Page 46 of Wild Reverence

XXXI

Cry Sanctuary

MATILDA

Once, my mother told me never to run from a god.

They are drawn to those they cannot have, by those who fear or loathe them.

And while they enjoy a good chase, a vigorous hunt to stir up the color in their cheeks and the fire in their ichor, they will only grow angry and dangerous should their prey prove themselves faster, slipping away.

How often have I broken my mother’s advice?

Many, many times.

I knew I was swifter than Warin. But I also knew the river answered to him, and the river was my way back to Vincent’s tower.

I ran through the camp, breath sharp in my lungs. I refused to look behind me, even when I felt Warin’s pursuit. He emerged from the baron’s tent loudly. His footsteps struck the earth hard, sending a shiver through the mud.

Matilda, he crooned to me, his magic finding mine with ease—iron and spring and rivers, chasing after words with wings. As if he knew exactly where I would be. Why are you running from me?

I sprinted past the last row of tents. A winding path that I nearly lost my footing on. Give me wide open spaces. Give me the endless roll of the moorlands, the expanse where the land meets the sky, and I can let myself unravel. I can outrun any god, even Shale.

If only I had that now.

The bank soon came into view; the river’s edge glittered, lapping around rocks like it was whispering to me, Hurry. Run faster.

I was preparing to hurl myself into its depths, eager to let it swallow me whole, when the water lurched away with ribbons of foam, exposing pockmarked mud and broken reeds.

I slid to a halt and stared at it, amazed.

When I tried to step within it again, the water refused to touch me, receding like the tide.

“Ah, there you are.” Warin approached from behind. I could feel the distance close between us, the hair tingling at the nape of my neck. “Did you think you could cross my river without my knowledge? Come, I want to talk with you.”

I stepped sideways to a patch of lank grass. When I glanced at Warin, I could tell he still could not fully discern me. His eyes were sweeping the place where his river lapped at his bidding, even though I was already three paces away from that spot.

He pulled an arrow from the quiver at his back. My heart ceased beating when I watched him notch that arrow upon his bow, the string shining in the moonlight.

If he shot me, my blood would leave a trail for him to follow, defying my invisibility. I had no doubt this was his intention, and I hurried onward to the bridge.

I could freely walk onto Fury Bridge where the parley had been, just as the baron and his men had done earlier that night with their failed assault, but there were still three gates I would have to contend with.

Three gates that would have to open at my command if I wanted to make it to the safety of the holding.

And Vincent’s words roused in my memory.

Under no circumstance will you raise that gate unless I command it.

I did not know if the knights would raise the gates for me, but I had to believe they would honor my cry for sanctuary, as unlikely as it might seem.

If they will just lift the portcullis for me, I thought.

It was hard to breathe as I ran to Fury Bridge.

The river exposed me, lapping as I rushed along the banks. I heard one arrow hit the ground behind me with a thud. Then another whizzed past my elbow.

“I told you not to run,” Warin called. “Although I do love a moving target.”

I cast a glance over my shoulder to see he was pursuing me at a brisk walk. His eyes took in the tower and cold laughter slipped from his crooked grin.

“Ah, you think the mortals will raise that gate for you.” He notched another arrow on his bow. “This is the most entertainment I’ve had in a long while, Matilda. Perhaps you can pay my first toll.”

I ignored his taunt, relieved when I reached the bridge.

Its wooden planks gleamed with rain. Fog was rising from the river.

The tower firelight glowed eerily like fallen stars caught in a web, and the portcullis and Fury Gate loomed in the distance like a shadowy maw.

I knew that I needed to reveal myself so the gatekeeper could see me.

I would have to peel away my cloak, shed my invisibility.

Reluctantly, I let the fabric fall away. I felt chilled from the exposure, as if the river fog was hungry, sinking into my skin.

“Gatekeeper!” I called up to the tower, knowing the sentries had spotted me. I could see an archer’s profile in one of the windows, their movement blocking the firelight. “Will you raise the portcullis for me? Just enough to let me slip through to find sanctuary between it and the gate.”

There was no answer. No shout of acknowledgment.

I bit the inside of my cheek as I studied the portcullis’s iron lattice, and the formidable gate just behind it. If I could take shelter between the two—if the gatekeeper would lift the portcullis just high enough for me to dart beneath—then I would be out of Warin’s grasp.

