Fifty Eight: Returning

As Shadow's Reach rose over the horizon, Jordan's heart mirrored it in the opposite direction. It no longer occupied the space as a smudge of burning orange in the darkness; from this direction it seemed new and alien, the fringes of the buildings visible in the rising light. He was certain it had looked smaller before; had it always sprawled so far, as if reaching out to drag him back?

The journey back to the city had been as uneventful as they could have hoped. They had avoided all the settlements this time, and the only group of bandits they'd seen had run from them – it was no mystery who, and what, they'd been mistaken for. If something trailed them back, they saw no evidence of it. Jordan's exhaustion occupied his mind entirely. Sometimes he resented stopping to rest, if only because it meant he had to force himself to get back up and start moving again afterwards. On two occasions had Yddris had to drive off demons; most they saw as smudges in the distance. By the time they were in sight of the city, Jordan was feeling as though the Barrens had failed to meet up to their fearsome reputation.

Not that he was complaining.

"One more stop, I think," Yddris muttered, setting down his huge pack. Jordan also carried one of similar size, since they hadn't had the wagon to aid them this time. They sheltered now in the lee of the tree they had stopped at on their first night in the Barrens coming the other way. It didn't feel like long enough ago, suddenly.

The hardest part of returning had been the goodbyes. Jordan hadn't anticipated that it would be so hard to leave people he had only known for a couple of months, but even many days into the journey the thought still brought down a low mood. Thirris had embraced him and earnestly wished him well in the same way Jordan would have expected from a blood-relative, and it was difficult not to return some of the sentiment. Never had he been so unconditionally accepted by a community of strangers, and without judgement.

"Thank god," Jordan muttered. He settled down at the edge of the fire Yddris lit and undid the buckles on his boots to let his feet breathe. His soles were hard and painfully cracked from the exertions of the previous weeks. Ren jumped from his hood with a chirrup and set off to hunt for her own dinner in the long grass.

"Try this." Yddris chucked a small pot at him across the fire. Jordan, now used to having things thrown at him without warning, caught it on a reflex. He opened it and sniffed, wrinkling his nose at the bitter smell.

"What is it?"

"Blister balm. Nadiya's."

"I could've done with this days ago."

Yddris just shrugged, taking out his belt knife and inspecting it. "Forgot I had it till I saw the state of those. I'm going to see if there's anything worth eating out and about. Don't get your hopes up."

Most nights since they'd left the Guildtown they had had to make do without meat. They could only take as much food as they could carry alongside their belongings, which wasn't a lot – the rest of their diet consisted of whatever they found or caught. At the edges of the forest they had scavenged early fruits and edible leaves, but the Barrens were devoid of anything much but grass and rocks. They could only have meat if they could catch the small, scampering rodent-like creatures that denned underground. Bulk could be found in thick tubers growing beneath the ground, though they were few and far between and difficult to identify without digging down. Most of their rations were dried, stale and hard by the second week. Jordan hadn't had a full stomach since they'd left.

He dug in his pack for their meal; hard flat biscuit and the last of a hard cheese that Thirris had gifted them for the return journey. By the time Yddris returned with a single small mammal dangling from one hand, Ren running alongside him and yipping excitedly up at the carcass, Jordan had fought his way through most of his biscuit with plenty of help from slightly sour water from his water-skin. He couldn't wait to get back to Nika's cooking.

"Don't eat it all at once." Yddris set the small carcass over the fire on a sharpened stick after deftly skinning it. "Run me through what Thirris told you about dealing with Angels. I don't know whether Harkenn will expect you to report with me tomorrow evening."

Jordan hoped not. Arlen was expecting a report the night of his return, and Grace was anticipating a visit as well. Both, he suspected, would entail some deeply uncomfortable conversations. He didn't need the Lord of the Reach added to that list of appointments. "Don't mention the war. Avoid eye contact with Angels of higher status than you. Never touch wings without permission. Always assume that they have an ulterior motive because they probably do, so guard your tongue. Some Angels can manipulate how you feel towards them if you let your guard down." He paused. That last one he had asked Thirris to expand upon, but the Unspoken hadn't seemed to have any satisfactory answers about how that worked. He hadn't thought the aura and the mind were the same thing – perhaps one was the key to the other, or vice versa? Either way, he didn't want an Angel fiddling with it. "Nova can't do that, can she?"

