Page 56 of Wild Reverence

XXXVIII

Hunt Down the Skies

MATILDA

I did not sleep, lying close to Vincent.

Gradually, his hold on me loosened, until I knew he drifted, lost to slumber.

The moon continued to make her arc across the sky, and eventually I rose, carefully slipping from the weight of his arm.

He looked so young, so vulnerable in the moonlight, his black hair tangled across his brow.

Something pulled through me like cobwebs, catching on my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

I turned away and joined the knights on watch at the perimeter.

The camp roused just before dawn, shaking dust from their bedrolls and packing the wagons as the first rays of sun melted the stars.

We would reach Drake Hall that evening, and I looked to the north, watching the shadows slither down the mountain slopes.

The rising light chased the darkness to the valleys, gilding the long stretch of road before us like a copper thread coming loose from a tapestry.

We would reach Hugh’s lands soon, and I wondered about this ally of Wyndrift.

I could only hope Vincent would be more successful than I had been at gathering forces.

Bade inevitably flashed across my mind.

When would he wake?

“I’ll find you a horse,” Vincent said, touching the curve of my back as he walked past me.

This time, I did not flinch. His hands, his touch, were becoming more familiar to me. “There is no need,” I replied. “I would like to walk.”

He paused, scattering a family of damselflies from the meadow grass. His brows arched, betraying his surprise.

“You’re certain?”

I nodded. “It will give me the chance to speak with your people.”

He did not reply, but I noticed that his expression, which had been soft when I had lain beside him in the grass, was now guarded, inscrutable.

But his eyes never lied to me. They went distant, gleaming with thoughts and anticipations.

He was looking inward, ahead, and I could almost hear his mind’s logic; how difficult it would be for his people should they come to love me, should they fall prey to the belief that I would always be the Lady of Wyndrift, tethered to him not just by vows but by love.

What would he tell them once this battle was over and I had answered his prayer?

When I was gone, swept away by the wind?

Would they feel betrayed by our antics, our deceit?

The cost of these things felt justified to me. This was the way to victory. I had no qualms about lying, or playing a part, in order to win or survive.

But I had also seen this before: how difficult, how tangled life became when emotions surged higher than expected.

When mortal hearts were involved. And when the Wyndrift children saw me walk to them, their hope and joy blazed again, like wildfire in the meadow.

How they ran to me, not afraid of my power and my divinity, but eager to be close to me as if I were one of them.

To hold my hands and draw my attention as well as my smiles.

For me to know their names, and who their parents were, and what their craft was, and how old they were, and what myth they had just heard in lectures.

They were a tide around me, and I was an island. But I glanced over my shoulder to see Vincent regarding me. He hastily turned away to mount his horse, but not before I saw the yearning, the sorrow, flicker across his face.

We began to walk along the road, and the children stayed close to me.

The hours passed quickly despite the soreness of our feet and the dust that coated our skin; they were eager to ask me questions and solicit stories from my two realms. And I answered them, sharing small glimpses of my life below as well as above, although I cut away the sharper, more bitter portions of it.

The hunts and killings and betrayals, the stolen magic, the mortals who swore to serve and never leave, making enchanted objects with their craft.

One of the children was fascinated with my belt. She tapped her fingernail against a moonstone. Of course, it was the eye of the Gatekeeper, which continued to sleep. It had been a while since the eye had opened wide.

“What do the moonstones mean?” a boy asked. “Why do you wear them?”

“They represent my magic,” I replied. “They also remind me of home. Of where I come from.”

“Is that below or above?” said one of the girls. She had been intently listening to all my stories. And her question struck me, harder than I wanted it to.

I hesitated.

The boy then stated, “Her home is with us! At Wyndrift.”

A chorus of agreement rose in the children.

I did not respond, my eyes wandering over the bob and sway of the caravan, where Vincent rode at the forefront. His shoulders were stiff, his black hair was long and loose, blowing in the sudden gust of wind.

A strange smell laced through the breeze.

My intuition sharpened as dust spun in circles, dragging stray leaves across the road. The shadows grew longer as the afternoon sun dimmed, and the air was soon tainted with a dank perfume, like rotting apples and wet stone and a hint of sulfur.

I knew this smell. I knew this coldness.

“Stop.”

My order rang just as a shadow rippled along the ground, coasting over us.

I lifted my eyes to see an eithral soaring overhead.

Her two wings were massive, tattered on the edges as they churned up gusts.

Her scaled body was like alabaster in the sun, reflecting the light until it hurt to look upon, and her two legs were hitched close to her belly, her talons long, curved, and bloodstained.

Screams bloomed from the caravan. People began to scatter, dashing to the wayside’s ditch. Horses were rearing, their wagons pitching dangerously to the side.

“Do not run!” I shouted. “Stay where you are!”

The children around me listened, crouching down and freezing.

They had been trained for such a moment, and my heart went heavy at the realization.

My eyes found Vincent again. He was still at the front of the caravan; his gelding’s flanks had darkened with nervous sweat and the horse was sidestepping, tossing his head.

