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.

To his surprise, he hadn't resented spending so much time training. With Koen graduated and on regular duties, and Astra now occupied by a tutor of her own, there was little else to do but train with Yddris. His tutor had driven him hard, but it didn't give him much opportunity to worry about the future, and the less time he had to do that the calmer he generally felt. In spare moments, he dreaded returning to Arlen's tutelage, worry gnawing at him like a canker. The tattoo had healed enough to not need bandages anymore, but he was still horribly aware of it. He suspected it was part of the issue he had had with the meditation exercises; it left him far too open to his own thoughts. Cara's intervention had made it easier. Though he knew that the Guildmaster knew, he preferred to pretend he'd never even heard of the Devils in her presence.

"Now will you stop pining at the front door every morning?" Yddris muttered. Jordan flipped him a finger when he was fairly certain Cara wasn't looking.

"Harkenn's seal," Cara said suddenly. "It's addressed to me, but I'm sure the contents are intended for you anyway, Yddris."

Without meeting Jordan's eye, Yddris nodded. "Probably."

The Guildmaster read the letter. As she did so, the controlled warmth of her aura began to spike. It was the first time in her presence that Jordan had felt it; not even after regular sightings of unknown hooded figures in the trees had she lost any grip on her control. He tensed, anticipating bad news.

"There are Angels in the Reach," she said. She folded the letter back up slowly. "They have come to the castle to offer aid for the city. Harkenn suspects ulterior motives, since he has not made Lucifer aware of some of the issues he had supposedly sent aid for. Orthan is refusing to back down. Twice now the lord himself has had to disperse mass protests." She took a breath. "The plague has also reached the city."

"We're going back." It wasn't a question. Jordan spoke the words as if outside of himself.

Yddris was very quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he said, just as softly, "Aye."

Jordan nodded. He was sure he didn't grasp the full significance of the letter, but Cara and Yddris's weighted silence was evidence enough that it was dire news. His own thoughts had stuck on the last line.

"How much plague is in the city?" he asked hoarsely. He would be immune, but Grace wouldn't be. Despite his dread of seeing Arlen again, it suddenly felt as though they couldn't return fast enough.

"He's not specific," Cara said. "But he asserts that it is contained for the time being. Nika has organised more thorough patrols of the streets to ensure any sick demons are found and put down immediately. The city is probably the safest place to be, my boy, if it helps at all. It's the towns and hamlets that are most at risk, if they don't have Unspoken to guard them."

Jordan pulled Grace's letter back out, his distractions forgotten. He ripped it open and scanned it frantically for news of plague. She would tell him if she was at risk, surely.

She hadn't mentioned plague, but what he did read struck him cold.

"That bastard," he whispered hoarsely. He got to his feet, magic surging up in his anger. "That lying bastard."

Yddris still hovered at the edges of Jordan's control after the exercise; with his sense heightened to it, he knew his tutor was poised to snap the connection closed if he lost control. He forced himself to take a breath, and then another. By his tenth breath, he no longer felt ready to explode. His anger burned cold. He read the incriminating paragraph again; Grace didn't mention any names, but Jordan knew exactly who she was talking about.

"Your house was broken into," he told Yddris stiffly. By the way his tutor's aura spiked, he knew Yddris also needed no specifics. "My sister came over while he was still in there. If Nika hadn't been there..."

"Nika confronted him?" Yddris said, voice suddenly sharp. He sounded so alarmed that it disarmed Jordan for a long moment. "Come on, boy, you can't leave that one hanging there."

"Yes." Jordan shook himself out. "There wasn't a fight. As such. They're both unharmed, but Nika's been visiting Grace at the castle since, just in case. It's not the first time he's tried to see her, either. A Devil assaulted a Kelian acolyte in the temple baths and forced her to pass along a meeting note. The only reason she didn't go was because Anarabelle told her not to. She's furious with me, I can tell. She's guessed what's going on, she must have done. Oh, I'm fucked. I'm so fucked."

