Page 103 of Wild Reverence

LXXIX

The Legend of a Mortal Lord

VINCENT

I sat in the shadows of the sepulcher beside Matilda’s body, waiting.

I waited for her chest to rise again, for her lungs to draw air.

For her heart to remember its beat, for her magic to knit her wound until there was only the faintest trace of a scar left behind.

I waited for her to open her eyes, to blink away the darkness.

For her to look at me. For her soul to warm her flesh.

I waited for her to breathe my name.

It had been a full day since she had died in the woods, since I had carried her back to the fortress.

She remained unmoving, cold to the touch, preserved as if she had become stone.

I had undressed her and washed away her blood.

I had combed golden oil through her hair until it shone like copper and drawn a pale blue gown over her body, fastening her moonstone belt around her waist. I set a bouquet of river blythe in her hands, and the poisonous white blossoms looked delicate, soft as lace.

I laid her in the same place Nathaniel had once claimed—breathless, pale, dead.

I waited, feeling as if I had slipped into a hidden crevice of the world. Beyond the sepulcher, I knew time was moving without me. Repairs were beginning on the fortress under Nathaniel’s watch. The dead were being buried. Another mourning sennight had begun, and the conflict with Grimald was over.

He was dead, drowned, and his men had fled the riverbank.

I thought of these things as one day passed into the next, as I remained at her side. Matilda did not move. The sunlight streamed in through the open doorway, touching her folded hands, the white flowers, the length of her dress. Then the moonlight. The firelight. The stars. The sun, once again.

She did not breathe.

Still, I hoped, and I waited.

I was woken by a clatter. Heavy feet on the stone. A massive shadow, blocking the light. Breath that spun in the afternoon air.

I had not realized I had drifted off to sleep until I jolted up to my feet, my eyes focusing first on Matilda, who had not moved, then to the stranger at the entrance of the tomb.

It was Bade.

I blinked, waiting for him to melt away. A mere illusion. He had died beside her, days ago. The last time I had seen him, he had been laid out on a similar table in a neighboring tomb. I had brought him here to Wyndrift to rest, because I did not know where else to take a dead god’s body.

Bade gazed at Matilda, as if expecting her to rise. The moments passed, but he remained. He did not fade, and I realized that he had returned. He was flesh and bone again, and my heart began to race.

“How long?” he panted. “How long have we been dead?”

“Two days,” I said. “Did you see her? Was she with you in the wasteland?”

He nodded but seemed unable to speak another word.

The god of war settled on her other side. We waited together in silence. Another day ended in a misty eventide. The autumnal cold began to sink into my bones. Umber leaves fell from the trees and were blown into the sepulcher. They whispered across the marble floor, gathering in the corners.

Bade gave up before I did.

There was a sadness in his face as he finally stood. He had sat here for the full turning of a day, and his hope had waned like a crescent moon.

“She was right behind me,” he said, caressing her hair. “If she has not returned by now, she never will.”

“Don’t say that.” My voice was sharp, crackling with heat. “She brought my brother back. She brought you back.”

“Yes, but she told me that bearing souls was like bearing words.” Bade paused, his hand sliding away from Matilda’s hair. “She cannot carry her own.”

His response stoked my anger until I thought my voice would catch fire in my throat. “Go on, then. Return to your under realm. I will remain here beside her.”

“Vincent.” Bade sighed my name, sorrowful. “You need to close and seal this sepulcher. She has earned her rest. Her peace. Give that to her body.”

“Get. Out.”

The god of war hesitated, a pained expression on his face. But then he kissed her forehead. I could not bear to watch; I glanced away, to the dead leaves in the corners. He departed without another word to me, and I remained in the shadows, stiff and aching.

I lasted three more days before my brother convinced me to seal the sepulcher.

Once I did, I ascended the stairs to my tower room, walking through debris that the trebuchets had made—loose stones and shards of glass.

Tapestries that had fallen from the walls.

I closed the door and lay down on my bed, the very place where Matilda had once slept.

I slumbered and was glad I did not dream.

“Vince.”

