Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Sixty Four: A Friend

It was unusual for Nova to be chained to Faellian's bed. It hadn't happened for a long time, not since the first few years of her enslavement here, while she still thought there was a chance of escape. It meant he trusted her even less than usual.

He just wouldn't tell her why.

The bed was a huge four-poster monstrosity that he barely used, and which she was convinced was for show. Even in the early years she hadn't been here at night; he had opted instead to lock her up in the cage below his chambers. She wouldn't be surprised to find out that the Lord of the Reach never slept, and she didn't think anyone who had ever laid eyes on him would disagree.

But it was evening now, and she was still here, and she was starting to worry that he had found out she had sneaked out to see Grace, and he was lulling her into a false sense of security just so he could drop a terrible punishment on her when she least expected it. Aura didn't betray thoughts, only feelings, and the anger and stress in it that evening could've meant any number of things.

She absently scratched at the exposed edges of a sore beneath one of her manacles. The sudden reversion back to chaining her up wherever she went had ruined her skin all over again. Sores and weeping blisters had erupted all over her. Jeorge's leg was faring better than she was, and she'd overheard Jan telling him he was lucky not to have lost his foot. She only needed something to start a rot, and for Faellian not to notice early enough, and she was doomed.

Not that that seemed such a terrible thing anymore.

She didn't know what it was she had clung to all these years that stopped her from ending it all, but whatever it was, some part of it had withered when she walked out on Grace the other night. She had always promised herself she would die free, no matter what it took, and she didn't understand why she couldn't make it matter to her anymore. Only who would it matter to, otherwise? She'd be used as fertiliser in the castle gardens, and people would talk about her in hushed whispers like she still stalked the halls. But it wouldn't matter. Grace had dismantled the wall she'd put up against the terrible emptiness of it in a matter of weeks, left her reeling at the fragility of her own conviction, if it crumbled at the first person who made a little more effort to know her. She was fed up with being scared.

Fed up with not mattering.

"Have you spoken to the otherworld Unspoken recently?" Harkenn asked. He was hunched over his writing desk, working by the light of a single candle. He hadn't spoken for hours, and at first she didn't realise that his voice wasn't just in her head.

"No, my Lord," she said, because she knew if she admitted speaking to him a few days ago she would either have to make up a plausible lie or admit to talking about his sister, and from there it was a slippery slope.

Harkenn didn't look round. He didn't even raise his eyes from his work. "Are you aware that threats have been made against his sister?"

She hesitated. She faced the same problem with this question, and there was no safe option until she knew what Faellian actually wanted.

"At the Hallow Festival, he seemed distressed," she said carefully. "It was the last time I spoke to him. He didn't mention who was making them."

"And he just told you, did he? Out of nowhere?"

There was danger hidden within the question, and she was careful to skirt around it. "He believed that because of my abilities, I might identify anyone who had any intention of harming her." She paused, and then added. "He was hesitant to ask, my lord."

"And have you?"

"No, my lord. I would not be able to identify anyone with such intent unless they were about to carry it out, or they lied to me about it."