Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Thirty Six: Welcome Party

Jordan swiftly realised that he had never seen a real Unspoken party before. All the gatherings he had attended at Yddris's house had been overshadowed with tragedy and worry, things that he'd not lingered at for long. The Guildtown was a view of the Unspoken he had never seen, and he felt that if the average folk of Nictaven could see the scene in front of him, they wouldn't find Unspoken nearly as terrifying.

The vast trees that towered above them were painted with green light, so bright that one could almost see the canopy. The dwellings of the Unspoken went all the way to the top in places, precarious hide shelters that gave Jordan vertigo at just the thought of sleeping in one. Unspoken milled about, clustering the clearing with black figures. The area around the trestle tables was the most densely populated, but everywhere he looked there was a cloaked figure. Someone had unearthed a slightly off-tune lute and was strumming it with vigour. In lulls of the general noise, it was also possible to catch snatches of singing to go with it, but by the sound of the lute Jordan was quite glad he couldn't hear it.

He watched the proceedings in fuzzy bewilderment. Every Unspoken he'd talked to had pushed a drink into his hand, and out of politeness he'd felt compelled to drink it. He had started, quite early on and at the behest of a complaining stomach, to tip the remainder of his mugs into a bush when the gift-giver left, but he'd still managed to consume a sizeable amount. If he'd been trying to finish every mug he'd have already been on the floor.

He'd lost sight of everyone he knew in the throng. Koen had been dragged off the moment they reappeared in the clearing, and in this concentration of magic Yddris was only identifiable when they happened to be close. He had sneaked off at the first available opportunity to find a quiet bench, and hoped his cloak was brown enough to blend with the tree behind him.

It wasn't that he wasn't glad to be in a place where his magic didn't gain him a second glance – it was a breath of fresh air in that regard. And it wasn't that he wasn't grateful to be well out of the Devils' reach. He felt overwhelmed, certainly, and more than a bit nervous. He missed Grace with a passion – she'd always made social gatherings more bearable for him – and he felt more stranded in Nictaven than ever. The Guildtown had driven home how much his life had changed far more than the Reach had. He wondered if Grace had had a chance to have a look at the book he'd found her yet. He wasn't exactly sure how much German she knew, but he hoped it wasn't a total waste of effort.

Like it had at the funeral vigil, his future was staring him in the face. He wasn't certain whether he liked what he saw. Almost more alarming was that he also wasn't certain that he didn't.

"Not the sociable type?" Somehow Thirris had found him in the chaos. Yddris's tutor didn't sound remotely inebriated, which was a welcome change. Jordan shuffled up on the bench and the old Unspoken sat down with a sigh. "I fear that a lot of us forget just how overwhelming it can be if you manifested only recently."

"I haven't really stopped to think about it much," Jordan muttered. "Until now. I thought...if I took a minute to really think...I'd probably never be able to start again."

"You'd be surprised at what a man can get used to, with time."

Jordan didn't want to get used to it – that was the point. But he kept his mouth shut, because he liked Thirris and didn't want to offend him.

"You know," the old man said after a moment, "I brought Yddris here within his first couple of months. A little bit earlier than you, but I find that the whole first year is a rocky one for many anyway. And he rebelled against it much more fiercely than you have. He set my house on fire once, you know. Deliberately."

Jordan couldn't make it fit. Yddris had always spoken of the Gift as his salvation, not something he had come to resentfully. "Yddris did?"

"Oh yes. And I'm sure he'd be very annoyed that I'm telling you he wasn't always so dedicated. I had my suspicions when he showed so much interest in blade-work that I hadn't picked up some errant farm boy. There's a tree at the back of my garden where you can still see the damage he wrought when he was in one of his rages. That anger was always there, under the surface, even after he took the black. He channelled it into his work as Unspoken, and gave himself the formidable reputation he has."