Page 59 of Wild Reverence

XLI

Make Me a Shadow

VINCENT

We were making good time until the storm broke.

There had not been a cloud in the sky when we reached Drake Hall at nightfall; the stars had smoldered and the moon had watched, her silver light spilling over us, so bright we cast shadows.

As I had helped the caravan unload, Hugh had gone to summon his warriors, and by dawn we were on the road again, heading to Wyndrift.

That was when the clouds gathered, low and gray.

Thunder rumbled in the distance; the air smelled heavy with rain.

We pushed our horses faster, but when the clouds tore, we had no choice but to slow our pace.

It was a rain unlike any I had witnessed in a long while, falling so thickly that I could not see the road ahead of me, only smudges.

The dirt became mud; soon, it felt like we cantered through a creek, the water reaching as high as our horse’s fetlocks.

“Vincent!” Hugh called to me, forcing me to slow. “We cannot ride like this through the storm. We need to wait it out.”

I did not have time to wait. If I stopped, I would not reach home in time. And I could not let my brother face Grimald alone.

“No,” I shouted back to him, over the din of the storm. “If we stop, we will be late.”

Hugh only lifted his hands, helpless. “Have you angered her? Luz of Skyward? Why would she be impeding you with such vigor?”

The truth? I had not been thinking of the gods. Only one goddess had crossed my mind repeatedly, and that was Matilda. I had not watched the storm billow, worrying about Luz and her rain. I had not once wondered what I had done to spark such fury.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. Why would Luz take note of me?

“We need to stop,” Hugh said again.

I was stricken, his knights and warriors spread behind us, scowling. Resolve melted quickly in the rain, especially when one was fighting for a cause out of duty, and yet I could not halt. Let him stop if he wanted, but I would keep going.

And so I did, and Hugh’s forces followed but at a cautious walk; they did not feel the same fire as I did, the same fear. It would have driven me through anything: utter darkness, ice, fire, flood. When the rain persisted, I belatedly remembered what I carried in my saddle packs.

I pulled out Matilda’s cloak.

Since my mother had absconded Skyward, keen to serve divinity as a vassal, I had avoided enchanted objects, especially anything that had been woven.

They were rare to find in our realm, but nevertheless made me think of her and her long black hair, her deft hands, her smoky voice.

They made me wonder what could have been if she had remained with us.

Would she have still died when Grimald betrayed us in the hall, her throat cut alongside my father’s?

Perhaps she would have, but she would have still been ours, and not beholden to the gods.

I knotted the cloak around my collarbones, hoping this was not one of my mother’s weavings.

“Make me a shadow,” I whispered, but my heart was cold, reluctant. This would never work—it would sense my skepticism and leave me to flounder in the rain—but the magic answered me. I watched as the vermillion vanished, replaced by lavender. I watched as my horse and I became invisible.

We rode on, my pulse like a hammer in my throat, at my temples.

It was as Hugh had suspected: Luz must have been displeased with me, or perhaps she was bored and had decided to torment me. Now that she could not see me, I reached the edge of the storm. I rode through the last curtain of rain into a bright, sun-soaked landscape, dry as a bone.

Damn you, I wanted to shout at the sky. At Luz and her antics.

We galloped onward until my horse was exhausted, lathered with foam. He needed to rest, and I pulled over to the wayside to let the gelding recover. But my eyes were set on the land before us; we were losing the last of the sun.

I would not reach Wyndrift before dawn. My bones felt brittle as I conceded to that revelation.

Hugh’s forces appeared at last, glittering in their armor, still a distant dream on the horizon. I was preparing to meet them, to remove the cloak so they could see me, when I realized they had halted. They were not moving, and I frowned, impatient.

But that was when I felt the cold air. The rotten wind. The dimming of the light.

I lifted my eyes and saw that rogue eithral again, gliding over me with her tattered wings.