"I've never had occasion to ask," Yddris said. "If she can, she'll only use it with the lord's permission. He would be impervious to such efforts, and she is kept too weak to use it frivolously."

An uncomfortable silence occupied their camp for a moment.

"I think my sister's in love with her," Jordan muttered. "And it terrifies me."

"It is certainly a cause for concern." Yddris began to pull meat from the carcass and pile it up on two more hard biscuits for each of them. With a grunt of reluctant amusement, he flicked a few shreds at Ren for her to catch. "But if they can keep Harkenn from finding out, it could help them both in the long run. Not sure how yet. Call it intuition."

"You sure it's not just a stomach ache?" Jordan returned playfully, but he was failing to see any way that Grace and Nova's relationship would go well in the long term. The slavery issue was a big one to try and skirt around. "It's hard to tell if it's mutual. I can't read anything on that woman's face."

Yddris snorted. "Anarabelle Novae does not take risks for people she doesn't genuinely care about. Seeing a household maid under the lord's nose is about as risky as it gets, and she still can't stop herself. It's not just your sister who's got it bad, boy."

Jordan wasn't sure whether or not he was reassured by that.

They took turns on night watches, though Jordan suspected neither of them slept for their first shifts. On the third shift, Yddris only sighed, staring at his bedroll, and then rolled it up and joined Jordan on his vigil. On the fourth, neither of them moved to go back to sleep. Shadow's Reach was a looming presence in every thought Jordan had.

It didn't get better the next day. They went through the same motions as they had every morning since they'd left the Guildtown, but on no other had Jordan felt so weighed down with dread. His exhaustion dragged at him, but even if they'd stopped again he knew he still couldn't have slept with all the will in the world.

They entered the city limits as the sky was darkening once more. Jordan crossed the bridge over the chasm between the reservoirs without looking down, using only the rune work on the bridge platform to guide him. Yddris walked beside him. Neither of them spoke. Jordan had nothing to say that Yddris didn't already know – that Yddris, he suspected, was not already thinking himself. The guards at the bridge post greeted them first with suspicion, and then with tangible relief when Yddris declared himself. The river, Jordan was sure, hadn't been running as high the last time he had traversed the tow-path alongside it. The castle loomed over them, limned in dim light on its hill, every window winking brightly.

Jordan took a steadying breath. The familiar smells of the city washed over him, rank in comparison to the freshness of the Guildtown forest; smoke and fumes, sour river water, damp stone and animal dung. The streets seemed to encroach on him, narrow and dark. The only hint of vegetation was the occasional weed clinging on in the cracks between cobbles and down the sides of buildings. And it was loud; both literally and within his sense of other humans through aura, the tightly-packed sprawl of activity assaulted all his senses. The Nictavian current beat to a different, more frenetic tempo here.

It wasn't long before they entered the thoroughfare. The city was definitely busier than it had been last time, though something seemed off still. People walked the streets in groups, and the city guard was more in evidence than Jordan had ever seen it. Shutters were closing and people hurrying home as evening fell, but Jordan didn't think it was demons causing the strange tension. Nor was it anything to do with the Unspoken; he couldn't remember the last time he'd walked down a street so unremarked.

"Angels," Yddris muttered. "They must have made their presence very obvious on arrival. This is an extortionate number of guards."

Jordan glanced at three walking past in a group, erect and alert, and grunted. "I bet Harkenn liked that."

Yddris barked a humourless laugh. "He will have shat all over that within the first five minutes of meeting them. I'd put money on it."

They entered the streets known as the Fingers, and despite himself Jordan couldn't wait to get inside Yddris's house. Entering the city without anything catastrophic befalling him in the first few minutes had revealed how much his nightmares and racing thoughts had weighted the moment, but the city itself hadn't done anything to him. That had been Harkenn, and Arlen, and the current of magic that ran below them which may or may not have possessed some form of sentience. That set aside, he realised how much he had missed his sister, missed Nika. Missed seeing faces. He stared greedily at many of the people they passed. The only faces he had seen in weeks were Chip's and his son's before they left the Guildtown. It was such an insignificant thing, and yet he'd missed reading emotions from physical features, being able to put a face to a name.

