Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Ninety One: Threads

Dela looked up at the house in front of her and shuddered involuntarily.

She wasn't nervous. She didn't think so, anyway. More...anticipatory.

Leaving the Kiel temple had been a wrench, that was true. She'd cried every night for the past few days. But it would have been worse if Lin wasn't coming with her. Kerrin had promised that she'd be able to do a lot of work for Kiel during her studies and beyond it. So really, the only thing that she had to do was get used to this new life she was about to embark on. This adventure. Thinking of it as an adventure helped, too. She'd be helping people in so many ways.

"He doesn't bite," Torian said, chuckling, when she hesitated at the door. "He's just worn away all his filters over the years."

"I wasn't worried about him until you said that," she mumbled, but stepped into the warm hallway. The air lit up with threads of colour, a faint crackle running across her skin. She felt Torian tighten her walls, and the colours dimmed. The strongest one, a thread of deep red, trailed through the hall and into the room beyond, where she could hear quiet voices.

"Yddris?" Torian called. "Nika?"

"Nika?" Dela whispered. "You didn't tell me Nika was here."

"You know each other?" Torian asked, surprised. A figure appeared in the doorway.

"Kiel's teeth," the figure said. Dela didn't know his voice, but almost immediately he surged forward, a flurry of excitement. His aura was a warm blue. "Thorne's gonna be so relieved he's not the only one. Well met."

Dela shook elbows, smiling nervously. Torian had told her to expect that everyone would be pleased, but she wasn't quite prepared for how pleased.

"I'm Koen," he said brightly. Dela remembered just in time that Torian had told her not to tell her real name to too many people, even Unspoken.

"Well met, Koen."

"What are you so excited about?" That voice, she did know. Nika came into the hall much more sedately, and she could tell immediately he was injured. "Oh. Oh, my."

"I think I got a bit too inspired," Dela said, when the silence stretched on for a little too long.

Nika laughed, then winced and put a hand to his side. "I think you have. Do come in, please. Grace and Thorne are just finishing dinner. Yddris!"

"Stop impersonating a factory chimney and come meet the new apprentice!" Koen added. The voices in the next room went silent. Koen seemed unbothered. Dela shrank closer to Torian's side.

"It's fine." He squeezed her shoulder and reassured her silently that he had control of her walls. No more repeats of that morning, when she'd set all the towels in the inn's bathroom on fire and scorched the floor when a shadeling ran out from under the tub and startled her. "We've only had one other apprentice this year. They're just surprised."

She entered the front room. Threads tangled through the whole room. The red one led out down the next hallway. Nika's was a pale fog-mauve. Thorne stood beside a bubbling pot of food, his aura startlingly similar to the natural colour of Nictavian magic. His sister Grace stood nearby, a bundle of stalks in one hand and a knife in the other, her face still with surprise. On the floor near the hearth sat Anarabelle Novae, the only one who didn't look surprised to see her. The chain and collar was gone from around her neck and she wore real clothes, not just a shift with ragged sleeves. Dela grinned at her, inexplicably pleased to see her so well, and Anarabelle's answering smile was startled but gratified.

"Hello," Thorne said. His word dropped into the quiet like a stone.

"You two have met?" Grace asked, looking between them.