Page 12 of Wild Reverence

VII

Red

MATILDA

I emerged through a door in the side of a hill, its lintel hidden by long tussocks of grass.

It was a sultry spring day, the sun at her zenith in the sky.

Clouds were building, rumbling in the distance to the south, and I gave myself a moment to gain my bearings, my sight adjusting to the fierce light.

I was surrounded by moorlands knee-deep in yellow gorse, and it almost felt as if I were the only one in the world, save for the sparrows that chirped from the bracken.

It was peaceful until I felt the urgent pull to Rowena again. A sharp tug, like a thread had knotted between my lungs. It drew my eyes upward, but there was only the deep blue of the sky, the merciless sun, the clouds that gathered like tufts of spun wool.

“Rowena?” I called, wondering if she could hear me.

There was no answer.

I ascended the hill until I stood at its top, but I felt no closer to her villa. There had to be a way to enter the Skyward realm, like the Underling doorways, but I was at a loss as to how to uncover it.

I did not even have my father’s name to call upon.

The odd moonstone was still warm against my waist, but the eye had not opened any farther. It was still half-lit, heavy lidded.

“I suppose you cannot be my vision?” I mulled aloud to it, hopeful.

Again, there was no answer.

Standing here would only waste time. What had my magic revealed to me? An orchard. An apiary. A loom.

I decided to run until I crossed paths with one of these hints, cutting a trail through the gorse.

Up one hill and down another, my heart beating like a steady drum, my long legs devouring the ground with ease.

Soon, I saw smoke rising in the distance.

I passed farms that had been ravaged, crop fields that had been trampled.

Woods that were charcoaled remains. Graveyards with no tombstones, only freshly turned dirt pecked over by vultures.

It was the evidence of the war between the Ousted King and the Poet Queen, and I swallowed, thinking of Adria below in Bade’s arms, struggling to breathe, her abdomen torn open.

The king had won.

But could she truly become one of us? Dacre had spoken truthfully: It had never been done before. She would be the first mortal to become goddess if I could locate Rowena. If Fate would surrender a few of her stars like her sister Death had.

Time was passing. The sun taunted me as it began to sink toward the western horizon, and I had covered endless ground, unable to find my way above. I was growing desperate, weary.

Whenever I was tempted to rest, I would imagine Bade’s face. How he would look at me when I returned to the under realm, unsuccessful in my first endeavor as herald.

If Adria perished, it would be due to my failure.

I eventually came upon a wide roaring river. Someone had made a camp here, although the fire was nothing but warm ashes in a circle of stones, and the grass was tamped down and brown, as if a ring of tents had been recently moved.

My thirst drew me to the water, and I strode through the abandoned camp and knelt on the mossy banks, filling my palms. I splashed my face and then drank, closing my eyes to savor the sweet, cold water.

I was still there, on my knees, eyes closed, when I caught a putrid, rotten scent.

Then came the icy temperature, the dimming of the light.

I looked up and saw a clutch of eithrals on the horizon.

My heart was stoic at first, as if I had been culled during court. There was nothing left to feel, not even fear. But then a shiver raced through me when I realized that the creatures had spotted me, changing their course to glide my way.

I could remain where I was, kneeling in the open, unmoving. But the wind was teasing my unbound hair, blowing it over my shoulders. The movement was reeling them in.

Standing, I looked behind me, my eyes scanning the sprawl of landscape for the closest cover. There was nothing that struck me as safe, only a distant coppice on the hillside and a thick blanket of bracken, tall and green from generous rainfall.

I made my way to the ferns, deciding I would lie down and let their fronds cover me. The top of the bracken brushed against my knees. The wind was blowing stronger now, a blistering cold, when I felt a hand latch to my ankle, granting me a sharp tug.

I lost my balance and went down, my knees crushing the loam.

My heart thundered with shock, then annoyance when I realized it was a mortal boy who had tripped me. He had had the same thought as me, taking shelter here. And I only caught a glimpse of half his face—a tangle of raven-black hair, a wide gray eye—as the ferns whipped over him.

“What are you doing?” I snapped.

A glimpse of his mouth, which was pressed into a thin line, and a flash of his pale throat. The ferns continued to dance over him, and I realized he was still grasping my ankle.

