Page 40 of Wild Reverence

XXVII

When the Clouds Break

VINCENT

It had been ten years since I had last seen my uncle.

His hair was fully gray now, long and lank against his broad shoulders.

He had grown a wispy beard, and his brow was grooved deep from scowling.

But when I looked closer? He was just as I remembered him.

His eyes were still that cunning blue of the sea, his nose was still offset from one too many spars, his posture was still insufferably proud.

I approached the parley tent. Matilda keeping perfect pace at my side. Her hand was warm and strong in mine; I did not realize how thankful I was to have her company until I met Grimald’s probing gaze.

Tension wound tight in my chest. I tried to draw a deep breath but couldn’t. Cold sweat trickled down my back.

But I refused to break the stare with my uncle.

I would not close my eyes. I would not look away first. Not like I had as a boy in the blood-soaked hall all those winters ago.

Grimald sat on one side of the tent, drumming his ruby-laden fingers as he waited.

He wore the colors of his stolen title—Baron of Englewood—and I thought the purple velvet and gold-stitched leaves made his skin appear sallow and dull.

But Grimald had always craved a lordship and riches.

He had always worn the best raiment, even when he had lived at Wyndrift amongst us.

A youthful, square-jawed squire and a silver-haired elderly advisor stood on either side behind him, their gazes also fixing on Matilda and me as we stepped into the shelter of the tent. This was to be neutral ground, but I would not let down my guard. Not even with a goddess as my ally, my wife.

A brazier was set in the center of the tent, providing amber-hued light and warmth to ward off the night’s deepening chill. I refrained from sitting. Matilda and I stood behind our chairs, and while I wanted it to seem like a deliberate decision, the truth was my heart was pounding.

I swallowed the knot in my throat, worried my voice would crack when I spoke. Why did I feel the shades of my brothers, haunting the shadows? The phantom of my father? Why did this night feel like a seam had torn in the ordinary, folding time together?

I felt young, untried. Desperate again, as if I had stepped back into my sixteen-year-old self. It was that prickling sensation of standing on the edge of a cliff, a moment away from slipping. Of losing everything again.

“Ah, how kind of you to bring me a gift, Vincent.” Grimald’s baritone broke the tense silence. His tone was amused as his attention shifted to Matilda. Those beady eyes of his roamed over her, from the hem of her gown up to the veil that blurred the features of her face.

I clenched my jaw. Anger burned through me; the heat began to melt my fears.

Matilda’s head bowed in feigned subservience. But she tightened her hold on my fingers. A reassurance, or a warning? I was not sure, and I resisted the temptation to say her name.

“I must confess that I brought nothing in return for you, nephew,” Grimald said, continuing his bold scrutiny of Matilda. “Why does she conceal her face? Surely beauty has no need to hide.”

“This is my wife,” I said through my teeth. “You have interrupted our wedding feast.”

Grimald froze for a beat, surprised.

Marriages in our world created strong, unshakeable alliances.

They were often more binding than blood.

That is why I had agreed to go along with Matilda’s preposterous ruse of a marriage.

She had been right—as she often had been in my dreams—when she said the mere belief of it would throw Grimald’s confidence to the wind.

Even without knowing her name, my uncle was suddenly reeling.

I watched as suspicion flickered over his expression, then anger, worry. I could almost hear the eddy of his thoughts; he was wondering who I had just wed myself to. Whose daughter had I just entwined myself with? Whose reinforcements might I call upon?

He recovered quickly. His yellow teeth flashed in the firelight as he grinned. He crossed his legs and laced his fingers, hooking them over one of his knees.

“At last, you have become a man and taken a bride. Who is the fortunate lady? Why wasn’t I invited to the nuptials and feast? We are still kin, after all. I would have been honored to celebrate with you, as it once seemed—”

“There is no place in my hall for traitors,” I replied bluntly.

Grimald’s smile faded, leaving behind a stony countenance.

His eyes narrowed as his true nature emerged.

A scheming, calculating man who had stolen the title of a baron and now wanted the birthright that had slipped through his fingers.

A birthright my grandfather had believed him unworthy of, cutting him off like a limb from a tree.

“We are all traitors in our own ways, Vincent,” said Grimald, the words softened by a sigh. “Even those of us who believe we are above such notions. We all betray something or someone, even if it is our very selves, and if you have yet to learn this… then you still have much to experience.”

I was quiet. But I was reminded that my uncle knew things about me. Secrets and history and weaknesses.

Grimald had been present the night I was born in this fortress, at the height of a summer flood.

He had been there, watching me grow throughout the seasons.

Offering advice when I trained with the master-at-arms. He had been beside me when I learned how to ride a horse, navigate my way over the moors with only the stars to guide me.

He had watched me learn to swim in the river, and dance in the hall for feast days.

Perhaps that was why the betrayal had cut so deep and was so slow to heal.

I had once respected my uncle, even with his flashes of cruelty and selfishness, his brazenness and jealousy, his ribald jokes that had greased the air.

“Now, will the two of you sit and let us speak as to why I have returned?” Grimald indicated the empty chairs across from him. “I would not want to keep you from the joys of your wedding night.”

Matilda squeezed my fingers.

Together, we sat in the chairs, our hands drifting apart.

“As this is neutral ground,” Grimald began, “witnessed by my advisor and my squire, and by your… wife…”

Why the hesitation? I wondered. Did Grimald disbelieve us?