But Vincent met my gaze over the tumult, and we held this tense moment together.

It was as brief as it was tortuously long.

Desperate, he had no choice but to dismount and cover the gelding’s eyes with the edge of his cloak, and the horse stopped moving, quivering.

“Stay down!” he called.

It feels foolish to go still on the open road, to pretend you are dead as a beast sweeps over you, tangling your hair, snagging your breath, churning dust in your eyes.

The people listened, even as they whimpered and flinched, but the horses could not be consoled.

Two of the knights’ steeds had thrown their riders and bolted for the distant cover of a coppice.

Another horse had broken free from its yoke, overturning its wagon.

I watched, horror-struck, as provisions scattered over the road.

Bottles shattered, spilling wine like blood on the parched ground.

Bread and cheese and fruit tumbled into the ditches.

The loose horse spurred forward into a canter, dragging its harness, and people had no choice but to cry out and lurch sideways to avoid being trampled.

There was too much movement, chaos.

The eithral circled overhead again, drawn to the motion on the road.

I watched, holding my breath, my hands icy as if winter had arrived, uninvited, into autumn’s thrall.

The wyvern’s elegant wings cut a path through the sky, and I waited for her to swoop down and strike.

When she dropped low, the hair rose on my arms; I was certain she was about to tear through the trembling crowd.

I had grown up on such tales, and I was one breath from jumping into the creature’s path when the eithral drew herself back up.

I studied her closer, noticing how her legs remained tucked close.

If she had intentions to kill, she would have done so by now, and while she continued to circle overhead, screeching in defiance of the sun, I sensed she was no threat to us, which meant she had already feasted.

The blood on her belly and talons was fresh.

She was also alone, and my thoughts began to reel.

Part of Enva’s agreement to marry Dacre was that he had to put a halt to such things.

He had terrorized the mortal realm long enough with his eithrals and his hounds, and Enva had grown weary of singing laments for those souls before their time had come.

I wondered if this creature had woken from the enchanted sleep below, making her way upward, or if she had been rogue before, and had never been called home.

Either way, I did not think Dacre—if he, too, had woken—knew one of his pets was loose, threatening to break the fragile bonds of peace between Underlings and Skywards.

My gaze was still fixated on the eithral’s flight as she headed for the mountains.

I did not see the arrows until they showered the road, sinking into the dirt with thuds.

Miraculously, no one was struck, and I spun to see the glimmer of movement in the coppice.

Dark-clad archers were stealing into the open with their bows.

It was apparent that they had been aiming for the eithral, not the caravan, but their shots had fallen short in the breeze, peppering the road and wayside instead.

Within a few breaths, the sun’s radiance returned, drenching the landscape.

The shadows receded. The wind faltered to a whisper, and warmth seeped through the air, carrying a hint of trampled grass and spilled mulberry wine.

I began to comfort the children, helping them stand, before I yanked the nearest arrow from the ground, studying its tip.

Sharpened obsidian.

This was no mere arrow. These archers knew how to wound an eithral—what material would puncture the scales when hit at the correct angle—and I glanced at the coppice once more.

Vincent had pulled himself up in the saddle again and was riding to the strangers.

I followed him on foot, my strides eating up the ground.

I missed the greeting, catching indecipherable murmurings as Vincent’s gelding came to a halt.

But I did not miss how the archers gave way to the lord who emerged from the wispy trees, his horse draped in a velvet caparison of a forgotten era.

He was a man worn down by many winters, his brown hair streaked with gray, his eyes a piercing shade of blue, his nose reminiscent of the bole of a tree.

He wore armor that looked old, like silver that had tarnished around the edges.

There were flecks of rust on his gauntlets, and small holes in his chainmail where the links had come loose.

“Lord of the river,” the stranger said to Vincent. He had a drawl of an accent, and his voice was a deep baritone, rumbling like far-off thunder. “This is the last place I would expect to find you.”

“Indeed,” Vincent countered. “I take it my missive never reached you?”

“Missive? No, but I have been roaming the land these last few days, hunting the eithral you just saw. It has been wreaking havoc on my villages.” The lord waved a hand to the sky, exasperated.

This must be Hugh of Delavoy, Vincent’s most trusted ally.

I could have almost forgiven him for his delay in answering the missive until his eyes settled on me, standing two paces behind Vincent’s horse.

Hugh frowned as he studied me, taking in my every detail.

My dress, my belt, my cloak, the shade of my hair, the gemstones that pierced my ear.

I was not well known yet; my prowess as a goddess had only just started to unfold, moving across the moors like fog, but I could tell he knew I was divine.

He knew who I was, and for some reason it chilled me.

The silence had gone on for too long. Vincent turned to see what had arrested Hugh’s attention, only to find it was me.

“Herald,” Hugh said, his eyes still fastened to mine as if he feared I would evanesce should he look away. “May I ask why you are with Vincent of Beckett?”

“You may,” I replied, and lifted my chin, preparing to savor his surprise. “I am his wife.”