Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Forty Seven: A Petition

"Nova, there's something happening."

Nova resurfaced gratefully from a dream in which she trained with her sister, as she had so many times when she still lived in the palace. There had been nothing blatantly sinister about it, a simple sparring session with her teachers watching and Mercy offering her usual jibes as they lunged at and dodged each other. Her teasing had always had a bite to it, but Nova had had no idea how deep the resentment ran.

"Nova." This time it was accompanied by a shake to her shoulder. She opened her eyes, wincing at the bright glow of firelight behind Grace. The girl was fully dressed, and it dimly came to Nova's attention that they were no longer alone in the room.

She sat up, and found the kitchen staff sitting around in varying states of dishevelment. Some hadn't even changed out of their nightclothes or found slippers to wear. She looked around at them in bafflement, and then turned to Grace for an answer.

"A guard came and roused everyone," Grace said. "Sent them down here. I heard shouting in the courtyard not long ago, but no one seems to know what's actually going on."

"Shouting?" Nova repeated stupidly. She still had one foot in her dream, could still see Mercy's face when she closed her eyes, so horribly similar to her own.

"I think there's a protest of some sort," one of the maids said. The rest of the room was quiet, so her voice carried to everyone. "I saw a group of men in the courtyard through the window on the way down. There were guards all around them, like they'd been trying to break in."

"Protesting what?" Jan asked. The housekeeper sat against the wall near Nova and Grace in her dressing gown, but somehow the woman still managed to look like she was in charge. "His Lordship froze all his tax rates when the dark season fell, and hasn't withheld any financial support for damages."

"Some seasons that still ain't enough," a man said from near the grounds exit. Nova dimly recognised him as one of the garden crew. "All very well us up here, boarded and paid and fed. No tax cut's going to soothe the sting of not being able to feed your children."

"If it weren't for those bastard Devils," someone else put in, to a general murmur of assent.

"Those dark-damned demons started it," someone added. "They had no right showing up in those numbers. Fucked the crops for miles around. Devils didn't help, but they aren't where it started."

"And now they're spreading plague."

A silence fell after this pronouncement. It was the silence that drew their attention to the faint sound of approaching footsteps, as they drew closer to the kitchen door the rattle of metal accompanied the noise. Guards. Several people straightened in their seats with interest. The kitchen door opened and the captain of the guard stepped through, his eyes immediately falling upon Nova. Her heart sank; that meant that whatever was going on, however unpleasant, she was going to find out from a much closer vantage point than she'd have liked.

"Anarabelle," he greeted her. His gaze flickered over her shoulder and she tensed, but Grace had already found the presence of mind to move back. "The Lord has requested your assistance in this matter. Someone must find her some outdoor clothes, please."

Nova didn't laugh, but it was a narrow miss. By 'requesting her assistance', he meant 'ordering her compliance', but why split hairs? She got up without speaking. She didn't know what would come out if she opened her mouth, but she suspected it would be something to do with how little involvement she wanted or needed in a civilian revolt. She'd tried to lead one of those before, and look where that had got her. Chained and wingless, with fewer rights than the horses in the stable. She didn't think trying to prevent one was going be much more fun.