Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Fifty Five: Suspicions

The priest recited in monotone. Nova was familiar with the Orthanian scripture, had heard it enough times over the years; Faellian seemed to get a kick out of bringing her to every funeral he attended, knowing that the weight of grief and sadness in the atmosphere brought her low for days afterwards. She felt it now, a burden on her shoulders, a blue gloom setting in over her thoughts. She wished Jeorge's leg was well enough for him to walk, purely so that he could have suffered with her.

Ethred was infuriatingly well-behaved, even though she watched for even the smallest transgression. Something to liven the boredom if nothing else. But as the priest went on – and on – Ethred listened with almost caricatured raptness, as if he'd never heard anything so gripping in his life. Her attention wandered to the pale stone walls and the flickering candles, and the brewers' guildmaster in the third row who wouldn't stop coughing, and the Orthanian priest on the side-lines who kept picking his nose. She found herself watching Yddris, too, whom by her third glance was standing in the doorway, barely in the room at all.

She couldn't shake the feeling that the baron was mocking her, and she was grudgingly impressed that he could keep up the charade at all. Her previous experience with the baron, long and unpleasant as it was, had left her with the impression that the man barely had the attention span for buckling his belt without getting distracted.

"Lord Orthan, who art watching over this humble gathering," the officiator droned, and Nova suppressed an almost hysterical urge to laugh at the idea that anything about the Orthanians was modest, "protect us from sin and from the terror in the night, and help this bless'd soul upon his pilgrimage to your embrace. May the light shine on him."

"May the light shine," the gathering repeated.

The priests ranged along each side of the chapel stepped forwards as one at a gesture from the speaker, and took places at each corner of the coffin. The officiator went to open the curtains just wide enough to allow it through. She thought she saw glowing embers in the gap before the coffin concealed her view and the curtains were drawn shut. One of the bearers vanished behind them, and then followed the dull clank of the tunnel wall sealing shut.

The gathering sat in silence for a long while. Someone cleared their throat, another sniffed. The curtains stopped moving.

Lord Harkenn led the exit; he was the first to stand up and make his way down the aisle, stopping to collect her. Though his face was a mask of composure and respect, his eyes flashed as he accepted her chain from the guard, a warning that she'd better have been paying attention like he'd told her. Over the lord's shoulder, Ethred winked before sweeping out. Yddris had vanished.

She had been expecting it, but it still gave her a start to steer away from the temple doors and into the main hall, all the way to the end where the curtain – all curtains, she thought – concealed the passageway leading to Eril's private office. The lord led her in silence, her guard tailing them. Yddris waited inside as if he'd been there the whole time.

The room held the eerie quality of still being occupied, it was so clean. Nothing had been moved, and there was no astral signature of pain or fear, which meant the late head of House Orthan hadn't come here at all on the night he was killed. It was as if he'd just walked out to get a breath of fresh air and would be back at any moment.

"Anything immediately obvious?" Faellian asked, glancing over his shoulder and gesturing for the guard to close the door. Ethred had not been told about this part of the investigation.

"No, sir," Yddris said, "I don't believe he had been here in a while."

Faellian threw a look Nova's way, and she nodded her agreement.