It was Nathaniel’s voice that woke me from a bland, gray slumber. He was shaking my shoulder, and as I stirred, I realized he was not alone. There was another man, one I did not recognize, fastened to his waist by rope.

“Who is this?” I asked, my voice rusted from sleep.

Nathaniel glanced at the young man standing in his shadow. “This is Anton.”

The knight who had killed him.

“Why is he here?” I pushed myself up, my blood suddenly pounding.

“Oh, no, Vince.” Nathaniel took a step back, flushing.

When he did, Anton mirrored him, as if the two of them were reflections.

“He is helping me. Helping us. We have been rebuilding the walls, the gates. In fact, you will be pleased to hear the western gates have been hung on the bridge. The rubble at Fury Tower has also been cleared away.”

I rose to my feet. I could not remember the last time I ate, drank. A throb rattled at my temples. I felt like I would dissolve if I moved too quickly.

“Why have you woken me?” I asked, but there was a pinch in my chest when I spoke.

I was ashamed that I had been lying here, unable to rise, while my brother led the recovery and restoration of our home.

I should have been assisting them, and yet I found my bones were too heavy, my blood was too thick.

I wanted to sleep. I did not want to be awake, thinking about Matilda. How her body was now sealed in a tomb. The way she had looked, dying in my arms. How long I had knelt in the snow, holding her to me, breathing her in, until she had gone cold.

It was supposed to be me, I thought. Not you, Red.

“I have good news,” Nathaniel said with a tentative smile. “Our people have returned from Drake Hall. All the ones who were missing? They have been found. They claim they saw Matilda. She was the one to set them free.”

“They saw her?” I rasped. “She’s returned?”

“Yes, and no,” Nathaniel said. He grasped my arm gently, as if he knew I was one breath away from shattering. “They saw her days ago, in Warin’s villa.”

There were still many pieces of this story that I did not know, and when Nathaniel and his killer left, I forced myself to wash my face and dress in clean clothes.

I descended the tower and met with my people in the hall.

I did not sit on the dais; I sat amongst them, shoulder to shoulder, sharing ale and bread, and I listened as they told me what had befallen them.

The ones who had remained at Drake Hall, and the ones who had been swept away as vassals to Warin’s villa in the clouds, due to Hugh’s underhanded agreement with Warin.

I realized where Matilda had gone the morning I had woken alone, reaching for her across the bed. The morning when the trebuchets had begun firing, and my heart had been in my throat, my stomach in knots. She had gone to return the river shoes, and she had seen my people there.

She had also set them free when she had slain Warin.

“Where is Hugh Delavoy?” I asked, the hall falling silent around me. I vaguely recalled he had shadowed me during the assault, but he had been slow, wounded. I had left him behind when I was trailing Grimald. “Where is he?” I repeated, sharper.

Nathaniel appeared, Anton close behind him.

“He is dead,” my brother said. “He went to sleep last night, and never woke this morning. The healer thinks he succumbed to his wounds. He was still recovering.”

I knew what those words meant. The words Nathaniel did not say.

Someone had poisoned Hugh with blythe.

It was just as well, I thought. I would have taken a great sword and executed him in the courtyard for his crimes.

I would have spilled his blood, gladly. And when I rose from the table, I met Nathaniel’s eyes.

I saw something dark and gleaming within him.

Justice, shrewdness. A shade of our father.

It had been my little brother, I realized. He had killed Hugh quietly so I would not have to stain my hands publicly.

I think that was when I knew.

I knew Nathaniel was almost ready.

Autumn gave way to winter. The short days were riddled with mud, hunger, and snow.

The nights were long and cruel. Not a day passed when I did not rise and think of her.

When I did not look for her in the river, in the stars.

Her constellation gleamed silver against the darkness.

The sight of it was a balm and a sorrow.

There was not an evening when I did not long for her, when I did not lie alone and cold in our bed, watching the fire die.

And just when I thought I could not bear another dark day, hollowed by grief, winter surrendered to spring.

The mornings glittered with frost, but the afternoons were becoming warmer, and the skies were a bright blue when it was not raining.

