Page 48 of Wild Reverence

XXXIII

Underwater Reckonings

MATILDA

Warin dragged me down to the riverbed. As soon as we reached the bottom, he let me go, as if curious to see if I would bolt again.

This time, I did not run. I would be slow in the water, even with enchanted shoes, and the darkness was thick and cold, the ground uneven beneath my feet. I could feel the slope of the river bottom, how the sand mimicked rolling hills, the rapids making the bed shift like snowdrift on the moors.

Warin broke the quiet between us. “Why did you run from me?” His voice sounded different beneath the water—a bit muffled, and softer around the vowels.

I was relieved that he was calm again, although my shoulders remained pinned back, tense.

“You acted like you needed sanctuary from me. Like I was intent on hurting you. All I wanted was to speak with you.”

He made it seem foolish of me, that I had run from him and his arrows.

I had to remind myself that my instincts had never misguided me, although I should have known better than to seek sanctuary on the bridge. That had been a reckless decision, born of fear.

I touched my arm where he had gripped me. His hold had been like iron shackles; I could feel the bruises, blossoming beneath my skin. And although fear still pulsed through me, I knew how to survive this encounter.

I must not panic.

“Warin? I cannot see you.” My voice was also changed by the water; it emerged softer, muted. I had the feeling that I could scream until my lungs ripped, only for the sound to spread through the river like a whisper.

The river remained dark as a new moon night until Warin hummed, and from the black reaches of water, a school of luminescent fish appeared.

They gathered in a circle around us, their fins cutting through the pull of the rapids, keeping them in perfect suspension as if they were floating stars.

I gazed at the strange fish, tempted to reach out and touch them.

My cloak, which hung over the crook of my elbow, fluttered as if to discourage me.

“Come,” Warin said, turning. “There is a place we may sit up ahead.”

I reluctantly trailed him, the glowing fish following, emitting their light. We passed a skeleton and a small coffer that had been broken open, its insides streaked with algae. A buckler rimmed with steel that still gleamed, a necklace strung with rubies, a dented helm half buried in the sand.

“There are many stories here,” Warin said, bubbles rising every time he spoke. “Buried in this bed. It makes you wonder, sometimes, how mortals have survived as long as they have.”

I did not answer, but I felt it as well. This strange tide rising within me when I saw the bones, the remnants of armor, the pieces of mortality, forgotten in the water. Who had they been, and what had happened for them to find a sad rest here?

At last, we reached a stopping place.

Two big rocks mimicked chairs, smoothed down by flowing water. Warin sat on the larger one, which reminded me of a throne, while I perched on the edge of the smaller one, directly across from him.

My hair floated and spread like tendrils around me. One of the fish became curious, dipping low to dart through the strands. Its curiosity almost coaxed a smile from me.

“What did you want to speak with me about?” I asked.

“I want to know what you are planning,” Warin said, staring at me as if he could read my mind. “Why else would you bind yourself to someone so frail? A man who cannot give you what you want?”

I was quiet, sifting through my words. I needed to be very careful in how I answered him.

“Why do you think I would exchange a vow with someone who is doomed to die?” I countered.

Warin’s eyes narrowed. I was a language he only knew how to speak in part; words and letters were still missing, despite the years we had spent together. He could only read me in halves.

“What are you hiding from me?” he asked.

“I hide nothing from you.”

“Yes, you do. I have always sensed it within you, these secrets you hold. There is more to you than you have ever shown me, as much as I wanted you to let me in.”

I drew a sharp breath, hating the old aches that were stirring. It felt like I was tracing a bone that had fractured and healed. A point I was not certain was stronger or weaker for the breaking.

“I knew Vincent, long ago. Before I even knew you. Is it too hard to believe that I want him for my own?” I was careful of what I said, avoiding anything that might allude to love or vulnerability. Anything that would turn Vincent into a weakness that Warin could exploit.

Warin continued to study me, but the tension in his face was smoothing away, like wrinkles from cloth.

“Do you want power over the river?” he said. “The bridge?”

“No,” I replied. “But that is something you desire?”

Warin visibly relaxed, settling deeper into the chair.

He was relieved that we did not want the same thing.

“I took the power of rivers for my own this past spring, as you already know. Since then, I have asked your husband for a toll, as is within my right, and which he has refused to pay.” He arched his brow, his expression shifting, just like the sand at our feet.

“I have been very patient with him but given his irreverence and refusal to work with me, I think I fare better with that lump of a baron.”

I swallowed. This I had not known: Vincent and Warin had previously met. Vincent had refused to pay a toll or surrender any power of the bridge to Warin.

“Did you tell him what the toll would be?” I asked, trying to calm my heart.

But it was beating like a drum. I could nearly taste our doom; Vincent would never agree to a toll.

Warin would not rest until he received one.

Now the baron was in the mix, and we could not afford to have Warin ally with him.

“You know me,” Warin said with a flippant wave of his hand. “You know I am very reasonable, Matilda. I would not ask for anything too great, anything that a mortal could not tithe.”

“What is the toll?” I repeated, thinking Warin—for all his centuries—did not know much about humankind.

“I offered three different options, dependent upon their craft.”

“And they are…?”

“One: a tithe of first fruits. They must give me a third of their produce, their harvest, their wine. Which is not an unreasonable ask. Devout mortals already offer this within cathedrals. The bridge should be my altar.”

“The second?”

“A tithe of money. They must give me a third of their gold, their silver, their jewels, their coppers.”

Only a Skyward would want such a thing.

“And the third option?” I said.

Warin smiled. I did not like the look of it. The hunger in his eyes.

“They can give me their third-born offspring. See, I am merciful.”

“How is that merciful?”

“I do not ask for the firstborn, who inherits. I did not ask for the second born, who takes up the family craft. I ask for the third, who is not as important and is often just another mouth to feed.”

Vincent was a third born. I tried to imagine his father giving him up, all to cross a river, and was met by a wall in my thoughts. Something so solid I could not see through it; I could not ignore the way it ignited my anger.

“And what would you do with so many third borns?” I asked, hoping he could not hear my disgust.

“That is a secret. You fell out of favor with me, or else you would be privy to my plans. Already, I have told you too much.”

He had told me exactly what he wanted me to know, so that I could return to Vincent and try to persuade him to agree to the toll. And how my skin chafed, to sense Warin’s manipulation.

“At first, I thought it foolish of you. To bind yourself to him,” he continued, oblivious to my disdain.

“But now I see… you are very clever. If you have the lord in your bed, you will have sway over the bridge. And by the time you grow bored of him, he will be dead. But I digress. Speak to your husband. See if you can convince him of reason. I will ally with the one who can give me the toll, whether that is you or the baron.”

“When do you need an answer by?” I asked.

“Two days.” He rose from his underwater throne. “Go, speak to him. You know how to find me.”

With that, Warin hummed to the fish, breaking their trance. Their luminescent scales dimmed, one by one.

When I made to rise, the river yanked my cloak from the crook of my arm.

I tripped, inhaling a shock of water that flowed into me like air, and swung my hand outward in a frantic attempt to grasp the hem. I was too slow. I watched, heart-struck, as my cloak vanished into the darkness downstream, feeling its absence like the sting of broken skin.

“A pity,” Warin said. “To lose such a cloak.”

And with that, he was gone.