Page 84 of Wild Reverence

LXIV

Lament to a Lullaby

MATILDA

Alva’s burrow was just as I remembered it.

The endless shelves were still laden with dusty scrolls, the furniture still mismatched. The mantel was still lined with colorful wine bottles, and eldritch tapestries still haunted the walls, evoking a shiver when I looked at them.

The only thing that had changed in this place was me.

I sat in a chair before the hearth when Alva offered it to me. As she went to a cabinet to pour us two glasses of wine, I discreetly studied her desk, illumined by flickering candles. A new dream scroll was spread upon the cherry wood, dark inked words scrawled across the parchment.

“I assume you have been Skyward these past few days?” Alva asked. Her back was angled to me as she corked the wine and added a flourish of herbs to each of our goblets. Her long hair was wispy and tangled at the ends, as if she had just woken from slumber.

It had not occurred to me until then that perhaps she could only wield her magic of nightmares and dreams by sleeping herself. And how vulnerable that might make her. She was at her most powerful when she embraced the weakness it required.

“Yes,” I replied when she turned, handing me the wine. “My father summoned me to court.”

“Hmm.” She settled in the chair across from mine, crossing her long legs. “Did it have to do with the six new stars that woke in the sky directly below your constellation?”

No, I thought wryly. The Skyward court had been too preoccupied with my crime and my scourging to take note of the night sky and its subtle changes.

I remained quiet, my posture straight as an arrow.

I had been mindful to keep my scars out of Alva’s sight, never turning my back to her.

Perhaps I could have changed the course of the conversation if I had told her I had been punished, but I did not want to expose such a thing to her.

Nor could I truly tell her the reason for the whipping.

“You took note of the new stars?” I said.

Alva smiled. It was a coy smile, revealing a flash of her teeth.

“There are some of us who keep a careful watch on the sky, even if it seems to be unchanging, year after year. Eventually, though, old stars go dark and new stars bloom, as on the night you were born. I have always kept a close eye on such things.”

Warmth crept across my cheeks. I had been distracted these past days.

The last time I had truly studied the night sky, I had been in Vincent’s arms, lying amongst meadow grass and starlight.

I had been thinking about his body and how it felt good against my own, as if we were two pieces that made the whole.

I swallowed, but a stone had lodged in my throat.

I felt the tug toward him again, as if I stood on a shore at high tide.

I was far from him, sitting in another realm.

And yet this deep draw to where he stood, surrounded by water, wind in his hair…

It is just the magic, I told myself. It was the letter I still carried, with his name scrawled upon it.

The terrible news of missing people I had to bear to him.

And yet I could not parse what was magic, and what was my heart. They were entangled; I wondered if my power required my greatest weakness, just as Alva’s dreaming.

“I do not have much time, Alva,” I said. “What is it you need to speak with me about?”

“You sound just like your mother. Did you know it?”

I did not want to be reminded of my mother. Not by her, or Phelyra. Not even Bade.

“No,” I said.

“You even scowl the same way she does.” She took a sip of wine, continuing to watch me over the goblet’s rim.

“But I digress. I am wondering why those six new stars awoke. I would have thought it was due to you venturing through the wasteland, but you have been there before, haven’t you?

When you were a god-child and you stepped into Vincent’s dream for the first time.

So I know it was not your passage in and out of the wastes, but rather something you did while you were there this most recent time. ”

My mouth went dry as bone.

I almost took a sip of the wine, but something stayed my hand. A chill, coasting up my arm.

“I thought you once told me that souls do not move the same way in the wastes as they do here, in our realm,” I replied. “Perhaps magic is the same. Something I did long ago waited to reveal itself.”

Alva’s smile remained curved like a sickle, but her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps. But that still leaves the question as to what this power of yours is, Matilda.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because if those six stars below the herald constellation do belong to you, then that is immense power. And this game of power is only fair when we know all the tokens that sit upon the table. There are no secrets, no sleights of hand, amongst our courts. If one of us kills another, we know exactly the magic we are taking and consuming.”

She had never killed another divine for power. It was one of the reasons why I was partly trusting her now; she had no appetite for blood. But I wondered why she was so concerned about this need for transparency. Why she was so keen to know all my secrets.