The river swelled; the weeds grew up from cobblestone cracks. The trees were budding; the garden soil was dark and rich when I took it in my hands. The flowers bloomed on the distant moors.

Life went on, as it always had, even when it felt like it shouldn’t.

Repairs were still underway on the fortress and the bridge, but our days at Wyndrift fell into a quiet, steady rhythm. No gods knocked upon my door. No goddesses tumbled in through windows. No eithrals haunted our skies. No barons challenged our river.

We lived and breathed and mended our wounds in peace, and slowly, we healed and began to dream again of the seasons to come.

I waited for midsummer. When I felt as if I could not hold the words any longer, I invited Nathaniel on a walk across the parapet.

Anton was not with him, upon my request. The murderous knight was no longer bound to my brother by rope in those days but followed him all the same, an unexpected closeness—a friendship—forming between them.

“There is something I would like to ask of you, Nate,” I said.

Nathaniel was quiet for a beat, and we came to a halt at the battlements. The very place I had once stood and watched Matilda’s enchanted ice claim the wall.

“What is it?” Nathaniel said, although by the set of his shoulders… he knew. He knew what I was about to ask of him, and he sounded cautious, guarded.

“When our father died,” I began, “this fortress and river were to go to Finnian. When Finnian died, it was to go to Marcher. And when Marcher died, it was to come to me. As the third born, I never thought this place would fall into my hands the way it did. I never wanted it.” I paused, struggling to know what to say.

But then I looked at my brother and a knot came loose in my chest. “I have thought for many years now that I was simply holding it together as an interim. I was supposed to be here for a season, but then I was to pass it on to you.”

Nathaniel exhaled, a slow deep breath. He sensed it, too.

I could see that my words were not a surprise to him.

Perhaps he had felt this place calling to him in the night.

He heard the music in the currents as our father once had, as our older brothers had.

He was the one who was supposed to rise in place of them.

“The knights and warriors would follow you anywhere,” I continued.

“I have seen it in battle, as well as in days of peace. The craftspeople worship you; they feel seen by you. You love the river and the bridge and fortress, acknowledging each of their strengths as well as their weaknesses. You have brought this place together again, even turning an enemy who once stole your life into a close friend whom you trust. And so I would ask you to let me surrender this crown to you. Allow me to stand aside and bend the knee to you. Permit me to leave, brother.”

Nathaniel was quiet for a long moment. The silence between us was tender, but then he whispered, “Where will you go? I do not want you to leave.”

I smiled—relief rushed through me—and said, “I will not be far from you. I will come and visit often, and if you summon me, I will answer. This I swear to you.”

My brother looked at me, as if sifting through what he saw in my eyes. I thought he was about to cry, but then he took my hand. We stood there together, shadows tangled as one with blue sky above us and the river flowing below us, ever onward.

And I knew what his answer would be, long before he spoke it.

When autumn came, I surrendered my crown, my title, my power.

I bestowed it upon Nathaniel, and I left Wyndrift not as a lord but as a man.

My brother asked again where I would go.

I knew he was thinking of the cautionary tale our father had once told us when we were young.

The legend of a mortal lord whose mind and heart broke when he lost the woman he loved most—the soul that touched his own.

He burned down his legacy, his home, his very name until there was nothing left but ash.

He became shadow and mist, wandering alone until Death came to claim him.

Only then was he reunited with his love.

Nathaniel was worried this was bound to be my fate.

I did not answer him. Not yet, although I envisioned a place I had once been, a year ago. This is where I would travel to, as if I were following an old trail I had forged.

I rode alone on horseback, savoring the wind and the quiet stretch of land. I reached my destination by evening.

Places are never quite how you remember them.

But here was the meadow where I had lain down, Matilda at my side, drenched in starlight.

I could nearly see where our bodies had been, the imprint we had left behind in the grass.

Here was the forest, woven with bracken, a place to shelter.

And here was the dilapidated cottage. Forgotten, abandoned, waiting for someone to return and light its fires.

It only needs new thatching on the roof. The walls are still sound, Matilda had once said.

I walked forward to claim it.