Page 73 of Wild Reverence

LIV

What Flies Must Fall

MATILDA

I arrived at my father’s villa in the sky, breathless and windblown and wearing mortal clothes.

I did not bother to change them this time.

The wool smelled like Vincent, like the cedar and pine from his wardrobe, and I stepped into the hall, preparing to be met by revelry and dancing.

I expected to find it as I always had, with music pouring from silver flutes, and a feast set along the low-slung tables.

With fragrant smoke rising from the braziers, and a warm gust stirring the white drapes that hung between columns.

But what I encountered was a silent court.

A gathering of Skywards who seemed to be waiting for my arrival, all of them expectant, wide-eyed, and hushed.

I felt their keen gazes as I walked through the crowd.

There was Luz with raindrops gleaming in her hair.

At her side was Warin, who was smirking behind a goblet of nectar.

There was Shale, regarding me with sorrow, as if he knew what was coming.

I could only think of the stars awakening in the sky. The other half of my constellation at last making itself known.

Thile watched my approach from the dais, but his face was inscrutable. There was no sign of emotion, no wrinkle of expression to mar his cold beauty. There was nothing by which I could guess his thoughts and then chart my own plan in preparation.

I came to a halt before him and bowed, feeling as if I were a sapling, green and tender, preparing to bend but not break.

“Father,” I greeted him, lifting my eyes to meet his once more. “I received your summoning. What message may I carry for you?”

Thile was quiet, regarding me for a long, uncomfortable spell. Rings glittered on his fingers as he tapped his nails against the marble throne. He pressed his lips together, and I inwardly braced myself.

Bend, but do not break.

“Where have you been, daughter?” he asked, and his voice was resonant, claiming every corner of the hall. The sound coasted across my skin like a blade, leaving a shiver behind. “I summoned you a full day ago, by mortal time. You were nowhere to be found.”

I swallowed. No, I thought. I was in the wasteland.

“Forgive me,” I said, my cadence light, golden, as if it were impossible for me to deceive my own father. “I was below.”

The silence that followed was thick enough to drown me. I struggled to breathe deeply; my lungs felt as if they had withered. And then came a voice that made my teeth clink together.

“Was this before you stole the eithral’s eyes, or after?”

Warin.

My father’s gaze flickered beyond me to look at him. I refused to give Warin my attention.

“What does he speak of?” I asked. “I have stolen no eyes.”

But my heart dropped like a stone. I knew why my father had called his court. Why they had all been waiting for my arrival.

Thile’s focus returned to me. “He speaks of the mortal battle you waged on the river. The battle you fought for that irreverent husband of yours.”

“I am permitted to wage war for that which is mine,” I said, heat in my words. I could not help it; my anger had been stoked by Warin’s outburst. “I can defend such things when they are threatened.”

“Indeed. But you have committed a crime, Matilda. You not only wielded the Skyward sight before mortal kind, breaking your vow to this court and exposing our secret, but you performed it on an eithral. Those monsters belong to the deep. There is a reason why we do not trespass within their minds and take hold of them.”

Thile was alluding to how easy it was to lose oneself within the creature. And how well I knew that now, having felt my name peel away like a sycamore’s bark. How endless and dark the eithral’s hunger had been when I had merged my perception with hers.

But I also saw the faintest of lines crease my father’s brow as he spoke.

This was not just about me breaking my word and exposing our kin’s secret.

That was just the flourish—the crime that could be seen.

The root of the matter was this: I had wielded an eithral’s sight and had come away from it, whole.

I had harnessed such power, which meant I could do it again.

My father was threatened by it.

And when he rose from his throne, I knew the worst was coming.

“This crime must be answered,” he said, holding out his hand. “I must correct you before the court to ensure that it never happens again.”

It did not matter that I had been perfect up until that moment.

That I had striven to please him, always, and to respect the Skywards.

To earn a place amongst them by serving as their herald.

I had been privately scolded before, but never publicly shamed.

Apprehension snaked through me as I waited, wondering how humiliating, how painful this punishment would be.

A human vassal emerged from the shadows to bring my father a whip.

Its multiple tails were laden with fragments of glass and something else that caught my attention, scintillating in the light.

As Thile descended the stairs, I realized what those gleaming pieces were.

Eithral scales.

My vision narrowed as I counted four of them. Four scales, woven into the whip. Blood rushed through me, draining from my face. I felt faint, my balance wavering.

This was where the other scales had gone.

My father possessed them, and had most likely had them all along, concealing their presence until the right moment arrived. And that moment was me, his daughter and her broken vow.

How fitting, I thought darkly, that these missing scales would render my punishment.

I thought of the scale that had once glittered on our tabletop with all the forbidden Skyward coins.

I thought of my mother and her shorn neck.

The sound the scale had made when Phelyra had thrust it through her throat.

I did not know how to prepare myself for such public agony.

Fear I had never known struck a chord deep within me, begging me to run. I was swift; I could slip away into the wasteland. A place none of them—not my father, not Warin—could reach unless they were dead. Even then, I would hold power over them. I could ferry their souls, if I so desired.

But my bargain with the Gatekeeper rose like a blister on my heel. I was not ready for that seven-year sentence.

I would not run this time.

As my father closed the distance between us, the whip tails clinking over the floor, I strangely thought of Bade. His voice came to me as a whisper. Words he had spoken to me on the tower.

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 had not been wrong. I prepared myself to pay again, and again, in the days to come. I wondered if there would be anything left of me by the end.

“Father,” I said. “May I ask something of you?”

Thile paused, two steps away. He loomed over me, and perhaps that is why he permitted me to speak further. I did not seem so threatening in his shadow. He inclined his head, waiting.

“There is a salt vow,” I began, ignoring the ache in my heart. “I must break it before my punishment commences.”

“ Foul! ” Warin cried out. “Lord, she is going to run! She will use this excuse to escape her punishment.”

“Peace,” Thile boomed. At last, his patience with Warin had worn thin. Quieter, to me, he said, “I did not know you had a salt-sworn ally.”

I nodded, envisioning Bade. He had come for me when I was in distress on the tower roof.

My fear, my broken skin, the drip of my ichor had summoned him to my side.

I could not imagine how this disgrace—this whipping—would affect him, but there was no doubt that he would sense my anguish, even if we were in different realms. He would have no choice but to find his way to me, and if he managed it, he would be in danger, standing in his enemy’s court.

“If you will allow me to go and revoke the vow,” I said, “I will return for the punishment.”

My father was quiet, considering.

There must have been a shard of curiosity within him. Maybe even jealousy, when he thought of me having an ally below. One so bound to me they would feel the pain my father was about to wreak upon my body.

“You may go and break the vow,” he announced at last, provoking a flurry of murmurs within the court.

“But you must return here by sunset, mortal time, for your punishment. If you fail to appear, I will put a bounty on your head, and you will know no rest or peace or safety until you have paid for your crimes. Do you understand, Matilda?”

“I heed you, Father,” I said. “I will return by sunset.”

Thile’s gaze drifted to someone behind me. I thought it was Warin again, no doubt angry at my delayed scourging, but then I felt the cool mist of Shale’s presence as he stepped up to my side.

“I will escort her, lord,” said Shale humbly.

“Good.” My father handed his whip back to the vassal, wiping his palm on his glittering robes. “Go with her, now.”

He knew that I could not evade the wind.

And I took the hand Shale offered me.