A heavy knock sounded on the door, breaking the tense air between us.

“Who is it?” Alva called.

“Bade.” His voice was ragged, as if he had run a great distance. “Open the door.”

“Ah, Bade, ” Alva echoed. “You have not visited me in ages. Not since Zenia’s alliance fell apart. Why come now, old friend?”

“You have Matilda. Enva said she saw the two of you, walking this way. I need to speak with her, see her.”

“Matilda is fine. There is nothing here to see. Right, child?” She nodded for me to speak.

I cleared my throat, willing my voice to emerge smooth, strong. “I am well, Bade.”

There was a pause, like he was weighing a hundred thoughts in his mind. My cadence, the words I had said. The ones I had not.

“Open the door, Alva,” he insisted. “I have been instructed to look upon her, to ensure she is unharmed, and to bring her home.”

Alva rolled her eyes. “Instructed by whom?”

“Her husband.”

I drew a sharp breath. Alva noticed, glancing at me as if she were surprised by my reaction. I kept my eyes trained on the door, struggling to veil my expression. I am a goddess, and I do not care for mortals. That is what I wanted Alva to see in me.

But my grip tightened on the goblet, until my knuckles drained white.

I had to fight that inner pull toward Vincent again. The desire to drop everything and run to him. He was a place where I knew I would be safe.

I acknowledged it, then.

It was not the letter, undelivered. A weight in my belt.

It was the gilded edge of my own will. My own flesh and blood, wanting to be close to him.

“Very well,” Alva said, rising. “I will open the door, but you must remain on the threshold. You have interrupted us, and Matilda has already told me she does not have much time to spare me.”

“Agreed. Now open the door.”

Bade and his manners. Or lack thereof.

When Alva swung open the door, my gaze met Bade’s from across the chamber.

He did as Alva wanted; he remained standing on the threshold, frowning—which was usual.

But I saw something unexpected in his eyes.

A glimmer, like tears. It was worry, fear.

He studied me, as if we could speak without words.

As if he were asking me, Are you all right? Do I need to kill her for you?

“I am well,” I said. “As you can see.”

I was thankful I was facing the door, and my back remained draped in shadows. I never wanted him to see my scars.

“We saw you… falling,” he said, his voice stilted, as if he were being mindful of what he said in front of Alva.

“Yes, but I am not hurt,” I insisted.

“Vincent asked me to search for you. I had a feeling you would come below, to escape.”

I nodded, my thumbnail absently picking at a jewel inlaid in the goblet. “Will you carry a message back to him for me?”

“Anything,” Bade said, softer. “Although I hoped to escort you myself.”

“I need to finish this conversation with Alva,” I replied. “But if you will return to Vincent now and assure him that I am well and will come to him tonight… I would be most thankful to you.”

It was not lost on me that I, the herald of the gods, was asking someone else to deliver a message on my behalf. It felt odd. But once, long ago, I had carried a letter for Bade as Adria had been dying in his arms.

He had never forgotten that moment. It had changed our world, and we could now feel that memory surge between us like floodwaters. We were both remembering that night as if it had been yestereve, and Bade—who never bent to anyone save for Adria—bowed his head to me.

“I will go now,” he said before cutting a sharp glance at Alva. “Do not keep her much longer.”

Alva waved her hand, annoyed. “Yes, yes. You heard the herald. Go on now, before her husband loses heart.”

I ground my teeth as she shut the door, as I listened to Bade’s heavy footfalls fade.

I did not like her making fun of Vincent’s emotions. It felt like she was pressing down on my own bruises, but I smoothed my face again as she returned to sit across from me.

“What a clever herald you are,” she said, arching her brow, her voice warm with mirth. “Making the rusty god of war carry a message for you.”

It was not clever so much as it was desperate. I needed my words to reach Vincent somehow, and Bade had presented an opportunity.

“What more did you wish to say to me?” I said.

“I thought we could forge a new alliance. You and me. We were close when you were younger. All those scrolls of mine I lent to you…”

“What would an alliance with you do for me?”