Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Seventy Two: Incentives

"Any sign that Yddris is waking up?" This, Nova did have a stake in. Aside from Grace, Yddris was the only person she could call an ally in the castle walls. She didn't count Jeorge. Jeorge always had ulterior motives, like every other one of her kind she'd ever met.

"No," Grace replied. She settled herself on the table Nova perched on, a little distance apart in case anyone was paying attention; though Nova didn't think anyone was. "I asked Nika what was wrong. Apparently if you overuse magic it really takes it out of you. It's sheer exhaustion. He must have been fighting like a machine." Her eyes brimmed again. "I just...it's so complicated. So many things can go wrong. You use too much, and you end up like Yddris. Someone takes it away, and...god, I never want to see Jordan like that again."

"Like what?"

"He was...gone. He looked broken. Like he didn't recognise me. He started tearing his own shoulder to pieces, did you see?"

Nova frowned and glanced over at the boy again, who hadn't moved. She tried to imagine what it would be like to lose connection to magic, but she had had that connection all her life and couldn't. Angels had no equivalent to the Gift, because they were born to it. The whole concept was distant from her.

"I've spent weeks praying for him to lose that Gift somehow," Grace mumbled. "And now I'm so glad he's got it back. Isn't that crazy?"

They both looked up and shuffled further apart as the foyer filled up with people beyond the doors. They weren't soldiers; they looked to be civilians, accompanied by the Unspoken who were still on their feet, carrying supplies. Several women of the nearest Medica had arrived with the group, and there was one girl who pushed her way to the front and ran across the hall on light feet. She was silver-haired with light brown skin, and she was heading for Jordan. Nova felt Grace tense and then get to her feet, hovering uncertainly, as the girl knelt beside Jordan, and it was only then that Nova noticed the shadow-runner perched on her shoulder.

Grace crossed the room, and to avoid Jeorge, Nova followed. She was too tired to discuss the spy now. Too tired to even think about her uncle and his mad plans.

"I found her on the stairs," the girl was saying as they approached. Jordan had finally moved, bundling the shadow runner up in his arms, breathing hard. "She was carrying this in her mouth."

Something silver glinted in Jordan's hand, and Nova leaned in for a closer look. It was a chain with pendant on it, a crescent moon with a small carven dagger balanced between its points. Nova had never seen it before; it wasn't a symbol for any of the religious Houses, nor was it Caelumese, as far as she was aware. Jordan turned it over with his thumb, but the back was smooth.

"Have we met?" Grace asked the girl, who had her hand on Jordan's shoulder. Grace's tone wasn't quite friendly.

"Oh. I'm Laurel. Well met." They grasped elbows, and Grace's face lightened a little.

"Oh, were you at the inn Jordan went to?"

"I was." Laurel smiled at Jordan, who didn't appear to notice, too distracted with his shadow-runner. She was wriggling on her back in his lap, accepting tummy rubs and making squeaking noises. His aura had calmed considerably. "Though he hasn't come to visit much."

Jordan looked up, startled at first, and then he reddened. It was hard to see under the bruising on his face, but he looked embarrassed. Someone had secured his broken nose with some gauze and length of bandage and cleaned up the cuts on his cheeks, but he still looked ghastly, the dried blood from a head injury showing up stark in his white hair.

"Things got busy," he said. His voice was muffled from the dressings, and he still sounded somewhat hollow. "And then mad. And then fucking awful."