Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Fifty Three: Darin

I can't believe I'm doing this.

Jordan walked away from Arlen's home cursing himself. His hood made it hard to keep the Varthian brute accompanying him in view at all times, but Usk wasn't making any attempt to be subtle. Inside his hood, Ren's claws dug into the back of his neck, her fur bristling against his cheek in response to his fear.

Usk couldn't have been much shorter than seven feet. When Jordan had first seen him in the taproom of the Demon's Brew, he'd been intimidating; walking beside him was like walking beside a human wall. He could only be grateful that the teasing had stopped once they'd left Arlen's rooms. It had been incessant since the brute had appeared abruptly in the stacks at the Nict temple and frogmarched him out into the night.

He shuddered at the recollection. He'd genuinely thought he might faint when the Varthian stepped out from behind the bookcase he'd been set to clearing. All the priests had been conspicuously absent, which now made sense if Callan was working with the Devils. He wondered if Harkenn knew, and then decided he valued his life far too much to check.

"You sense any demons, you tell me," Usk rumbled.

"Okay." Jordan was sure it'd be far too late by the time he realised a demon was within range, but he said nothing.

He thought about asking about Arlen's wound, but decided it would be taken badly. The assassin had looked like shit; he was always sallow and smelled like a drain, but the man in that room had looked borderline cadaverous. Jordan couldn't decide whether it would be a good or a terrible thing for him if Arlen died from a wound like that. Jordan didn't have much knowledge of the medicines available in Nictaven, but the only painkiller Nika had ever provided was plant sap, and that wasn't a promising start.

They crossed the bridge back into the living city; the same one Yddris had escorted him across just a couple of hours before. He dared to hope that his tutor might have stayed in the area, but they moved on unhindered. Jordan recognised a few of the streets. All roads in the merchants' quarter led back to the market like the spokes of a wheel, but Usk took him around the edge. The rest of the walk couldn't have been more than twenty minutes at the punishing pace Usk set them, but it still felt like forever in the silence. Jordan's attention was torn between keeping up, making sure his lungs didn't expire, and trying to keep an eye out for demons before they were close enough to chew their heads off. By the time they stopped, Jordan's brain was foggy with exhaustion.

"You're in the area," Usk muttered. He seemed unfazed by the journey. "Arlen will have my guts if I go with you any further than here."

Jordan looked around. They'd entered a dense network of narrow streets lined with tiny cottages, all uniform and small. He looked up, and dark orange streaked the sky above a smoke-belching behemoth of a factory. The air smelled faintly of rancid fat.

With another nervous glance at Usk, Jordan stepped forward. He whirled at a rustle behind him, terrified for a fleeting moment that Usk had brought him out here to kill him, but the huge man was gone.

"Ah," he breathed, letting it stretch out on a shuddering breath. He didn't know what to expect. Arlen had only given him a name. Was this Darin another Devil? If he was, why wasn't Usk allowed any closer?

And why was he still doing this?

Grace, he thought determinedly, I have to do this for Grace.

Briefly, and only briefly, he considered calling Arlen's bluff, but he wouldn't play with his sister's life like that. He stepped forward, keeping the factory in view, and followed the street ahead along the row. Some houses had no visible numbers, and they were all so uniform it was easy to lose track of which ones he'd ruled out even with his magic-assisted vision. It was a miracle he hadn't exploded into flames. He almost wished he hadn't been trying so hard to gain control in the days since the fleshmonger attack. His magic remained docile, even as he fervently wished for a way of telling Yddris he'd landed himself in the shit again.