“Matilda.” I could hear his leisurely gait as he reached Fury Bridge. The graceful clip of his shoes on the wood. He was in no hurry to reach me; he was confident the gate would not lift. “Let us go to the river, my sweet. Let us ride the wind to my hall, and we can talk more.”

I ignored him and the way my bones ached from the cold. From my fear, which crackled through me like frost.

“Gatekeeper!” I called, and this time I could not hide the hoarse desperation in my voice. “Please, raise the portcullis so I may find shelter.”

Again, no one answered.

There was only a roaring silence. The whisper of the river beneath my feet. The sound of Warin’s chuckle as he watched my request founder on the bridge.

“Perhaps your husband and his people have forgotten you are their newly appointed lady, ” he said. “But that is the thing about mortals, isn’t it? They forget so easily. I would have cautioned you against throwing your vows away so carelessly.”

I continued to wait, gazing up at the tower windows, where the sentries were moving shadows. Would they answer me? Why did their silence feel like a blade, slowly sinking into my side?

Warin took hold of my upper arm, wrenching me back to him.

“Do not ignore me,” he said, irritation cracking his perfect facade. “You should know better than anyone else that I do not like to be played a fool.”

“A fool?” I countered, slipping from Warin’s hold like a fish. I could not match his brawn, but he could not match my speed. I took three steps back, putting a cushion of space between us. “What do you mean?”

“Why did you want the slippers? Why did you use me to cross my river?”

“I did not use you, Warin.”

“Oh?”

His voice had taken on that dangerous shrill. The sound of it nearly transported me to our last altercation on his villa stairs. How he had pushed me. How I had fallen down the steps, my skin breaking, my blood staining the marble.

My mouth went dry. I tried to swallow and could not. But in the distance, I heard the western trade wind coming, blowing across the river.

“ Gatekeeper! ” I shouted one final time, dodging Warin as he prowled closer. I did not dare take my eyes off him.

Come on, I thought to the wind, preparing to ride it. Hurry.

Warin also noted the trade wind’s approach. He tucked his bow away and tilted his head as the wind swirled and then he lunged for me, faster than I had ever seen him move.

I had no choice but to jump backward, smacking into the balustrade. I bent, lithe as a sapling in a storm, to avoid his hands.

But my hope sank like a stone in deep water when Warin caught my chemise and yanked, the fabric ripping. I stumbled into him. His arms came around me, holding me firm against him, and I acknowledged my defeat.

There was nowhere for me to go.

The gate would not lift; the trade wind was not moving fast enough for me to evanesce within it.

There was no sanctuary I could call upon.

I considered summoning my shield from my belt. It had been a while since I had wielded it. A while since I had fought with it.

My palms went damp as my fingers curled into a fist. Warin held on to me, keeping me in the mortal realm as the trade wind blew by us, snarling our hair.

He could draw his bow and shoot arrows at me and call it fun and games, but the moment I pulled any weapon against him, even something as simple as a shield, he would take it as a threat.

I longed for my eithral arrow, hidden in one of the moonstones.

My hand ached to retrieve it—I could imagine the shock that would ripple across Warin’s face when he realized I owned one—but my mind was like adamant.

I did not want anyone to know I possessed a scale.

And if I drew it into the light, exposing such power, I needed to deliver a killing blow without hesitation.

“Do you want to call for your husband?” Warin asked.

And then, to humiliate me even more, he wove his fingers into my hair, jerking my face upward so that our mouths were only a gasp apart.

I could smell the baron’s sweet wine on his breath.

“I believe he has been watching our little dance from the tower.”

My pulse leapt at the imagining. My heart fell into a sharp, agonizing beat. I let it paint a picture in my mind, one that stung like salt in a wound: Vincent standing at the tower window, watching me struggle on the bridge below. Refusing to give me sanctuary, even when I begged for it.

He did not care for the gods, but I struggled to envision him so cold.

And I could not resist.

I glanced at the firelit windows of the tower, where shadows continued to move. I looked for him, desperate to see him while also wishing he was not there. That he was still in bed, sleeping, just as I had left him. That he would not see me so weak and overcome.

A shout broke the night—a deep, dark voice, calling from the tower.

Warin took that distracted moment to lift me in his arms.

“Warin,” I hissed, clawing at his face, his robes. “ Wait— ”

“ You are coming with me, ” he said, and I only had a second to draw air—shallow and ragged—before Warin dragged me over the edge with him, down into the embrace of the river.