, landing with a thump and the scrabble of tiny claws. His sister was dressed in a plain black frock, and had located some black ribbon from somewhere to thread through her short braid.
"I can't afford better shoes," she said, and apologetically wiggled her toes to show him the serving girls' uniform slippers she had on. "Do you think anyone will mind?"
"I doubt anyone's looking at your feet," he said. "Appearance isn't exactly a big thing for Unspoken."
"No, I suppose not." She let her feet drop to the floor, but she still looked worried.
"You really don't have to come if you aren't comfortable, Grace," Jordan said.
"No, I want to." She stood up. "Are we going?"
"Not just yet. Thought I'd tell you there's food if you want it, though."
"Oh, not really." She wrinkled her nose. "Maybe when we get back."
Jordan looked at her for a moment, trying to determine whether she was actually not hungry or whether she just didn't want to go into a room with lots of Unspoken. He didn't ask, because broaching the subject always upset her; but he had known her all his life, and she only got upset when it was true and she felt bad about it. He wasn't going to press. Hearing it made him just as uncomfortable.
Someone knocked on the front door, and there was a small commotion as the arrivals came inside. Koen stuck his head around the doorframe, and if he noticed how tense it was he tactfully avoided commenting.
"Kedrick's here," he said to Jordan.
Jordan glanced at Grace, but she had gone back to playing with Ren, so he followed Koen into the front room and smiled despite himself as Laurel danced up to him and clasped his shoulders.
"Well met," she said. Her hair was tied back in a smooth knot, leaving silver wisps framing her face. Jordan felt his throat go tight, and he hoped Yddris wasn't nearby to sense how flustered he was.
"Well met," he croaked in return, just before Killian pushed past his sister to wrap Jordan in a bear hug that almost crushed him. Jordan gasped as his ribs flared with pain; somewhere behind him Nika was calling out to be careful.
"Sorry," Killian muttered, stepping back and looking sheepish.
"It's alright," Jordan said, massaging his abdomen and feeling very much not alright.
"Almost time," someone said, and though they hadn't said it loudly, the whole room went utterly silent for a heartbeat. Then there was only the rustle of cloaks, the light tread of footsteps, as everyone started filing out of the house. Someone looped their fingers around Jordan's, and he glanced down to find Grace there, looking nervously around at the gathered Unspoken. He squeezed her hand back. Ren scrambled onto his shoulder and disappeared into his hood.
"Ready?" Grace whispered.
"God no," Jordan muttered back, and joined the end of the procession into the street with his sister beside him. Those who weren't Unspoken walked behind the guild, so Jordan hung right at the back to avoid getting separated from her. Ahead of them, a wave of gently undulating black, almost blending into the night until a streetlight or candle picked out a sharp edge here and there. While he could sense the shared grief, it felt as though he looked in at it from the other side of a transparent wall; he could feel how close it was to him, yet the scene in front of him was more of a reminder than ever how alien he was to this environment.
As they passed, some doors opened from the houses around, and white flowers scattered the cobbles around them. Other houses were more tightly shuttered than ever. A sign posted outside one house made Laurel gasp in outrage behind him, and for once he was glad he couldn't read it.
Someone had started crying; Astra, he guessed. Koen and Oloe walked either side of her just ahead, but Jordan couldn't bring himself to join them. It felt disrespectful, considering how little he had known of any of the dead; how little he knew of any of the Unspoken around him, either. He tightened his grip on Grace's hand.
They left the merchants' quarter and continued through the city. A few streets beyond the plaza where the Hallow Festival had taken place there was another large, open space in the shadow of a temple. Lady Kerrin stood at the top of the steps, surrounded by a few of the older acolytes; they all wore black shawls over their yellow robes, and the courtyard at the foot of the steps was littered with flowers. Jordan almost didn't notice that Lord Harkenn stood on the other side of the space with a few of his guard, one of whom held his horse. On top of the horse sat Anarabelle, face inscrutable as ever, the only change a large red handprint on one cheek. Grace's grip convulsed around Jordan's.
"Don't," he whispered, as she started forward. "Not here."
She settled reluctantly, eyes blazing.
In the centre of the small gathering, a large pyre had been erected. It wasn't as big as Jordan had been expecting, and then he realised what lay on top of the platform; four black cloaks, neatly folded. It was almost worse than seeing the bodies lying there. Bile rose in his throat, and he was suddenly glad he hadn't eaten anything that morning.
"The bodies have already been cremated in private," Kedrick murmured behind him, as if sensing his confusion. "By those who had already seen the faces of the dead while they were alive. It's usually done at the Guildtown by their clergy, but I think Lady Kerrin offered her temple for it considering the circumstances."
"So they're never seen?" Grace said, sounding very faint, "Not even in death?"
"It's considered desecration, if an Unspoken has not given permission for you to see their true identity. The dead cannot do so, and these individuals didn't get the chance to express their last wishes."
An eerie silence had settled over the place, and Kedrick fell quiet. Jordan felt Grace's eyes on the side of his head and pretended he didn't. His whole body buzzed, and he couldn't help picturing some dark day in the future where the guild might gather around his folded cloak on a pyre, most never having seen his face. Imagining the scene felt like falling; this was his life.
This would be his death.
