Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Fifty Four: Letters

Jordan floated, deep inside the rhythm of the current. The outside world had faded to an abstract concept, the wooden boards beneath him only a vague discomfort. He was focusing too hard on holding himself apart from Nictaven to pay attention to anything going on around his physical body; he walked a fine line, trying to keep himself from opening up too much to the current and losing himself, while still embracing the magic flowing through him and directing it throughout his body. This, Cara had said, was the fundamental step to control. When he could do this without thinking about it, then he could begin to master more complex uses for the Gift. Until he mastered this, it would be too dangerous.

He had burned himself a few times already when his concentration slipped. Almost as soon as he registered the slip Yddris narrowed the connection on his behalf, but not before the reprimanding burn. Part of the trouble he had with the exercise was fear of a repeat of the night the rune net collapsed. He didn't, unsurprisingly, enjoy the feeling of having been spit-roasted from the inside out. Ironically that fear had made it all the harder to avoid it.

He couldn't explain even to himself how exactly it felt to withdraw so deep into his mind. The current was separate from him, as if he reached to it from a distance, yet the evidence of its passage sang in his bones.

No matter how successful he had eventually been at the meditation exercise, he couldn't ignore the disturbance of an obnoxiously loud knock on the door right behind him.

Jordan opened his eyes, blinking until the interior of Cara's hut came into focus. He sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace, unlit to aid his concentration on his own aura. In the armchair nearby sat his tutor. Cara was already at the door to answer it.

He shifted, and winced at how stiff his body had become with inertia. He had no idea how much time had passed, which he supposed was a good sign. Cara had set him to this every evening for a handful of weeks now, and this was the first time he hadn't been horribly aware of the crawling passage of hours. A murmur of voices followed as he massaged the ache from his neck. He looked up at Yddris.

"How'd I do?"

"Much better." Yddris sat forward with a groan. "I thought you'd have me trapped here all night."

Jordan grinned. "You're always complaining I give up too fast. You can't have it both ways." He yawned. A successful meditation, even short sessions like he'd managed before, always gave him a false sense of how exhausted he was. And how hungry. "Did I pass the time till dinner?"

"Oh aye, I'll say. We'll stop at the refectory on the way back. Thirris won't cook this late."

"Jeez," Jordan muttered. It really was late, then. Thirris had cooked for him at all sorts of ungodly hours when practice patrols kept him out late – if it was too late even for that, he'd been more successful than he might have liked.

The front door closed again and Cara returned to them, taking the other chair. Ren, who had been stretched out along the back of it, chirruped and hopped down to run along the arm and pounce onto Jordan's leg. He smiled and stroked her back as the Guildmaster shuffled through the small pile of correspondence she now held.

"This one's for you," she said to Jordan, holding out a small envelope. Grace's handwriting was unmistakable on the front, a little blotchy from not being used to writing with nibs. She had begun to write his real name and then scratched it out sharply to scrawl 'Thorne' beside it. It was probably only annoyance at the slip, yet it was hard not to interpret it as remaining anger at the name change. Despite that, his heart rose. He had checked in with Irata at the office almost every day since the point he estimated that his letter would have made it to the Reach. He tucked it into his cloak pocket for later, when he was less tired and hungry and would have plenty of time alone to read it thoroughly. With each passing day, though he had grown to enjoy his stay at the Guildtown, he missed Grace and her familiarity. Here, he had no choice but to be Thorne as the Unspoken, his waking hours dominated by his magic. With Grace, he could be himself again.