Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Fifty Six: Resolve

Jordan surveyed the herbs and fungi laid out in front of him and looked up at Nadiya with suspicion. "I thought you were a physician."

The Unspoken woman didn't betray any thoughts in her words as she replied, "Yes. I am."

"Then why are you showing me these?" He eyed a mushroom with inky black gills with distaste. "You just said that that one is incurable poison." He pointed out a more innocuous looking plant. "And that that one makes a man choke on his own tongue."

"I did." For a moment Jordan wondered if Nadiya was going to give him any kind of answer, but then she gave a light sigh. "Why do you think I'm showing you these, Thorne?"

"To remind me that there are worse ways to die than demons?" Jordan asked drily, only half-joking. Nadiya chuckled and shook her head. "Can they be medicinal if used in the right way?"

"Cara has requested that you return to the Reach as able to defend yourself as we can manage in such a short time. And she would prefer you to learn things such as this from someone with a more... attuned moral compass. Her words, not mine. This knowledge will come in handy throughout your life. It may even save it one day."

"Oh." Jordan wasn't sure how to take this revelation. "You...you think someone might try to poison me?"

Nadiya looked at him for a long time, as if deciding how to word something. "It's unlikely, while you are with the Devils. Your teacher, whoever they are, will protect you. If you leave when you take the black, and you are discovered or the ties are not severed as neatly as one would like, this knowledge can always be useful. They do not always remove liabilities with a threat you can see."

The whole concept made him want to curl into a ball and retch, but he made himself nod. He didn't want to find out how the Devils would teach him a topic like this. Certainly not in a tidy little office like this one, with Yddris in shouting distance and the plants laid out in plain view. He didn't think Arlen favoured poisons as a method for his work, but all of them carried vials of various powders and substances around with them. Not all of them were smoke bombs or belladonna. There were still a few vials rattling about in the bottom of his knapsack at Thirris's. He hadn't been able to bear the thought that Nika might find them if he left them in his bedroom in the Reach.

"Does Yddris know all this?"

"Yes."

Of course he did. Jordan wasn't learning anything his tutor hadn't done before him, yet they had never had any in-depth conversation about it. The closest they had come was the day Harkenn discovered Jordan's links to the assassins' guild. He didn't think he ever would get more than that. Not even if he was scheduled to spend the afternoon with Yddris, arming himself to the gills for the same reasons as he was now staring at death-flora.

If you could see me now, Grace, he thought numbly, as Nadiya began quizzing him on the properties of the herbs they'd gone over. Thinking of his sister didn't make him feel any better. When they got back, she would want answers, some of which he couldn't give her and others that he didn't want to. Damn Arlen for making it all so much worse than it needed to be.

"Thorne. You must focus." He realised he'd been allowing Nadiya's explanations to wash over him for a while now; she must have asked him a question. His face flushed.

"Sorry." He forced his eyes back to the table. "I just hate that I have to learn this stuff."

"It is information worth knowing for anyone." Nadiya's voice was soft. "Nika will have as much working knowledge of it as you for treating patients. If it helps at all, frame it that way."