He didn't remember sitting back down on the floor. He had entirely forgotten Cara's presence in the room as well, and felt heat rush to his face as she set a cup of herb tea at his elbow.

"I presume this has to do with your...more delicate matters?" she said, her voice carefully devoid of all judgement. Jordan's face was burning hot now. He didn't think he'd ever be comfortable with the Guildmaster knowing of the arrangement. He nodded, covering up his embarrassment by taking up his tea. He scalded his lip and tongue with a hurried sip, but he barely noticed the sting through his stewing thoughts. The whole point of joining the Devils was that they would leave Grace alone. He had been prepared for the possibility that some guild members would go back on that agreement to get at him or at Arlen – he had never entertained the thought that it would be Arlen who broke it. So stupid, he thought bitterly, to blithely assume that such a prolific criminal would hold to an agreement like that. He'd heard stories about his teacher, many plausible – why had he not taken that as a warning sign? Why had he not admitted the full risks to Grace before he left, to avoid exactly this? He could only be grateful that Nika and Nova had both been around her to step in. He didn't want to think what might have happened if she had gone to meet him.

"For my part," Cara added carefully, "if you will both accept my advice, I believe you should stay for a few days more. Long enough to think coolly about the situation and what you must do. I fear that I will be sending you back to Harkenn with news he will not want to hear, and I would like to send him a plan of action at least to mitigate it." She paused, and her gaze rested on Jordan. "There are things you can learn here still that will help you get through your training while you are back in the Reach. I will arrange it all for you. There is nothing you can do for the situation in the city if you left this very minute that could not wait a handful of days."

Jordan's mind was still on the plague. "But..."

"A plague is an insidious danger, Thorne. Your presence does not make it any more or less likely that your sister will be safe from it. You cannot guard her at all times." The words were harsh, but Cara gentled them with her tone. "As for the other risks she faces, it sounds to me as if appropriate action has been taken for the short term. I think it would be a great loss to you to rush off without learning more of what we can offer you here, and I would like to ensure that I am not sending you out into the path of a killer on your return journey."

"She's right, boy." Yddris said the words reluctantly. "Sixteen days or twenty, it makes no odds for issues like this. Either way we would not be fast enough to be any immediate help, and Harkenn doesn't expect it."

Jordan couldn't come up with a good reply for that. As he had learned to do throughout his time in Nictaven, he would have to sit with the fear that gnawed at him and get used to its presence. They were simply too far away to do anything else. Finally he asked, in a sullen voice, "What sort of things?"

"You will spend some time with Nadiya in the infirmary. You are going to continue your training here with me, and I will have a word with Thirris about teaching you the history between our Guild and Caelum. Yddris is also going to take you our blacksmith and arm you as well as can be managed. The stores are at your disposal, Yddris. Give him whatever you think he can work best with."

"Aye," Yddris agreed. He didn't sound happy about it. Jordan wasn't either.

Their walk back to Thirris's was subdued. Jordan couldn't even summon any enthusiasm for the hot pot of thick casserole that Yddris fetched from the refectory on the way. He cursed himself for three kinds of fool for allowing the assassin even that much of his trust. He wondered what Arlen had hoped to gain by breaking into Yddris's house – and how had he known she would be there? Had he been there for her at all, and if not, what was he there for?

"You two look like someone's died," Koen said. He appeared in the trees to their left. Patrol routes ran at all levels of rune protection – arranged in concentric rings around the settlement – and this one bisected the trail to Thirris's. It was still strange to hear Koen's voice coming from the cloak of a full Unspoken. Jordan had only seen his friend at meals and in occasional snatches of time since the graduation – Cara was fully determined to flush the killers out of the Guildtown woods and attempt to bring one down if possible, and that meant that all able-bodied and fully qualified Unspoken present were pulled into the effort. The only exceptions were Yddris and Henrik, who had doubled down on training time instead. Jordan had missed having Koen around, but he could have cursed the timing of this chance meeting. He forced some calm into his voice.

"Another one? I swear you just got off the last patrol."

