Page 29 of Wild Reverence

XX

Touch and Claim

MATILDA

The door remembered my hand, unlocking as soon as I touched it.

Inside, the burrow was dark and musty. Cobwebs hung like curtains, and tiny bones crunched beneath my feet as I made my way to the hearth, groping in the darkness for the mantel where the pot of fire powder was stored.

I took a handful and tossed the grit onto the ashes, watching the flames return, timid at first. But then they grew, flickering high to cast their light into the chamber.

I was almost afraid to look deeper at my surroundings, but I did.

The burrow had been ransacked.

Chairs were overturned. The earthenware pots from the cupboard had been shattered on the ground.

My mother’s dresses had been torn from their hooks, and my feather mattress split open with a sword.

Tapestries had been removed and a few stones had been dislodged from the wall, exposing clever hiding spots, and I walked to one of the divots, running my fingers through the dust. It must have been Dacre, in his rage, years ago. Taking what he wanted from us.

The only thing that had not been touched were the prayers, which had accumulated in the crack of the hearthstone like snow.

I sighed at the sight. Mortals had been praying to a dead goddess, asking for mild winters, long-burning fires, and sharp wits.

What a waste of parchment and ink, I thought, and took the prayers by the handful.

I tossed them into the fire.

The flames ate the folded parchment merrily, crackling and sparking as I gathered another handful. These, too, I burned.

The smoke that rose was sweet, making my throat swell.

I swallowed and fed yet another handful to the fire, pausing only when one folded piece of parchment caught my attention.

It was bloodstained and limp. When I touched the prayer, I felt a shock of frost, as if it had been buried in hard winter ground.

It unfolded in my hands, exposing a crooked, desperate line.

Matilda, help me.

I inhaled sharply.

No one had written a prayer to me before, and the revelation struck me like a hand: All the prayers I had just burned? They were not for Zenia, but for me.

I fell to my knees, desperate to reclaim them.

“Die down,” I whispered to the fire, but I was not its goddess, and it would not bend to my command. The flames only devoured the parchment faster, hissing when I dared to reach in and grab a corner of parchment. Stricken, I watched the words burn into smoke, unread.

Matilda, help me.

The plea drew my eyes again. Blood-splattered, desperate.

If I set the prayer on my tongue and let it melt, I would know who had written it.

And yet I hesitated when I brought the parchment to my lips.

Why did I think of Vincent, when he had not crossed my mind in years?

Why did my heart ache when I envisioned him calling out to me, only to be met by silence?

“You never did keep a tidy burrow, did you?”

I froze at the familiar voice.

Bade.

I tucked the bloody prayer into my pocket and rose, turning to see the god of war standing on the threshold.

The first thing I noticed was he had more scars.

They crosshatched over his forearms and neck, and even scored his cheeks.

Old scars, by the faint shimmer they held, but they were so plentiful it was difficult not to take note of them.

Then I met his gaze, which was blank, guarded.

I could not tell if he was pleased to see me and I hesitated, smothering the strange, humanlike desire to hurl myself into his arms.

“I learned by example,” I said pointedly, remembering the stale bread, the numerous cups of wine, the piles of books, the pieces of armor that had once been scattered over his own table.

We stared at each other, tension pulling taut like a rope.

He broke the act first. A broad smile split his face, warming his eyes. I could have dropped with relief, and then smacked him for fooling me.

“Gods above, Matilda.” Bade took a step closer. “You’ve grown tall. What have they been feeding you Skyward?”

“Sunsets and rain,” I said dryly. “Although you are just as I remembered.”

“Am I not a touch uglier than I was before?”

“You look like you have gotten yourself into a few scrapes.”

“That is to be expected, though, is it not?”

When he opened his arms, I rushed to him.

I let myself have a moment of weakness, clinging to him as he embraced me.

Here, I felt safe, after many years of wearing facades and armor, waiting for the worst. Here, I felt like a child, small and innocent and removed from the dangerous dance of gods and power.

It only lasted a moment.

When I pulled back, I could see his scars better. Permanent marks made by claws and teeth. My heart twisted in my chest.

The hounds.

I remembered how they had attacked him. These scars had been made the day I had escaped. A testament of his salt vow to aid and protect me, no matter the cost to himself.

“How is Adria?” I said, clearing my throat.

“She is well and keen to see you. In fact, she has invited you to stay with us during the wedding feasts, if you would prefer to be amongst allies.”

“A kind offer. But I should remain here, to put this burrow back in order.”

“Then you plan to stay below for a while?” Bade asked.

“I have no plans,” I confessed. “But I imagine I will come and go after the wedding, now that Dacre has accepted my presence. Speaking of which… you weren’t at court.”

“No.” Bade snorted. “I have been cast out. Marred, they call it.”

“Because of me?”

“Because of many things, Matilda. And nor do I care. Court is wasted time.”

I wanted to agree with him but could not. Court was where important events happened, as well as how knowledge was spread when it came to magic shifting hands. It was where alliances were made or broken, and power was maintained.

“I saw Phelyra has been welcomed back to court,” I said, once more feeling that ice burn through me. “As have I. And yet you are not? How does Dacre reason with such a decision?”