“ Get down, ” he pleaded, his voice crackling with fear. “You are drawing them to us.”

There was no time for me to argue with him as I would have liked.

I folded, letting the bracken close over my head. The last thing I intended was to lie down beside him, but I had gracelessly sprawled onto my stomach. And it was here, hidden beneath the green fronds, that I got a clear view of his face.

I knew him.

I had been reading his dreams for many months now.

My breath snagged. I could not draw air as I stared at him, as he stared at me in return.

Those winter-sea eyes of his flared wide. His mouth went slack. I seemed to have stunned him, more than he had done to me.

“ Red? ” he said.

I blinked. I almost said no, but then it struck me. How many times had he asked for my name? And how many times had I never answered, the dream breaking instead?

I whispered, “Is that what you have been calling me?”

He did not reply. Something behind me stole his attention, and he winced, terror stricken.

Even so, he reached for me, just like he had done in his nightmares.

His arms came around me; his legs twined with mine.

At first I thought, He is afraid, but then I realized his embrace was not because he feared for himself.

He was holding on to me like he was an anchor in a storm.

A weight to keep me grounded. He held me because he feared I was about to be carried away.

And should I be, he was so entwined with me that the beast would have to take us together.

The rotten cold was churning.

I could feel the pressure in the air, my ears popping, as a shadow spilled over the bracken.

Quickly, I recalled my shield from the moonstone in my belt. It appeared on my sinister arm, something solid for us to shelter beneath. Vincent pressed his face into my hair, his fingers grasping the back of my dress.

I was thankful for all those spars Bade had given me, forcing me to grow stronger. Blow after blow, until my bones felt like they could snap, and my muscles blazed in agony, and my ichor burned like fire. Hour after hour, withstanding the brunt of resistance.

The eithral’s talons hit the wood with a jar.

It wanted to tear the shield clean off my arm, but I gritted my teeth and I held. I was not afraid, and it would not move me; it would not rip me away from Vincent. The wyvern dove a second time, but I held again, my arm like iron.

This could be a dream, I thought. But the boy pressed against me was flesh and blood. He was warm, vibrant. He was breathing into my hair. He was here, or perhaps it was better to say I was there, because I was in his world.

And I had not realized how strong I was until that moment. My childhood had truly melted away, leaving behind a burnished version of me.

A third time, the eithral swooped, but its talons only scraped along my shield half-heartedly. They were powerful but they were simple beasts, easily distracted by moving, shining things, and Vincent and I were frozen shadows in a sea of bracken, guarded by a dull wooden shield.

The air began to warm. The sunlight returned as a flood of gold, and a soft zephyr carried the stench of rot southward.

The eithrals were gone and I swallowed. My mouth was dry, my arm exhausted.

I stored the shield in the moonstone pocket again, just as Vincent lifted his head to regard me. The expression on his face was one I had never encountered before in all my years below. It was wholly transparent—soft with wonder, comradery. Trust. Relief. Affection.

He was unguarded, as was I, and he leaned forward just as I shifted to swat a frond out of my eye. But his lips grazed my chin.

We both froze.

I realized he had been aiming to kiss me on the mouth. Surprise rippled down my spine. But then a pleasant warmth fanned across my skin, as if I had drawn close to a fire after a long cold night.

Vincent blushed.

He glanced away, as if he suddenly could not bear to look at me. A tendril of black hair fell over his eye. The emotions I had read on his face went dark, shuttered with mortification.

“I… I’m sorry,” he breathed. “You’re the bravest girl I know, and you’re here, after all these months when I’ve only seen you in dreams. I did not know that you were real. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. But I—”

I leaned forward, drawing his tortured gaze back to mine.

I pressed my mouth to his like a seal. A kiss of innocence that was brief but earnest. When I eased back, we looked at each other again, sharing another moment of pure, delighted shock.

Then I laughed, joy cresting through me like a wave.

Vincent joined me, and we laughed until we cried, and my ribs felt bruised from the glee, and it seemed as if we had drunk all the light from the sky.

I realized that I could hold such happiness. There was a space for it, hidden within me, and it could grow deeper roots if I let it.

