Page 64 of Wild Reverence

XLVI

Grow Sharper Teeth

MATILDA

Slowly, I returned to my body. Scales became skin, cold blood became sun-warmed gold. My wings became dust. I blinked and saw the world as I had always known it, with colors I could name.

There had been no need to weep until I realized what I had done.

The bell ceased ringing.

When my emotion settled, I turned away from the sky.

My eyes wanted to fix upon Vincent, still on his knees behind me, his dark hair a sharp contrast against the pale planes of his face.

He was gazing up at me with a softness that could have made me collapse—I felt almost drunk by it, my mind still spinning from flight—but my attention was stolen by Bade.

Pinpricks of fear lit his eyes as he stared at me.

“What have you done, Matilda?” he asked.

What have I done?

The words echoed through my hollowness, and I gazed at the bridge and the destruction I had made. Half of Fury Tower was gone, its new outline jagged against the sky, its stairs leading to nowhere but clouds.

Warin had broken the gate, and so I had created one from the rubble.

The uppermost part of the tower had crumbled beneath my wrath, forming a barricade.

No one could now pass through that gateway, not the baron from the riverbank, and not us from within.

And by the activity that was reeling through the smoke of the bridge, the baron’s men who had been trapped were surrendering.

The ones who had not made it back to the camp before the fallen stones had barred their way.

They were our prisoners, and I watched as they dropped to their knees, hands raised, as the Wyndrift knights began to bind their wrists.

“I have won a battle,” I said tautly.

“No.” Bade lifted his hand to the sky. “What was that ?”

I knew what he implied. He was Underling; he did not know the Skyward ways and our secrets. He did not know that I could commandeer the sight of winged beings.

I had made a vow before the Skyward court to protect our collective sight, and I had just broken it. I had exposed this power not just to Bade but to Vincent as well.

Shame burned through me. I felt both hot and cold.

Lightheaded, as if the ground would shift when I dared to finally take a step.

Had Shale been watching? Had my father? It had been desperate of me, foolish of me, to risk this secret.

And yet if I had not… the battle would still be raging below.

Without the gates, we would have eventually lost Maiden Tower, and then Rye.

Warin and Grimald and his men would have pushed us into the heart of the fortress.

It would have been the beginning of the end, a terrible bloodshed.

I did not regret what I had done. I would break the vow again and again if it would save the mortals I had come to care for and protect. And once I acknowledged this, my shame faded.

If this is my fate, then let it be.

Vincent rose. He stood between Bade and me, and while Bade’s eyes continued to brim with queries, Vincent’s did not. His eyes were clear, almost piercing, as he gazed at me. When I met his stare, I felt my heart lurch as if it had grown its own fragile wings.

He knew what I had done. He knew I had been controlling the eithral, and that I had almost lost myself within its cavernous mind and power. He knew and yet he did not fear me or think less of me. No, there was something else that smoldered in his eyes.

Return to me, Red.

The deep pitch of his voice. That name he had once granted me in innocence, in childhood. His voice had pulled me back through howling gusts and constellations of unnamed stars. Through a distance that had felt as endless and deep as the sea.

Let it go, he had said into my hair. Let it go, and yet I could not. I was too afraid to allow myself to come undone. If one loose thread was pulled, I worried the entire tapestry would unravel.

“Who are you to her?” Bade turned his attention to Vincent now, his voice sharp.

Vincent held my gaze a beat longer, as if he did not want to look away. But then he cast a sideways glance at Bade. I braced myself for his answer, knowing what was coming…

“I am her husband.”

To Bade’s immense credit, he did not react. There was only the smallest twitch of his right hand, as if he was keen for his sword. He knew better; the blade remained sheathed. His eyes flickered to me and there they remained, once more brightened by hundreds of questions.

“May I have a moment alone with my ally?” he asked.

Vincent bowed his head in consent, but before he left us, he unknotted my cloak from his neck and draped it over my shoulders. I sighed and held the draws at my collarbones, the fabric still warm from him. I could smell meadow grass and woodsmoke, sun and wind, the scent of his skin within it.

Once he was gone, the silence stretched thick between Bade and me. Neither of us spoke. We merely stared at the other, and I could feel sweat gathering on my palms. My breaths deepened, as if preparing for an argument.

I decided to speak first.

“Did my predicament wake you?”

Bade’s frown pulled at the scars on his face. “Wake me?”

“You and Adria and all of the Underling court.” I stepped closer to him. “The eithrals, the hounds. The vassals. Dacre. All of you were sleeping when I visited. Nothing could rouse you.”

Fear flashed through him, bright as sun on a dagger. As quickly as it came, it was gone, swept away, like dust under a rug.

“How long did we sleep?”

“I do not know. But all of you were vulnerable.”

“And did you take your vengeance?”

