Ninety One: Threads

Dela looked up at the house in front of her and shuddered involuntarily.

She wasn't nervous. She didn't think so, anyway. More...anticipatory.

Leaving the Kiel temple had been a wrench, that was true. She'd cried every night for the past few days. But it would have been worse if Lin wasn't coming with her. Kerrin had promised that she'd be able to do a lot of work for Kiel during her studies and beyond it. So really, the only thing that she had to do was get used to this new life she was about to embark on. This adventure. Thinking of it as an adventure helped, too. She'd be helping people in so many ways.

"He doesn't bite," Torian said, chuckling, when she hesitated at the door. "He's just worn away all his filters over the years."

"I wasn't worried about him until you said that," she mumbled, but stepped into the warm hallway. The air lit up with threads of colour, a faint crackle running across her skin. She felt Torian tighten her walls, and the colours dimmed. The strongest one, a thread of deep red, trailed through the hall and into the room beyond, where she could hear quiet voices.

"Yddris?" Torian called. "Nika?"

"Nika?" Dela whispered. "You didn't tell me Nika was here."

"You know each other?" Torian asked, surprised. A figure appeared in the doorway.

"Kiel's teeth," the figure said. Dela didn't know his voice, but almost immediately he surged forward, a flurry of excitement. His aura was a warm blue. "Thorne's gonna be so relieved he's not the only one. Well met."

Dela shook elbows, smiling nervously. Torian had told her to expect that everyone would be pleased, but she wasn't quite prepared for how pleased.

"I'm Koen," he said brightly. Dela remembered just in time that Torian had told her not to tell her real name to too many people, even Unspoken.

"Well met, Koen."

"What are you so excited about?" That voice, she did know. Nika came into the hall much more sedately, and she could tell immediately he was injured. "Oh. Oh, my."

"I think I got a bit too inspired," Dela said, when the silence stretched on for a little too long.

Nika laughed, then winced and put a hand to his side. "I think you have. Do come in, please. Grace and Thorne are just finishing dinner. Yddris!"

"Stop impersonating a factory chimney and come meet the new apprentice!" Koen added. The voices in the next room went silent. Koen seemed unbothered. Dela shrank closer to Torian's side.

"It's fine." He squeezed her shoulder and reassured her silently that he had control of her walls. No more repeats of that morning, when she'd set all the towels in the inn's bathroom on fire and scorched the floor when a shadeling ran out from under the tub and startled her. "We've only had one other apprentice this year. They're just surprised."

She entered the front room. Threads tangled through the whole room. The red one led out down the next hallway. Nika's was a pale fog-mauve. Thorne stood beside a bubbling pot of food, his aura startlingly similar to the natural colour of Nictavian magic. His sister Grace stood nearby, a bundle of stalks in one hand and a knife in the other, her face still with surprise. On the floor near the hearth sat Anarabelle Novae, the only one who didn't look surprised to see her. The chain and collar was gone from around her neck and she wore real clothes, not just a shift with ragged sleeves. Dela grinned at her, inexplicably pleased to see her so well, and Anarabelle's answering smile was startled but gratified.

"Hello," Thorne said. His word dropped into the quiet like a stone.

"You two have met?" Grace asked, looking between them.

"Something like that." Thorne nodded at her. "How are you? I mean...as far as you can be, I guess."

"I'm well, actually," Dela replied. She suspected Thorne had been the one responsible for her still being alive. If he hadn't complied with the Angels, they would have killed her. And she didn't think the leader of the Devils would have let her go if he'd thought Thorne didn't care either way, even if, for a brief moment, she had thought that Thorne had abandoned her there. "You?"

"Been better," he said. He sounded hoarse and moved slowly. "But not too terrible."

They all turned as Yddris entered, his aura swamping the room with red shadows. He brought the smell of blackweed with him. "Well, I'll be." He squinted at her. "Varthian? That's rare. You taking her, Torian?"

"I thought I might. If she consented."

"You're so young for it," Nika said, easing himself down in the single chair in the room. He sounded as though he frowned. "How old are you? I've never asked."

"Fourteen," Dela said, a mite defensively.

"I've made some plans for that," Torian said. "She's going to spend her first few months at the Guildtown, I think. She's too young for city training yet. One of her fellow acolytes is going to accompany us, and they'll both be training in medicine with Nadiya. Partly at Lady Kerrin's behest. She's been wanting to trade medical knowledge with the Guild for a while."

"That sounds like an excellent plan," Nika said warmly. Dela blushed. A small part of her had been hoping that Nika might apprentice her, but Torian had already said that he was some time off of being able to apprentice. She liked Torian, though. He was kind, if a little distant at times. She would be his first apprentice, he had told her. Then he'd bought her new warm clothes and spent a whole night patiently explaining everything she was going through. She liked him a lot.

And she was excited.

"I'll take those out," Thorne said to Grace, easing the cuttings out of her hands and hurrying off down the passageway. She watched him go with a frown, but when she made to follow Yddris stopped her with a hand. She sighed.

"Do come in," Nika said. "You really need to get some more chairs, Yddris, it's embarrassing always making guests sit on the floor."

"I don't make anyone do anything."

"You know what I mean."

"This happens a lot," Koen said to Dela, in a conspiratorial undertone that everyone heard. She smiled. Her magic rumbled away behind the walls Torian had set for her. It was almost like carrying a small piece of her faith in her chest, warm and comforting.

"I'd like to speak to him," she said to Yddris. She hadn't really thought about it, but felt it was very important. "If that's alright. I'd like to thank him for something."

