Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Seventeen: Influence

Nova's backside hurt.

So did her neck, her wing stumps and her head.

She thought wistfully of her spot by the hearth in the kitchens as she shifted in her chair to ease the numbness in her legs and feet. She had been sitting in it for hours, listening to the world slowly falling apart.

First had been the representative from the brewers' guild, who couldn't get the crops to keep making beer. Then had come a spokeswoman for the Medica, saying the rations given were too small for all of their patients. Then Lady Kerrin had arrived, an acolyte at her side who Nova was certain had been Varthian, though how she ended up in Kiel's temple was a mystery. Kerrin's news had hit like a hammer blow; up until then Faellian Harkenn had endured the complaints in tight-lipped neutrality, but the news of the plague in the districts had made the first cracks in his demeanour. He now looked deflated, exhausted. If Nova hadn't felt the same sinking despair she might have savoured it more.

What she really had not wanted to see, just as it looked like she was finally being dismissed, was Yddris with Thorne in tow, both auras the picture of impending bad news.

Grace, help, she thought. She wanted nothing more than to climb into the narrow maids' bunk with her, feel her hands in her hair, bury her face against her shoulder and forget everything for an hour. I don't want to hear this.

Faellian losing control of Shadow's Reach was only an appealing prospect when she wasn't still stuck in it – and she'd much rather it be a nice overthrow rather than plague and famine. She could starve as easily as the next person.

"I would hope you had something good to tell me," Harkenn drawled, as the Unspoken came to a stop in front of his desk. "But you don't, do you? Night take me, boy, I can see you shaking under all that cover. Put him in a chair before he folds, Yddris."

Yddris dragged over a chair that had been recently vacated by Lady Kerrin. Thorne all but collapsed into it, seeming to sag in on himself as he did so. Exhaustion warred with fear in his aura, though a thread of hope had appeared in it that Nova hadn't seen last time. The boy clung to it like he was drowning.

"The Devils are planning to burn the food stores."

A silence fell after Yddris spoke. Harkenn stopped idly spinning a glass in his hand and put it down with a noise that made Thorne jump.

"And why, pray tell, would they want to do that?" Though she was behind the lord, she could tell when his gaze turned on Thorne because the boy abruptly stiffened, knuckles tightening around the chair's arms.

"They've got a chip on their shoulder, my lord," Thorne mumbled. "Because the Unspoken don't patrol there and the timber stopped coming. They see it as taking what they're owed."

"The timber stocks aren't enough for half the city!" Harkenn exploded. "And they expect me to keep stocking a registered derelict quarter filled with scum who should all, by rights, be in. My. Jail." He punctuated the last three words with a fist on the desk. "They want rations? They want warmth? They should turn themselves in and save me a world of hassle! When are they going to try and do this?"

Thorne mumbled his answer so quietly that Nova didn't hear it, but Harkenn, with his strange heritage, heard it perfectly well.

"Tomorrow night?" he sputtered. "You're certain?"

"Yes, sir. Their leader is expecting me to help." Thorne glanced at Yddris. "He wants Yddris out of the way."

"At the risk of sounding far below my station, I say fuck. That." A glass decanter of apple wine sat on the desk, and after this pronouncement the lord plucked out the stopper and took a long draught.