“How did you find me?” Vincent asked once our laughter had subsided.

“I was not trying to,” I confessed. “I stumbled upon you.”

“Like you did in my dreams?”

I nodded, uncertain how else to reply to him. “Why were you out here, in the open like this?”

“I’m waiting for my brothers to return. They were called as reinforcements for the queen. We were camped here, returning home, when the message came for them to ride to the valley.”

“Oh.” My joy dimmed as I remembered Adria, wounded. Bade, waiting for her to transform. I still had my message to carry, and it felt like my heart tore a little as I sat up, leaving the shelter of the ferns.

“Red?” Vincent followed me, and we reluctantly returned to the reality around us. A world that was on the brink, ready to crumble. “What is it? Do you want to come home with me? My brothers should be back soon. You can ride with me.”

“I can’t,” I said, rising. “I have to go.”

Vincent stood. He was taller, ganglier than in his dreams. But I loved that we were eye to eye.

“Go where?”

“Skyward.”

A lull of silence came between us. I glanced back at him, only to see a flicker of astonishment in his face.

“ Gods, ” he whispered. He blanched as he continued to stare at me. My white gown spun from the finest of silk, my bare arms chased by gold. My moonstone belt, which had yet to appear in his dreams. “You’re a goddess, aren’t you?”

All this time, he had believed I was a mortal girl.

My throat constricted. Would this change how he thought of me? Would he grow fearful of me?

“Yes,” I said, and the word hurt to say. “I—”

“Vincent!”

A distant shout interrupted us.

Vincent and I both turned to look up the hill, where riders had appeared, dotting the horizon.

I knew it was his two elder brothers, Finnian and Marcher.

I had seen them in his dreams, and as they began to canter their horses toward us, I saw they were not alone.

Behind them was a cadre of warriors. Knights, archers with yew bows, warriors carrying banners.

I noted two different marks of heraldry.

The white flowers and blue velvet I recognized as the Beckett sigil, and one that was unfamiliar—a yellow banner with three mountains.

Their steeds were lathered with foam, mud splattered. Their pennants were torn. Their faces were grim, their armor bloodstained.

I knew the terrible, crushing news they bore.

They believed Adria was dead. She had been killed by an eithral. She was gone, swept away. Their world had fractured.

I took a step back, unable to explain why my heart was racing, like a hare startled from a thicket. But a prickle of warning crept over me.

Run.

To be a lone goddess surrounded by men devastated from battle was dangerous. For men are like eithrals: they are drawn to shining, quicksilver things, keen to tame them. And while I trusted Vincent, I did not trust any other mortal.

Run, the order came again.

I turned and broke into a sprint.

“Wait!” Vincent’s voice was frantic. “Red , wait !”

My feet did not slow, not even for him. I could hear him running, desperate. He called to me again, and again, by this nickname he had dubbed me. And it stung my eyes. It split my breath, like the beginnings of a sob.

I wanted to be like steel, but I glanced over my shoulder, unable to resist.

Vincent had inevitably slowed, his face lined in agony as the distance between us expanded. He would never catch me. But his brothers, drawn by my action, had now broken from their retinue and were galloping in my wake.

They were gaining on me, but the hills were coming. I was determined to slip away in the valley’s shadows.

There was a muffled shout as one of the brothers called to me.

I could not make out the words; my blood roared in my ears. I set my eyes on the path before me, where the ground met the sky. I was sprinting up the hill when a god appeared before me, etched from a cold gust.

He was old, with a sad, weathered face and long silver hair. A beard that was braided and clinked with beads. His voice was a deep timbre, his eyes a vivid blue. His name came to me, as if he had whispered it into my mind.

Shale.

“Where are you heading, god-child?” he asked.

“To Fate,” I breathed. “Can you guide me to Rowena’s villa?”

“Are you certain that is where you want to go?”

“Yes.”

“Then take my hand.”

I had to close my eyes in order to see his long, feather-like fingers.

Once I clasped them, my stomach lurched, and I dared to look down as the world smudged beneath me.

Green merged with brown, and brown faded into blue.

An electrifying feeling poured through me, as if I had drunk too much wine.

It stole the air from my mouth like a kiss.

I let the god of the wind carry me Skyward.