"He's not well," Yddris replied. "He might tell you he doesn't want company. If he does, respect that."

"I will," she said. She'd been to enough services, seen to enough patients and grieving families, to recognise when to give space. She didn't intend to corner Thorne. She wasn't even sure what she really wanted to say, but whatever it was felt important.

She found him smoking under the eaves. As she slipped out and let the door close, he hurriedly stubbed out his cigarette. When he saw her, his shoulders slumped.

"Do you mind if I talk to you?" Dela asked. She didn't approach. Somehow she didn't think he'd want proximity.

"Sure." A pause. "Look, I'm really sorry you got dragged into..."

"It's fine." She interrupted him. She startled herself a little. She rarely interrupted anyone. "I wanted to thank you, actually. For not abandoning me at the temple. You could have got away."

Thorne shrugged. "I...well, sure. You're welcome."

He sounded unconvinced. She guessed he probably felt guilty. If she'd been a different kind of person, she could have blamed him – but it hadn't seemed like he had any more choice than she had.

"You don't seem too unhappy about it," he said suddenly. "The Gift, I mean."

"I'm not," she said. "I'm surprised. And it's been a struggle. I thought I had my whole life mapped out, and it got turned upside down overnight. But I think...I think I realised just before it happened...that it wasn't the right path anyway. Do you ever get that feeling? Like something just fell into place? I had that when I woke up. It just felt...natural."

"Sounds nice," he muttered.

"Sometimes you have to work at seeing it," she said. "I saw the Angels threatening to kill all my classmates, and...and I saved them." She still marvelled at that idea, that she had turned that tide. "And I woke up with the Gift, after saving them using demons, and it felt like the gods were trying to tell me something."

"Using demons?"

"I lured a pack of Wights to the temple. Torian was with me."

"That's...impressive."

She smiled. "Thank you."

He snorted softly, and began rolling another cigarette. His hands shook as he did so, but the green flame he produced to light it was steady.

"How long did it take you to do that?" she asked. "Torian has to hold mine in."

"That's normal." Thorne expanded the flame to a ball sitting in his palm. "Yddris had to hold mine in for a couple of months. It took me another couple to get this far. I can't use runes yet, but I've started making shapes." He made the ball morph into a wiggly line, and then a ring. "Need runes for anything more complicated than that."

"Have you saved anyone?"

The fire went out. Thorne was quiet for a moment. "A few. Though I lost control a couple of times, so I don't know if those count."

"And you don't get any satisfaction from that?"

Thorne sighed smoke. "I...guess. Feels like I turn it upside down half the time."

Dela walked over and tentatively sat down on the bench beside him. When he didn't ask her to leave or show signs of not welcoming it, she settled her hands in her lap. She'd seen Kerrin do this before and wasn't sure how welcome it would be, but it was worth trying. He seemed so sad.

"Do you have a faith?"

"No. Not really."

"Do you think you could see your magic as a faith?"

He paused, and looked at her for the first time. His hood wriggled, and a small black animal plopped out into his lap and crept onto the bench between them, sniffing curiously. Dela let out in an involuntary squeak.

"That's Ren," Thorne said, chuckling. "She likes head scratches and belly rubs. Give her one of these if you want." He dug in his pocket and produced a small roll of dried meat. Dela took it, and laughed at the little shadow-runner's snuffling and licking. After a thorough investigation of Dela's hand to see if she was hiding more somewhere, Ren settled on her legs, lightly rumbling. Thorne spoke again. "Never really seen it that way. I've never been religious."

"Spiritual, then. You don't think it chose you for a reason?"

"To fuck with me." Thorne coughed. "Sorry."

"I don't believe in coincidences," she declared. He looked at her again. "And I think you're important."

"No offence, but we barely know each other. Though I'd love to have your conviction."

"I bet there's never been anyone like you," she continued. She was certain of what she was saying, though she wasn't sure what compelled her. She turned her eyes to the sky. "With so many different lives and connections. It's got to mean something, right?"

He fidgeted and said nothing.

"I know I was put here to help people. This isn't how I pictured it, but I will be, won't I? I always liked caring for the living as well as the dead. Maybe you just haven't pictured it right, yet. Because otherwise..." she smiled, rubbing Ren's head, "...what's the fucking point?"

He laughed. He paused. Then he laughed again, and stubbed out his cigarette on the bench. "You sound way older than you are."

"My ma said that once." Dela frowned. "She didn't mean it as a compliment."

"Well, I do." Thorne got up. He levered Ren from Dela's lap so she could stand, and then gently perched the animal on her shoulder. "There. Is she hurting you?"

There were little claw pinpricks in her shoulders, but Dela barely noticed. "No." She giggled. "Her fur's ticklish."

"Well, that's alright then. Come on in, dinner will be ready in a minute." He held the door open for her, and pushed back his hood a little so she saw him wink and grin. "Welcome to the Guild."

Author's Note

Hello there! Thank you so much for reading this book - I hope you have enjoyed the journey so far. The support on this series has been beyond any expectations I had for it when I first started posting Nightfire in 2018 (yes, it's been that long, haha. I can't quite believe it?)

Some of you may be aware there are two more books in this series. The third book, Angelfire, is now out and updating weekly on my profile!

If you are interested in bonus content, I have some fun illustration projects in the pipeline for fans of this series, and for anyone interested in the madness that goes on in my head pretty much all the time. Making worlds and stories is my jam and I love sharing them with people, both visually and through writing. My Instagram is now active, so if that sounds intriguing you should totally follow me there. My handle is thornes.sketchbook (and that's totally a hint).

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Regards,

Elinor (S E Harrison)