"Is Nika home?" he asked, as they turned once more onto Yddris's street. His pack suddenly weighed even more than it had a moment before, and he fervently anticipated the chance to put the damned thing down for good. In his ear, Ren chittered with excitement.

Yddris was quiet for a few moments as they drew closer, and then said, "He is." A few seconds later Jordan smelled Nika's cooking and his stomach growled loudly enough for both of them to hear it. Yddris snorted. "Get in there, boy, before he accuses me of starving you."

Jordan went in without knocking, into the familiar short hall, into a familiar front room. He looked around, taking in the neat stacks of books and the pot bubbling over the fire. The fire itself carried Nika's familiar chill signature. Shit on it, I actually missed this place.

"Thought you'd come back, did you?" a soft voice spoke from the hall, and then Nika entered carrying a bunch of carrots by the stalk. He set them down beside the pot.

Jordan's face split into a grin before he could help himself. "Thought we'd better, on balance."

"And what did you think of it?"

"I'm going to have to admit everyone was right," Jordan replied. Nika laughed.

Yddris entered and set his pack down beside Jordan's. Something passed between the two Unspoken that Jordan wasn't privy to, and then his tutor cleared his throat. "I can't stop long, someone at the guard post will have sent word to Harkenn."

"There are some things we should discuss first," Nika said firmly. "He can wait until we've eaten and I've had a chance to fill you in."

"I'm sure he intended to do that."

"He is the subject of discussion." Nika's tone brooked no argument, and Yddris didn't offer any. The quiet that followed was uneasy. However bad it had seemed in the letters, they were missing some pieces – something had changed since they'd been sent.

The letters. Jordan's heart sank. He had forgotten that in his absence, Nika had had a run-in with Arlen Blackheart. The man wasn't stupid; he'd see there was a link between them. He wondered if the Unspoken suspected, or even knew, how deep the link went. He bit down on his instinct to ask after Grace. He wouldn't bring it up first, and he trusted that Nika would tell him if his sister was anything other than fine.

"Come in and sit down." Nika sighed. "I'm sorry I'm so short. I haven't slept since three-day."

It was almost sixthday. Jordan opened his mouth, but Yddris beat him to it. "Fuck's sake, Nika. You'd better not insist on coming with me. Fill me in on what I need to know and get some dark-damned sleep."

"I can't," Nika said fretfully. "There's just too much to do. He'll expect me to be there."

"Can't do any of it if you keel over. Let me deal with Harkenn. Night take me, you've done me enough of a favour standing in, let me at least deal with the fallout."

The speed at which Nika caved to the demand betrayed the true extent of his exhaustion. He sighed as he nodded and began to prepare the carrots.

"Let me do that," Jordan muttered. Despite his own fatigue, he knew he wouldn't settle if he rested. He could already feel the night ahead closing in on him like a shadow; even if Harkenn didn't demand to see him, Arlen would somehow find out if Jordan didn't go to him on the night of arrival as promised. Besides, he had a bone or two to pick with his Devil tutor, and he was trying desperately hard to ignore how much the idea scared him.

"You must be exhausted from your journey," Nika protested, even as he allowed himself to be shunted away from the chopping board.

"At least I slept in the last three days," Jordan retorted. Not much, granted, but Nika didn't have to know that.

The Unspoken paused as Jordan took up the knife, and put a hand to Jordan's shoulder, squeezing hard. "It is very good to see you both."

Ren squeaked and used the opportunity to scamper along Nika's arm and settle on his shoulder with an excited mewl.

"Tart," Jordan muttered. Nika laughed again, the sound more relaxed this time, as he set to scratching behind the shadow runner's ears.

"Fill us in then," Yddris said. He settled in the one chair in the room with the window cracked open and began stuffing his pipe. On their journey back, the Unspoken had made sure not to smoke in close proximity to Jordan, but every time he caught a whiff of blackweed Jordan's skin itched with the need for a cigarette. It was fading, but he had a horrible feeling it would not take much to start him back on it, especially now he was back in the Reach.

Nika's recounting of events in the city in their absence was not encouraging to say the least. If he hadn't been cooking, Jordan would have stared with his mouth swinging open at the litany of strangeness and misfortune that continued to hound the city even with the light returning. It explained all the strange behaviour they had seen walking to Yddris's, and the sheer amount of debris lying in the alleys as if pushed in just to get it out of the way. Demon numbers in the city, at least, had started to fall, but in their place people were causing their own problems. He tried to remember if earth had ever made life this complicated, and concluded that it probably had, and he had just been lucky enough not to be caught in the middle of the whirlwind.