Oh, how well he knew me. I gritted my teeth, thinking of Phelyra. I wondered if Bade expected me to have killed her. To have stolen the magic that had once been my mother’s. Would he be disappointed that I had spared her? That I had left my belly empty?

“What do you think?” I said.

His mouth pressed into a grim line. He glanced away to the smoking ruin of Fury Tower.

“I do not remember falling asleep,” he confessed.

“Nor did I dream while I slept. I woke to Adria, shaking me. Neither of us could recall what had made us slumber, but we felt refreshed, renewed. Not long after that, I felt your fear, like an arrow had pierced me. It drew me to you, and I could only wonder how you had gotten yourself into such a scrape, embedded in a mortal battle.”

I bit my tongue, deliberating on what to tell him. My hesitation prompted him to level his eyes at me.

“And wed to a mortal man, I might add,” Bade said, his voice darkening a shade in disapproval. “Although now I understand why you would be here, waging war. I understand why you would bring down a tower. If it was for love.”

I did not think it wise to admit that most of this was a ruse. Even Bade, whom I trusted, could potentially expose me. The Underlings were not as infallible as I had once believed. I could have slain them all as they slept, and the thought still chilled me.

“This man is Vincent, I take it,” Bade added.

I frowned up at him. “He is. How did you know?”

“I remember the day you fled the under realm. I remember how you wanted to go to him for sanctuary.”

Yes, I thought, swallowing.

I said, “Does that change your opinion of him?”

“Ever so slightly. But it also urges me to caution you, Matilda.”

“In what way?”

“If you are going to risk yourself for him, for love,” Bade began, “then you need to prepare yourself to pay the cost for it. You may believe that you will be different, that you will slip through such a noose unscathed, but it is inescapable. There will be a price for it. When one of our kind loves something that is mortal… there is always a sacrifice that must be made. Although perhaps you just began to pay it.”

He spoke of the eithral again.

I wanted to bristle at his words, but he was not pontificating. How well he knew what he spoke, having fallen for a mortal woman. The chaos that had ensued, the disgrace that still stained him.

“I will ask you again, and I expect you to answer me,” said Bade. “As your ally… what have you done with the eithral? How did you command her? What magic are you wielding?”

“I do not have to answer you,” I replied, the words rough as sand in my throat. But my anger had been stoked, as well as my fear. “You call yourself my ally, but you have only come out of duty. You came to my aid today because of a salt vow you regret giving.”

I wanted him to deny it. To tell me that he had come because he loved me and that no regrets clung to him. That there was an unspoken part of him that regarded me as the daughter he had never had.

But love amongst gods makes us vulnerable. It is a weakness. A map of fault lines that instructs enemies where they can strike to wound us, deeply.

And even here, when it was just the two of us, alone, he would not say what I yearned to hear. I saw that truth gleam in his eyes as he stared at me, stoic and stiff, as if he was more stone than divine.

“It was good of you to come, and I thank you for it,” I whispered. “But I release you from your salt vow.”

Bade reeled as if I had struck him, his expression haggard with shock.

“You do not mean that,” he said, a hitch in his voice.

“Why would I say something I do not mean? I am clearheaded and make no mistake. You have fulfilled that vow of old and you should go freely now, no longer bound to me and the peril that awaits me.”

My heart was pounding, half in anguish, half in pride. Vaguely, I thought, What are you doing? This war with Grimald is not over. There will be another battle, and you are releasing the one ally you have…

But then my mind grew sharper teeth.

I did not want someone helping me out of duty. I was weary of such things, of a world of debts and vows. I would prefer to face the terror alone than to have someone in my shadow who was only there out of obligation.

I thought of Vincent and was suddenly humbled.

I was doing the same to him. I was here, pretending marriage with him, out of guilt and remorse.

Because I had failed to answer him years ago when he needed me.

Because I was seeking to atone for something that had occurred in our past, something that had been entirely beyond my control.

I realized I could leave. I did not have to answer his prayer favorably. My answer could be no. Many divines devoured requests or breathed them in to feel the pleasure, only to laugh at human plight and refuse to grant aid.

Walk away, a voice whispered to me. You have taken Death’s arrow for him. You have broken a Skyward vow for him. You have done enough here.

But when I envisioned it… when I imagined myself walking away from him and this fortress, the river and its people… when I sifted inward, so deep it felt like I was cutting open an old scar, encouraging it to bleed, I realized that it was no longer mere guilt alone keeping me here.

“Matilda,” Bade said gruffly. “Wait a moment.”

I turned away, gazing down at the bridge. I expected him to sigh and depart. What more was there to say between us?

He was speaking, his voice a familiar rumble, but my focus had winnowed down to my waist, to the sudden flare of heat in my belt. I glanced at the moonstones, my pulse leaping in dread.

The Gatekeeper’s eye was opening.