Page 86 of Wild Reverence

LXV

The Silt of Songs

MATILDA

I woke slowly.

Someone was hauling me from beneath my arms. I could feel their long nails pressing into my skin, their breath sifting through my hair. My feet dragged along a cold stone floor.

I opened my eyes.

My sight was blurry until I blinked and, like scales falling away, the world became sharper.

We were in one of the Underling corridors; the torchlight was hazy.

Moths had gathered on the ceiling in clusters; they looked like pale flower petals with their wings spread.

I could hear the bubbling of the underground rill.

The air smelled like damp stone and moss, as well as a hint of smoke.

“Wake, Matilda,” said a familiar voice in my ear. “You do not have much time now.”

“ Enva, ” I replied. “Where are we?”

We had reached the bank of the rill and she paused, ensuring I could stand before she released me. My mind was caught in a maelstrom; I could not remember what had brought us to this moment or why she had been dragging me. There seemed to be a piece of my memory cut away.

“What is the last thing you remember?” she asked, stepping into my view. Her harp was strapped to her back, the violet cloak fluttering in the slight draft. Her eyes seemed to burn like coals into mine.

“I was with Alva,” I said with a frown. “Bade knocked on the door, and then you… you swept in. You played a song for us.”

“What song?”

“I do not remember.” But I could still feel the music, as if it had left silt behind in my bones. “Why did you interrupt us? Why have you dragged me away?”

“Because Alva planned to kill you.”

The words struck me like arrows. For a moment I could only stand and breathe, holding Enva’s stare.

“How do you know this?” I whispered.

“I overheard her speaking with Dacre. Her plan was to invite you to her burrow and poison your wine, to force truth from your tongue. She wanted to know more about the six stars that stirred in the sky beneath your constellation. If they were truly yours, what magic they hid, and how to wield such power. Then she planned to kill you so she could take your power as her own.”

I turned away, staring at the rill. My eyes still felt clouded, my heart wounded from Enva’s revelation.

Words I did not want to believe when I thought about who Alva had been to me in my childhood, but all the same knew to be true.

Quietly, I knelt and cupped water in my palms, drinking until I did not feel so dry and weathered, like I was one touch away from crumbling to dust. It granted me some time to compose myself and my thoughts, to swallow the emotion that had wound tight as a knot in my chest.

“Thank you,” I said when I felt steady again. I glanced up at her. “How did you get me away? I still do not remember what happened after the song.”

“Because you slept,” Enva replied. “I cast a spell with my music. I played for joy, then sorrow, and lastly slumber. It was the only thing I could think of to get you away from her. By now, she also will have awoken. She will be remembering, just as you are. Soon, she will come for you again. You must leave the under realm and stay away until this news of unclaimed stars no longer smolders in the courts.”

Leave the under realm.

I had only just returned. But what was here for me?

Bade and Adria.

Enva, who was far more powerful than I had ever imagined.

Not once had she cast spells with her music in the Skyward court.

She had minted coins, but we had never been compelled to sleep, or laugh, or weep when we listened to her strumming.

But perhaps she had always been destined to play below.

Perhaps giving up her freedom and dwelling in the place she least desired had unlocked a portion of her power that she had not even known she carried.

Rising, I stood face-to-face with her again. I was reluctant to say farewell, but she surprised me by taking a small braid in her hair and cutting it away.

“I did not save you to make you indebted to me,” she murmured, bringing the black braid around my wrist, binding it as a bracelet.

“And I will not ask you what this magic is you now wield. Let it remain your secret until you are ready to speak it aloud. But one day, I will have need of you and your power. One day, I will call for you, and I would ask that you remember this night and how I spared you from death.”

“I will remember,” I said. “And I will come when you call for me.”

I could be in the wastes, the mists, and still I would answer her.

Voices began to echo down the corridor. I did not realize it yet, but whenever Enva played in the under realm, every breathing creature and divine fell prey to her ensorcelled songs.

Her music vibrated through the rocks and made the gemstones flare with light.

It rippled through our water and wine. All of us had laughed, wept, and fallen asleep.

Now, the rest of the court was stirring again, trying to make sense of the gap in their memories.

“Was it your father?” Enva asked sadly.

I stiffened.

But she did not want me to reply. She untethered the cloak at her collar and brought it around my shoulders. I sighed beneath the warmth and gentle weight. I no longer felt exposed with my scars on display.

“ Thank you, ” I said again.

She kissed my brow as a mother would. “Go now.”

I turned and ran through the corridors, heading to where I knew the under realm led to Maiden Tower.

The hound’s den.