Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Forty Eight: Pressure

A knife glinted in the dark, and Jordan gasped his way into wakefulness.

Ren snuffled at his cheek, mewling lightly as he tried to catch his breath, staring up at the darkened ceiling of his room in Thirris's house. Not the bedroom at the Demon's Brew, or his room at Yddris's. Silas couldn't get to him here.

He blamed the tension around the Guildtown for the sudden reappearance of his nightmares. The possibility of the killers from the Reach stalking the woods had set everyone on edge, and for good reason. No one had been attacked directly, but it was bad enough that they were marring rune nets – an attack in itself. Though no one had evidence that they were the perpetrators, the threat was enough.

Nothing untoward had happened on his rounds with Hap, aside from the fact that he had singularly failed to work out how rune nets linked. Yet there was a sense of imminent threat in the air still, and it had put him in mind of Arlen's fanboy Silas, who had made it his life's mission to take Jordan out of the picture.

He shouldn't have been so surprised to find the little gobshite haunting his dreams again.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, grimacing at the cold sweat that rimed his skin. He pulled off the shirt he slept in and left it puddled on the floor, and then he padded out into the hall. Ren trotted at his heels.

He was thoroughly awake; there was no chance he would sleep again. The nightmare boiled too close to the forefront of his thoughts, and he knew it would return the moment he closed his eyes. He stepped out onto the veranda barefoot and stood in the chill breeze for a while, allowing it to dry the sweat on his neck and chest. He ran a hand through his hair and grimaced at how long it had grown; before long he'd be tying it back to keep it out of the way. He felt restless, and it wasn't fading away with wakefulness.

The darkness beyond the trees was still and silent, as if taunting him.

"Fancy a walk?" he asked Ren, picking her up and setting her in the crook of one arm. "I fancy a walk."

He wandered back inside and threw on some boots and a fresh shirt. After a moment of thought, he left his journal open on the table at a new page and left a note for Thirris to let him know where he was headed. Thirris could let Yddris know.

He pulled on his cloak and fastened it up, suppressing a shiver of annoyance at having to still wear it even though he was headed out in the middle of the night. He supposed he could still easily run into a patrol, and he wasn't convinced that many Unspoken were asleep. He could tell without trying too hard how much closer to the surface Nictaven's current ran than during the day – some Unspoken undoubtedly lived their lives following that pattern. It buffeted the edges of his mind like lapping waves, comforting in its constancy. He snorted to himself. It really had got to the point where the magic occupying his body without permission was a comfort.

He left through the front door, the most direct route to the town centre. He wasn't stupid enough to take an impromptu stroll around the outskirts after the alerts had gone out, but sitting still at Thirris's was an equally unappealing prospect. He walked at a brisk trot, breathing deeply to calm himself. He didn't have a clear idea of what he wanted to do when he got into town, only that he wanted to be out. To remind himself he really wasn't in the Reach anymore.

Night creatures tittered, flickered and hooted in the woods beyond the limits of his sight. The loops and whorls of rune nets shimmered amidst the undergrowth and up the trunks of some trees, much brighter with the onset of night. It was strangely beautiful, and it amazed him that this was considered normal – that he was the most otherworld thing out here, by the standards of everyone else. He chuckled as Ren tried to snap at a passing bug and almost lost her balance.