The transparent wall vanished; he fell face first into the grief and immediacy of the moment, eyes burning hot. Another Unspoken came up beside him, then another, and Jordan realised that the other apprentices had all come to stand with him. Koen put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't need to say anything.
Harkenn didn't lead the ceremony as Jordan had half-expected. Instead, Yddris stood beside the pyre with Hap and Nika on either side of him, and two more Unspoken behind them whom Jordan didn't know.
He began by listing off the names, and Jordan felt Astra flinch as he reached Kolter. He listened as if from underwater, the occasional word filtering through like a burst bubble. Something about peace, something about unity – the words blew past him like wind, and he only blinked when his eyes began to burn and blur.
Koen pressed something into his hand; a small wooden splint. Jordan looked at it, and then around the square, and realised Yddris had stopped talking. One by one, Unspoken came forward to the pyre and laid their splints on it, flickering green. The flames were calm, not climbing hungrily the way that normal fire did. It didn't swallow the cloaks on the pyre so much as fold over them, embrace them, and it was smokeless. The night remained as clear as it had ever been, sparks winking sharp in the dark as they rose. The odd hazy quality of the scene was only the blood rushing to Jordan's head when he realised what he had to do.
He couldn't focus to create a flame; whatever had enabled him to do it during the demon attack no longer applied. The current resisted him, drew away when he came too close to grasping it. He jumped as a thumb-sized flame appeared on the end of his splint. He looked up as Astra lowered her hand, but she had turned away before he gathered the wits to thank her. They had only ever spoken twice, and neither experience had been pleasant for either of them. Jordan had been resigned to the fact that she'd taken against him.
It wasn't the time to question it.
The apprentices went to the pyre together; Grace squeezed his hand as he stepped forward. He, Oloe and Koen hung back to allow Astra to go first. She laid her splint and then stood for a long time beside the second cloak from the right. Jordan placed his next to the cloak beside it, and watched flames catch inside the empty hood. He tore his eyes away, and met Yddris's gaze across the flames. Astra let out a small, wounded noise beside him, and Jordan nodded to his tutor. The movement sent hot streaks running down his cheeks.
He couldn't say how long the vigil lasted. When the last of the guild had laid flames on the pyre, and Harkenn had said a few words – very few, and more subdued than Jordan had ever heard him – they stood in silence for what felt simultaneously like an eternity and a blink. Koen was holding Astra upright by the time they moved away, and as the crowd of Unspoken closed around them to return to Yddris's, she let out a wail that chilled Jordan to the core.
Grace's hand convulsed around his arm, and she leaned in to whisper, "Was she close to someone?"
"Her tutor," Jordan murmured, searching for Yddris in the crowd. He spotted an Unspoken talking to Harkenn and paused, allowing others to go ahead. When he glanced at his sister, she seemed to be having a conversation with Nova through gazes alone, and the look on her face perturbed him. Grace didn't fall often, but when she did, she fell hard.
He had never seen it so intense before.
"Are you ready?" Nika's voice said behind him. It was strained; the Unspoken was visibly shaking.
Jordan let go of Grace. "What do we do now?"
"There'll be some drinks. Some talk." Nika pulled in a shuddering breath. "And then we try to move forward."
"I'm sorry."
"What for? It's not your fault."
Jordan shook his head, then, noting that Grace had been drawn into conversation with Laurel, he asked, "How come Yddris does all of the ceremonies? No...no offense intended." Will I have to do that someday? was what he really wanted to ask, but it sounded churlish.
"Partly because he is Harkenn's favoured choice," Nika said. "And because he has a lot of respect within our guild, no matter what anyone says. He's one of the longest serving. If anyone ever thought he would take it, I'm sure he'd have been declared the next Guildmaster after Cara passes on."
"But he doesn't want it?"
"He doesn't feel worthy of it," Nika murmured, almost to himself, and Jordan thought he might have understood why. He checked all the shadows, though if anyone were listening in he doubted they would show themselves. The familiar anxiety roiled in his stomach. The roaring pyre stained the night green and made the shadows look like ink, splashed across alleys and doorways. The imprints on his retina invented movement in the darkness where there was none.
"I could do with a drink," Nika muttered, shivering. Jordan knew it had nothing to do with cold.
"Me too," someone grunted, and Jordan looked round to find Yddris had crept up on them. Harkenn was already gone. "Or three, for that matter."
Jordan's throat tightened as Astra's voice carried towards them on the wind, pitched and sorrowful. The man standing in front of him was the closest thing he had to protection from an unpleasant end, either through his own ineptitude or the world that seemed pitched against everything with a heartbeat.
"Better not be piss," Jordan added. "God knows what you do down in that cellar."
"Not making any promises," Yddris growled. "Get home with you, you cheeky shit."
They laughed, though it was weighed down. But there was also relief that the send-off was over; a kind of peace to the farewell.
"Thorne," Nika called, as Jordan made to catch up with Grace, who waited halfway down the road for him with Laurel and Killian. He started and looked back. "You forgot this."
Yddris dug in his pocket and produced Jordan's knife. His hand flew to his belt and found the sheath empty; he hadn't noticed it was gone.
"Welcome to the Guild, boy," Yddris murmured, handing it to him. The handle had been engraved with his new name, and a tiny etching of a curled-up shadowrunner glinted on the blade. "You're going to need this."