“I once again speak my request. I ask that you allow me to reclaim my birthright, to step aside and grant me the title of lord, as the tradition of this land upholds.”

I was quiet, letting the silence drag on, letting my uncle sit in wait. I could hear the rain pattering against the tent’s canopy. I could hear the whisper of the river, rushing southward beneath us. I could feel the lingering warmth from Matilda’s touch.

“I cannot give you something that is no longer yours,” I stated.

“Your father broke with the firstborn tradition and had the king’s seal to approve his decision to pass over you.

Wyndrift went to my father, the rightful heir, and then Finnian.

Because you have since slain them both in cold blood, as well as Marcher, before my brothers could produce heirs, this fortress and this river have now—by law—come to me.

You are no longer welcome here, and I have only agreed to hear you speak now with the hope you have come to atone for your treacherous ways, although you will never be able to pay back the terrible debt you owe. ”

Grimald ran his tongue along his lower lip, chuckling. “My, my, you have also grown a spine since I last saw you. Since you slithered on the ground and escaped the hall like a coward, more keen to save your own skin than to save your brothers.”

I knew this blow was destined to come. That he would strike me where it hurt, that still-tender place in my soul that I wanted to tear up by the roots. What I would give to blot out this memory, to forget it had ever happened.

There were many nights when I lay down to sleep that I thought of Finnian and Marcher.

When I wished I had died, and they had lived.

All the tonics I had drunk over the years, desperate to numb my sleep, to keep those dreams at bay.

And yet every now and then, a nightmare would slip through, and I would relive this moment of my survival and their dying, again and again.

“You should have struck that sword deeper, then,” I said, surprised by how detached I sounded. As if I did not trace the scar that wound across my abdomen, like it was a road on a map. As if I did not still occasionally feel it ache, years after it had healed.

“Listen, Vincent.” Grimald leaned closer, his tone patronizing.

“I do not want to fight you. In fact, I would prefer that you live, as well as Nathaniel. I have not come to shed your blood, as I know you must think. All I want is to regain what is rightfully mine. This trade can be made peacefully. A change of hands that comes with the dawn. A new beginning, if you will. None of our people need be worried or frightened. None of the knights should risk losing their life or their honor. And you, son… well, look at you.”

Here came the second blow.

I went rigid, waiting for him to voice the rumors that had once haunted the castle halls when I was a boy.

“Your mother was known for her beauty and temerity,” Grimald said, his gaze flickering back to Matilda and her veil, as if a faceless woman could be anyone. “A true daughter of the sea.”

“Speak plainly,” I said in a cold, clipped voice.

“She was loose, untamable as the tides. Dooming men with her voice, eager to welcome anyone into her bed. And your father, bless his loyalty, was a cuckold. He was not strong enough to hold on to her, and it is no wonder he lost her to the gods. That she chose to dwell above, leaving her own offspring behind like—”

“ Enough. ” The word was sharp; it scored my throat like glass. “You dare to speak ill of the dead?”

“Your mother is not dead, ” Grimald said with a hint of exasperation. “And there is a valid question of your paternal line and your right to now rule. If your sire was the baker, or the blacksmith, or a mere stable hand…”

For a moment, I said nothing.

My heart was pounding again; icy sweat was beading my palms. A terrible cold was creeping over me, climbing up my legs.

I was certain it was Death calling for me; I had felt the very same when I had almost bled out in the hall.

A cold I could not shake. A chill that made me want to close my eyes and slip off into sleep.

“My father was your brother, ” I finally said, the emotion wrenching my breath.

I pounded my fist over my heart. “I may have my mother’s eyes, and her hair, and her voice, and her build, but I am half of her, am I not?

Your resurrection of old gossip, thinking it will be a tool to pick apart the seams of my reign, will not get you what you want.

You have been away for too long. You have forgotten what you did that night.

The people of Wyndrift despise your name.

In fact, we do not utter it. We merely call you the betrayer. ”

If he knew where to strike me, I likewise knew where to hit him.

My uncle had always wanted to be loved. To be served and worshipped, as if he were a god.

He stared at me, brow arched, speechless.

Behind him, both the squire and the advisor blanched, their postures growing tense. Beside me, Matilda’s fingers twitched over her lap.

“You will not peacefully yield?” Grimald finally asked, his voice rough.

I smiled, but it was just as sharp, just as gleaming, as his had been earlier. The rain began to ease as the clouds above us broke. A stream of moonlight trickled down, illumining the bridge in silver.

“No,” I said, rising. “I do not bend my knee to traitorous murderers. I will never yield this castle or this river to you.”

“As you wish, nephew.”

My uncle lifted his right hand. It was a deceptively languid motion. A rotation of fingers as if he was summoning wine.

I recognized the signal a moment too late.

Time slowed as if we were all in a fever dream. There was the shine of a longbow, catching the moonlight as it moved. The pale face of an assassin farther down the bridge, framed by a hood. An arrow singing through the night, its course set upon me.

I drew a jagged inhale.

I had felt Death’s coldness. I had seen my name, inked by her hand.

I had known she would come for me tonight, and yet I found that I could not move, even as my blood thrummed hot in my veins.

I did not have time to wrangle my thoughts, to shout an order to my knights stationed in Fury Tower.

I was helpless, vulnerable as if I had just been born into the world.

But Matilda moved like smoke on the river.

She came between me and the darkness. And she took the arrow that should have been mine.