Page 58 of Wild Reverence

XL

If You Call for Me, I Will Answer

MATILDA

When I returned to Wyndrift, the sky was dark as a plum.

The first stars began to wink as the sun set westward, leaving a wake of fire on the river’s currents, as if the water was bleeding.

I stood on Fury Bridge, the threshold for the castle where the trade winds blew, and I studied the eastern bank.

The baron had one full day remaining to abandon his camp, but he had not moved. The tents still sat in clusters, the trebuchets still waited, the pennants of Englewood still snapped in the breeze. It seemed strangely quiet, peaceful almost, when I looked over the water.

Matilda.

Warin’s voice reached through the distance, languid as oil dripping down wood.

I had forgotten about him and the answer he was waiting for.

An answer that would drive him over to Grimald’s side.

I almost ignored him, pretending that I could not hear.

But he called me again— Matilda —and I knew he was close.

He was riding the wind himself, approaching Fury Bridge, to stand in the very place where the parley had once been held.

The very place where he had held on to me, his fingers like claws, dragging me under with him.

Only a weak man—a weak god —would do such a thing.

Vincent’s words echoed through me just as I heard Warin arrive at my back in a rush of wind.

I turned to greet him, my blood anxious, like gold hammered too thin over fire. If I angered him, would he strike out at me again? Would he pull me with him, even if I did not desire to go? Was my bind to Vincent, to Wyndrift, strong enough to hold me here?

“Sister?” Nathaniel cut through my dark reveries. His voice was strong and booming, flowing down from the tower window. It drew my attention as well as Warin’s, and I could see Nathaniel’s face, brightened by torchlight as he watched the bridge below. “If you call for me, I will answer.”

At first, I did not know what he meant. But then I understood, hearing the words he had not said: If I called for the gate to rise, he would obey without hesitation. If I called for him and his archers to shoot, they would rain arrows upon Warin.

Once, I had stood here alone. But that night had long passed; it would not be repeated. It filled me with an almost painful relief, as if I had swallowed too much food, too much wine.

“Ah,” Warin said, as he also understood the threat. The way Nathaniel had claimed me by blood. Sister. “You have been making fast work on these mortals. Do you like them eating from your hand?”

I set my eyes on Warin, but I felt Nathaniel’s attentive gaze; he was watching everything from above, missing nothing. Waiting for my command.

“You have come for your answer,” I said, ignoring his jab.

“Yes.” Warin fell quiet for a beat, staring at me. “Were you able to persuade him? For all your sakes, I hope you have. As much as we have our differences, Matilda… I do not want to harm you. I do not want to come against you in battle.”

There was a slender piece of me that wanted to believe him. But I remembered how he had hurled me down the long staircase of his villa when I told him our courtship was over. How he had snarled my name, yanked my hair. How my ichor had stained his robes.

He did not care for me; he only cared for what I could give him, provide him. Information and secrets of the under realm. Favor with my father. To claim that he had been my first, thinking he had left some mark upon me. That he could take credit for what I had learned.

“Our answer is no,” I said. “There will be no altar for you here. There will be no alliance between us, no toll from the bridge. You played no part in its creation nor its protection. There is nothing here for you to glean.”

Warin’s nostrils flared. For a moment, I thought he would strike me, if only to see me bend. But then his attention flickered upward again, to the tower windows, where Nathaniel was ready to fire, ready to wound him should I so much as lift my hand in the air.

Mortals may think they hold no power over us, but they do.

“Very well,” Warin said in a strained, tinny voice. He took a step back from me. “But you will regret this, Matilda.”

He left me with those words, and yet I felt too numb to be chilled by them.

I watched him stride into the baron’s camp, his presence like a fish moving through shallow water.

How the tents rippled as he passed, warriors spilling out to kneel before him.

How the brazier fires brightened, like he was tossing fuel upon them, basking in their smoke.

How a cheer rose up from the bank, a bloodlust roar that at last coaxed a shiver across my bones.

I did not want to see any more, hear any more. I turned to Fury Tower, where Vincent’s brother was still watching, waiting.

“Nathaniel?” I called up to him, my voice hoarse.

He lifted the gate for me.