Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Twenty Five: Conspiracy

Nova couldn't get the smell of death out of her nostrils.

She stood as far away from the body as her chain would allow. Faellian had tied it around the leg of the table where the corpse lay, just inches from the Unspoken man's blackened toes. She felt sick. She had seen battlefields. She had seen dead people before.

She had never seen a dead Unspoken.

There was something particularly awful about it. She could still sense the ghost of their magic, as if it were tethered to the body; she could feel the empty channels where it used to run freely, now horribly cold. The death was something more than corporeal, almost, as if the sources beneath Nictaven where the magic ran were mourning, too. The desolate nature of it turned her stomach.

The lord didn't seem to notice or care.

"Can you tell me how they died?" he demanded for the umpteenth time, orange eyes flashing at her. For once, any punishment he might offer her for being unhelpful didn't seem a hardship, just so long as she could get away from the body.

"No, sir," she said, and hated herself for not being able to control the tremor in her voice. "I don't know. I can't sense anything."

Faellian muttered something that might have been 'useless'.

They were not alone in the room. Lord Eril and Lady Kerrin had also arrived soon after the body had. Yddris had been and gone, stoic and practical as always and giving no indication of the anguish in his aura. She had been relieved when he left. The sheer misery made her want to faint.

"What do you want to do, Faellian?" Kerrin asked, stepping forward out of the shadows at the edge of the room. It clearly cost her to stand so close, and her eyes remained firmly on Faellian as she spoke. "The city will panic if this isn't controlled in the way it gets out. While we investigate, what do I tell my flock?"

"First things first," Faellian said. "We're ruling out the Devils. Eril, I presume you won't object to some early questioning of your temple's acolyte."

Eril very obviously objected to early questioning, but was too busy with his head in a pail to get out more than a handful of words before he noisily threw up again. Kerrin wrinkled her nose and averted her eyes.

"I agree with that plan," she said.

"He won't know anything," Eril said, spitting. He resurfaced, face bright red and sweaty. "Even if he was involved with that scum – and I refuse to believe that he is – why would they tell an Orthanian acolyte anything important? I've heard they're all such untrustworthy dregs that their leader sends some of them on false leads so nobody works out what the real plan is and steals all the glory."

"You don't know their leader, then," Faellian said tartly. "He certainly has the resources to pull off crimes without childish games like that. If he didn't, he'd be rotting in my dungeons already." He sniffed, and covered the body over with the white death shroud. "And while your first point likely has some truth to it, I currently have no other leads and no one else to question. It may still bear fruit."

Silas arrived fuming, but paled and almost collapsed when his eyes fell on the shroud and the unmistakable form under it. Faellian settled in a chair and watched the acolyte's reaction with narrowed eyes.

"Ah, Silas," he said, as if he hadn't been waiting impatiently for the boy to arrive. "Pleasure."

Silas dragged his eyes from the corpse and made a stiff bow. "It's all mine, my Lord."

"Glad to see you're recovering," Faellian said snidely. Silas's cheeks turned pink, hand darting to his side and aura exploding into a riot of anger. Nova suppressed a look of disgust; clearly the boy had been more than happy – had been expecting – Grace to stand trial and hang in his place.