“Phelyra has paid for her crimes. She has only just been invited back after spending ten years in exile. She is very powerful now and Dacre wants her as an ally, not a rogue wandering the catacombs with the potential to align with the enemy. Needless to say, he has made her grovel.”

“Which you are too proud to do?”

Bade arched a brow. Yes, he was. The only soul I could ever envision him groveling to was Adria.

“But more important than court—” he began, raking his hand through his brown hair. An anxious habit of his.

“Yes, what is it?” I prompted.

“My mother,” he said with a sigh. “She wants to see you.”

Bade walked with me to Orphia’s burrow, which was difficult to find on a good day, let alone one that was charged from Enva’s arrival.

The air was full of static, as if a storm was coming.

But the fog parted for me at Death’s threshold, exposing a lintel set with glassy obsidian, and a door that was so polished I caught a glimpse of my face within it.

I looked pale and worried, my long hair gleaming like copper.

“Because Adria will ask me,” Bade said, “when should I tell her you are coming to visit?”

“It depends on why your mother wants to speak with me.”

“Do you want me to wait here for you?”

I shook my head. “No. I will come to the forge later, before the wedding feast tonight.”

“As you say.”

When he was gone, I braced myself, rapping my knuckles upon the door.

“Enter,” Orphia said, an impatient bite of an order.

I stepped into the antechamber, palms going damp, and then farther still to the common room, where Orphia stood weaving on her loom with its never-ending tapestry.

It had been a while since I had visited the matriarch’s quarters, and I took a moment to take them in—the honeycomb of vaulted chambers, the marble pillars carved into beasts, the scrying mirror, the herbs that bubbled in the cauldron, the smoke that smelled of feverfew and sage.

I realized now that it was not dark robes hanging from the rafters above but collected shadows of the dead, and I stifled a shiver.

“I do not want this man to die,” Orphia said by way of greeting, her eyes fastened to the pattern on her loom.

“Oh?” I paused at a safe distance, irritated. My first time back below in years, and Orphia had called me in for something that had nothing to do with me but some mortal man. “Does he want to die?”

“No,” she answered. Silver rings shaped as small bones still gleamed on every knuckle of her fingers.

Her black hair was oiled and combed into a sleek waterfall down her back.

She was just as beautiful as I remembered.

“But my sister has outwitted me with this weft and warp. A shame. He was mine to take before one dark solstice night, but I refrained, curious to see who he would become. I should have known Rowena would sense it and find a way to force my hand. Damn her.”

“That is a shame for him,” I agreed, thinking about all the things I needed to do at the burrow. I needed a new mattress, new dresses. I needed to restock the cupboard and prepare items to barter at the market for wine and bread, and I needed to gather more wood and powder to feed the fire.

“But perhaps there is a way I can loosen these threads of hers,” Orphia mused, and at last her eyes locked with mine.

My attention sharpened. “How so?”

“By letter, if you can reach him before I pay my visit tonight.” She indicated the salver on the hearthside table, where parchment sealed with a drop of wax sat, waiting.

From this distance, I could see a scrawl of ink on the front, a name I could not quite read.

“He is doomed when the clouds break, and the moon shines through. That is when I will come for him, unless you can intervene.”

“You have written him a letter, instructing him on how he may evade you?” I asked, thinking how strange it was that Orphia should care so deeply about one mortal man.

“Something of the sort” was all she said, her eyes returning to her work. “But he will be a challenge to reach. If you had not been successful the first time I sent you with an impossible letter… we would not be standing here speaking.”

“Who is he?”

Orphia did not reply. She merely tilted her head toward the salver again, and then resumed her weaving, forgetting my presence.

During my Skyward years, I learned that I could refuse to deliver messages, but it was a difficult current to fight.

When someone came to me with a request, my magic stirred whether I wanted it to or not.

Enchantment would pull through my body like hunger pangs, keen to be satiated.

And I found that I wanted to run from one realm to the next, with nothing but the wind at my back.

I wanted to cup my palms and carry words as if they were jewels.

I wanted to soak up as much news and knowledge as I could.

I felt most alive when I was on assignment.

My father had watched me come and go through his realm on deliveries but had forbidden me from meddling with mortal requests.

I needed to come of age first before I presented myself to humankind as a goddess, and so I had waited, sharpening myself amongst Skywards.

But I did crave a challenge, and Orphia knew such.

She likewise knew I was curious about the tempestuous world that connected above and below like a silver thread.

I approached the hearthside table, where the letter awaited me.

As soon as I touched it, my magic would accept the request, and I would have no choice but to carry it out.

I had learned this truth of heralding the hard way and had become far more careful since then.

What I chose to touch was within my power, but then it claimed me.

At last, I was close enough to read the name Orphia had addressed this letter to.

The mortal man she did not want to die. Another shadow she did not want to hang upon her rafters.

For a moment, I merely gazed down at the scrawl of her handwriting.

The inked name that was doomed when the clouds broke that night.

My heart reacted before my mind did.

Magic tore through my chest, a pang so vibrant I nearly dropped to my knees.

Vincent of Beckett, Lord of Wyndrift