The ploy worked. Koen groaned in agreement. "I did. It's madness at the moment. I'll be about for midday meal tomorrow, though."

The Unspoken hurried off. Jordan glanced at Yddris, who pretended not to notice. "What's that rune there?"

Jordan could have yelled. Training, now? After that bomb had been dropped on him? But Yddris continued to point at the rune partially concealed by a low-growing bush, and eventually the silence stretched so awkwardly long that Jordan forced himself to engage. "Ansak."

"What does it do?"

"Repel." Anticipating the next question, he looked to the rune beside it. "With Eise. Strength. Offense combination."

"Good." They began walking again. "And these next two?"

"Divat, and Eise again. Barrier and strength. Defence combination."

Yddris continued to quiz him on rune theory all the way back to Thirris's, and by the time they reached the front door his motivation became clear; Jordan was so bored he had forgotten his rage. Before they entered, however, his tutor set a hand on his shoulder. "Are you in control, boy?"

"I'm sure you can tell," Jordan replied, more insolently than he had intended. He tried to adjust his tone. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good." Yddris's grip didn't shift. "I'm not monitoring you at all hours, boy. I assume you like your privacy as much as the next man."

He stepped inside the house, leaving Jordan to follow. It was no small relief to find out that his tutor had not been aware of how he felt the whole time; he didn't like the idea of anyone having that much access to his emotions. He glanced around at the woods surrounding him, dark with the late hour. Thick drapes of moss proliferated on the branches above, and some vines that had been dark-leaved and wilting when he arrived had tentatively begun to put new buds out. Some trees were beginning to leaf, and pale shoots had appeared at ground level. Thirris's strange mud bank buttresses had grown a veritable carpet of moss and new shoots. His careful appraisal of the receding dark season calmed him further, and when he caught a whiff of the casserole drifting through the open door he sighed and stepped inside.

When he reached the back sitting room, Yddris was filling Thirris in on the contents of Harkenn's letter. Jordan perched quietly in one corner and helped himself to food. Several more days of training, and then they would be back on the road to the Reach. He wondered if Grace would be glad to see him, and he dreaded confronting Arlen over the break-in. It perturbed him how reluctant he was to go back, and it mingled strangely with the urgency he felt to assure himself his sister was safe.

"More bad news, then, eh?" Thirris said, more loudly to include Jordan in the conversation. "I hate the fact that I'm not surprised." He sighed. "I will be expecting to see you both again before Thorne returns for his graduation."

"Can't make promises yet, old man," Yddris said. He stuffed a pipe and sat back. "We'll have to see how this plays out. Perhaps Nika can bring him next year if Harkenn won't let me off the leash."

Jordan's heart sank to think he wouldn't get another chance like this for a year at least. Once he returned to the Devils this time, he was stuck there – time, he supposed, to get used to the idea. He pushed cooling vegetables around at the bottom of his bowl, feeling like he'd squandered the time. He had come to recuperate, and they were heading back just as soon as he was truly beginning to relax. Angry as he was at Arlen's breach of the original agreement, the cold hard fact remained that it changed nothing. He had agreed the terms with Marick and signed the documents with Harkenn; if he tried to back out now, he would suffer for it. With that sobering thought he abandoned the rest of his food and headed mutely to bed. Neither Unspoken tried to call him back, and he was grateful for it.

Despite how late it was and how tired he had been, he found himself staring at the ceiling. Eventually he pulled the letter back out and read it over again by the light of a small flame at his thumb. Unsurprisingly the words had not changed, much as he willed it. If he hadn't known her so well, he wouldn't have recognised how angry Grace was when she wrote it, it was so precisely and politely worded. That, he thought grimly, was the giveaway.

"We're going back," he muttered to Ren, who had curled up on the pillow beside his face. She made a small noise in her throat that settled to a deep purr as he rubbed behind her ears. "At least you'll stop puking slugs in my bed."

He gathered her up in both hands and settled back down with her lying between his chest and forearm. With her familiar rumble echoing in his ears and Grace's words ringing through his head, he finally fled into sleep.