Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Fifty One: Graduation

He wasn't supposed to be this anxious, he was sure of it. He wasn't the one taking the black. All the same, tension held Jordan stiff in his chair as total quiet rippled through the clearing. For a moment, all he could hear was his breath and the pulse of the current, each beat of which sent faint pains through his body. The fire in the centre now blazed high. Koen and Cara stood alone in the space as Hap retreated to stand in the front row.

Cara now held a book in her hands, a ledger that looked older than anyone present. "Please place your hand on the ledger, Koen."

Removing his glove, Koen did so. As his sleeve slipped back it revealed the marks of magic's passage over every inch of skin. After the net collapse, Jordan had discovered new marks on himself as he bathed; they now covered the entirety of his torso and had begun to creep down one leg. Some of those appearing in recent weeks looked distinctly like runes.

"You have read the oaths," Cara continued, her voice carrying effortlessly. The trees rebounded it back at them, until it seemed as though this ceremony took place in a bubble separate from the rest of the world. "You understand them and accept them?"

"I do."

"You pledge to follow them for as long as you wear the cloak and represent our people?"

"I do."

"You accept the consequences for breaking with our laws and your oaths?"

"I do."

"And you pledge your service to the Guild and the people of Nictaven for as long as you are able?"

Koen drew himself up, appearing to take a steadying breath. "I do."

Cara stepped back, and Koen's hand slipped from the ledger. "Then step into the fire."

Jordan swallowed. Though he knew the fire couldn't hurt Koen – not this kind – he knew he would hesitate before stepping bodily into a blaze like that. He hadn't been told what this ceremony entailed, and couldn't stop himself thinking of witch burnings back in earth's history. Did this mean that witches had been real after all? He shuddered. There were too many questions he would never know the answers to.

Koen turned and stepped into the blaze, disappearing into the wall of green flame. It seemed to burn brighter and denser to conceal the man inside. Jordan was sure it was deliberate, though he couldn't guess why until Cara returned to the fireside carrying a folded bundle in her arms. Hap joined her, clutching a sheaf of papers to his chest.

At some unspoken signal, Cara thrust the bundle into the fire and drew her hands out without it. The whole clearing seemed to hold its breath. Jordan glanced up at Yddris, who shook his head minutely. He turned back. His resentment at the whole process had fled him at the revelation that Koen was more worried about this than Jordan had ever been. The fact that Jordan had thought it would affect anything between them seemed churlish now; his friend had not changed his manner at all as the date crept closer, and Jordan realised he had been anticipating some great sea change between the brown and the black cloak.

All the same, he was nervous. This was his future, too. Who would he be then? The changes wrought by the Gift happened long before the change of cloak; he already sensed some of them in himself. He sensed it in Grace's manner with him sometimes. To the Devils, he was and always would be the witch man. Jordan Haverford as he had been when he fell through the portal no longer existed.

He turned his thoughts aside from that, feeling faintly sick.

Koen stepped from the fire. While concealed by the blaze, he had changed from his brown apprentice cloak to a black one, which must have been the bundle Cara had handed to him. The circle of identically dressed figures looked on as he joined Hap and Cara, clutching the old cloak in his hands. One by one, around the circle, Unspoken lit small balls of flame in their palms and held them aloft.