"Well," Yddris said into the echoing silence that was left after Nika explained Nova's plans to him. The idea that Harkenn himself was being manipulated chilled Jordan more than anything else. He hated the man, but at least when it came to managing the city he had seemed to know what he was doing. He had been a cold, calculating bastard regardless of the circumstances, which in a time of turmoil was somewhat reassuring.

"Well," Jordan echoed, when his tutor couldn't seem to find anything more to say. "That all...blows."

"Understatement," Yddris muttered. He accepted a bowl of stew and knocked his pipe out of the window. "Nict's rotten balls. The letter didn't have half of that in it and it sounded dire enough."

Nika stirred his stew and blew on a spoonful. "You're telling me."

"Has Anarabelle managed to get an audience with him?"

"Not yet." Nika shook his head. "And that troubles me greatly. I have been in the meetings and his manner is not so different from normal, and yet he seems uncharacteristically tractable in the negotiations. And now he is turning House Heads away at the door and refusing to see the slave he has kept on a short leash for ten years. Incidentally that covers everyone who would have enough sway with him to oppose the conditions of a contract with Caelum."

Silence fell again.

Yddris left after scarfing down his stew, instructing Jordan tersely not to get too settled down just in case he was summoned. As soon as he left Jordan and Nika alone, the silence changed tone. Jordan wondered if Nika felt the one thing they hadn't broached yet as a barrier between them, or if he was just being paranoid.

"Your sister is an extremely capable student," Nika began. He had instantly alighted on a topic that made Jordan feel almost more impossibly guilty. "Her gift for languages is exceptional."

"I know." Jordan smiled, pride welling in him despite the guilt. "She spoke three at home. Not very useful now, obviously, but it's probably partly why she's so good at picking up new ones. I never had the knack." A thought occurred to him. "I met Yerrit."

"Oh yes?"

"We got on really well. Well enough for him to come down for a send-off party at least." Jordan dragged his bag over to where they sat near the fire and fought his way through the clasps and ties holding the bulging thing shut. Digging the roll of thick paper out of the bottom of it was another near-Sisyphean task of its own, but he finally pulled it free, wrapped in soft cloth and thicker parchment to avoid damage. "I did these with you in mind." Nika's breath caught. Jordan averted his gaze, heat rising up his neck as the papers rustled and quiet followed. Without looking round he added, "I've never really thanked either of you. And I know I've been a proper shit at times, so..."

He trailed off, and shrugged, unable to find words that fitted. He felt corny enough already.

"Thank you, Thorne." Nika spoke so softly Jordan almost didn't catch it. He sifted through each of the botanical illustrations Jordan had spent several painstaking hours drawing and adding coloured inks to with a reverence that made him self-conscious. "There is no need to thank me, but I will treasure these." He looked up and Jordan met his eye by accident. Heat turned into a burn. "If circumstances had been different I would have been glad to have you as my student."

Jordan fidgeted. "Sometimes I feel as emotionally constipated as Yddris."

He hadn't really meant to say it and braced himself for anger, but a laugh so loud and uncharacteristic burst from Nika at the words that he jumped. "My friend, you will have to try harder than that." As abruptly as the laughter began, it faded. "Night take me, I do think I might be losing the plot, Thorne."

"Go get some sleep." Jordan tried to keep some cheer in his voice. It was better than worry, though he suspected Nika would sense it anyway. "I'll clear up."

"I might need to. We'll talk more in the morning." The Unspoken stood. "Good night, Thorne."

Jordan watched him cross the room and disappear into the hall. His footsteps sounded on the attic stairs and then fell quiet aside from the occasional creak of a floorboard. Neither of them had attempted to talk about the Devils, and Jordan wasn't sure whether Nika intended to or not. He knew Grace would. Before he had any of those conversations, though, he had to speak with Arlen.

He cleared up the dinner and then took over Yddris's seat. He could have started unpacking, but couldn't find the will. Instead, he stared out the window and waited for night to fall.

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Regards,

Elinor (S E Harrison/giveitameaning)