Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Forty One: The Whispering Wall

"I'm not entirely sure myself," Jordan replied, around the panic in his throat. He should have seen this coming. "I woke up in the warehouse. I was tied to a chair. I didn't see who else was there. They just made threats and then let me go."

There – it was vague enough that Nika wouldn't guess, but not a total lie. He wasn't sure if the Unspoken could tell.

"Yddris lost his first apprentice."

Jordan blinked. That had not been a direction he had expected Nika to take.

"Lost? You mean..."

"He died." Nika bowed his head. "It was a Death attack, a freak accident. It was in the middle of the light season and the demon shouldn't have been anywhere near the city, so some speculated that someone baited it, that it was foul play. Whether he was the target, no one can say. Yddris arrived too late to save him. It wouldn't surprise me if he thought he'd lost you, too."

Jordan thought of Hap and Koen and how close they were; what either of them would do if they lost the other. It was hard to imagine. The two were inseparable; Koen could easily have passed as Hap's own son.

"Oh." He cursed himself for not thinking of anything better to say, but how was someone supposed to respond to that? He hadn't thought he and Yddris were that close.

"He had just received his acceptance for taking the black cloak," Nika continued, though Jordan wasn't sure he wanted him to. "They'd known each other for years and Yddris almost didn't take me on because of it. I don't think he ever did get over it."

"That's terrible," Jordan croaked. He had known he was Yddris's third apprentice, but had never asked about the first. Now he was glad he hadn't. "That's so terrible."

"I shouldn't be telling you this." Nika shook himself out and stood up. "Do you want to carry on?"

"Not really," Jordan said, fidgeting. "Where's Yddris now? I need to talk to him." Nika's hesitation was cautious, so he scrambled to add, "I won't mention this. Promise."

Nika relaxed. "Do you feel able to walk?"

They found Yddris in the courtyard of the inner keep, a small paved square of land surrounded on all sides by the towering castle walls. A lamp post in the centre of the yard picked out the edges of dark-leaved shrubs and trees, and along each side of the manicured pathways were rows of tea lights in metal dishes. Their flames flickered madly in the movement of their passage, all except for the candles picking out a hollow in the castle wall nearby, which housed a stone bench. Those candles burned green, and in the centre of the semi-circle, sitting cross-legged on the ground and ignoring the bench's existence, was Yddris.

"If you get too tired, come straight back inside," Nika murmured as they approached.

"I will." Jordan had no plans to go back inside, no matter how tired he was. He was sick of that bed. The air was fresh and cool against his skin, and the night sky was deep burnt umber streaked with orange from the reflections of thousands of fires. The effect was so mesmerising that Jordan almost forgot to miss the stars back home.

"Sit here," Yddris said, though he hadn't shown any outward acknowledgement that he knew Jordan was there. Jordan remembered the existence of astral signatures after a moment, but not before he'd had a small heart attack out of surprise. His tutor indicated the cobblestones opposite him, and Jordan gingerly lowered himself down. His back instantly set up a cacophony of protests.

"Do you feel her?" his tutor asked, as Jordan's magic was released to him. The castle walls and the courtyard pavements glowed with runes. Veins of green snaked their way up the trunk of a nearby tree, glittering.