Page 87 of Wild Reverence

LXVI

Two Messages and an Elegy

VINCENT

He delivered her message to me just as the sun was setting.

“She is hale,” Bade said. “Unharmed.”

Ever since I had seen Matilda gliding over me, I had remained on the bridge, my eyes on Grimald’s camp.

I could not look away, not even as vespers had arrived and twilit fog had rolled across the river.

Soon, it had started to mist. A cold dankness settled into my marrow.

I was drenched, and still, I could not look away, not even when Bade returned to me.

“Lord.” He took hold of my shoulder. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes.” It felt as if I had not spoken for a hundred winters. It felt like I had not seen her, touched her, for a thousand more. “You saw her?”

“Yes. She gave me a message for you. She will return to you this night, before the sun rises.”

I nodded, but I wanted more.

I felt like I could drown in it—this wanting.

“You must set your mind on what is to come,” Bade said to me in a low voice, as if he could read my thoughts. “Matilda will keep her word. You must oversee the last elegy.”

I hated that he was right. I hated that I felt reassured by his presence.

“Why are you here?” I asked bluntly. “Why are you helping me?”

Bade was solemn for a tense moment. As a god, he could deny me. He did not have to answer my sharp queries. He could smite me for my impudence. He could set a curse upon my lineage. He could simply turn and walk away and leave me unanswered.

I expected one of the three.

“Because she is yours, as you are hers,” Bade replied quietly. “And she is precious to me.”

We went to the great hall when darkness fell.

Hugh and his warriors had already gathered, armor gleaming with mist, awaiting the elegy.

The fires burned bright in the hearths and the best ale was poured, but the mood was somber and anxious.

My warriors arrived next, Nathaniel leading them.

It did not surprise me that they followed him or that their attention was devoted to his presence.

He had died and returned to life; he was magic incarnate, and he gave them hope that we would prevail.

My brother chose to sit amongst them.

I did not call him to me as I sat on the dais, Bade on my right, Hugh on my left. When the second cup of ale was poured and the fire began to burn low, I knew it was time.

The musician stood from the table where she had been sitting with her brothers and began to play her flute.

The notes were melancholic, a song to remember the lives that had been lost, slain in the battle.

We were quiet, listening, and when she reached the end of the elegy, she took the final notes and molded them into a new song.

She drew in puffs of air, breathing them out into a rousing fighting chorus.

The sadness melted away like shadows at midday. This was a call to take up arms and fight in the memory of the dead. To defend hearth and home when the dawn came.

I listened as the entire hall was entranced by the chorus, pounding their tankards on the table and cheering, just as this melody was designed to do on the eve before battle. I wanted to join them but found that I was cold and unmoving, overcome with dread, until I felt a sudden prompting.

Someone was staring at me, unapologetically, and I began to survey the crowd. My eyes raked over table after table, but none of the warriors were paying me any mind. All eyes were on the musician and her flute as she moved through the hall, spouting a cascade of notes.

All eyes but two, and I finally met them.

Matilda stood beneath the arched lintel of the hall’s doorway, gazing at me, softened by shadows.

I held her stare, my blood singing at her nearness, and I wondered if she had read those words of mine, the ones I had burned into smoke for her. When she did not look away from me—when the hall faded until it was only us—I knew she must have.

I rose.

The chair scraped behind me, and my sudden movement distracted the musician.

Her notes stalled, but then she saw what had arrested my attention.

She saw Matilda, standing on the threshold, dressed in white and gold, her cloak draped down her back, and the musician spun her notes faster, as if she could measure the pulse that throbbed in my throat.

I descended the stairs and began to walk the aisle.

Matilda stepped forward to meet me, and as soon as the firelight washed over her, gilding her belt and catching her auburn hair, the assembly saw her and cheered. The sight of her was as bolstering as any battle-eve melody, as any tactic spread across a war table.

I wanted to take hold of her, crush my mouth against hers. I wanted to press my face to her neck, breathe in the scent of her skin. I wanted to lose my fingers in her hair, watch the pleasure flicker across her expression.

I did not want this to be pretense any longer.

That pointed truth made me halt a good arm’s length away from her. We stared at each other for one beat, two, before I decided I needed to do something ; we had an audience and I needed to greet her as my wife.

I closed the last of the distance and embraced her.

I pressed Matilda close to my chest, one hand on the curve of her back, the other spanning her shoulders. I could smell the wind in her hair, as well as the earthy scent of flowers and honey on her skin. And I would have held her longer if she hadn’t winced and gone stiff in my arms.

Instantly, I dropped my hands and eased away.

I must have misread her gaze. I must have misunderstood the intensity I had seen within her when she had looked at me.

I felt a torrid wretchedness, and I took another step back.

My mind began to card through ways to reassure her.

Somehow, we could continue our partnership with my feelings buried so deep she would never have to encounter them again.

“You’ve returned,” I said. My heart betrayed me, beating so swift I could scarcely breathe.

“Yes,” Matilda replied, a soft whisper of a word. Her eyes were luminous in the firelight; not once had she looked away from me. “And I have a message for you.”

We retreated to the war chamber, leaving Bade behind to begin the night watch on the bridge, but Matilda surprised me by inviting Hugh to join us. I knew then that whatever message she carried for me was not a good one, and I braced myself as she handed the letter to me.

As I read, I felt both Matilda and Hugh watching me intently.

It was from Darian, one of Wyndrift’s most skilled craftsmen. An honorable man who had once loved my father and my older brothers. And his words met me like a blade. I swallowed but I could feel my ire as well as my terror begin to unfold, pressing on my lungs.

“What is it, lord?” Hugh asked. “Has the wounded eithral been found?”

I looked at Matilda first. Our gazes met and held, and I could see within her that she knew the contents of this letter. She had been at Drake Hall, and that was a strange comfort to me.

“Lord?” Hugh pressed.

My gaze drifted to his. “A good portion of my people have gone missing from your hall.”

That struck him speechless. His mouth opened and closed, the whites of his eyes flaring.

“That cannot be possible,” Hugh sputtered at last. “When?”

“Two days after I escorted them there under the promise for safekeeping, which has now been broken.” I handed the letter to Hugh so he could read it. “Your people claim it is not of their doing. But I expect an answer from either you or them as to this matter.”

Hugh’s eyes raced over Darian’s letter. “Lord… I do not know what has happened. I am sorry, but this… this is a mystery. Something divine has occurred while I was away.” Here he glanced up at Matilda, as if she were the one at fault.

My fingers curled into a fist at my side.

But Matilda only held the old man’s stare, a challenge glinting in her eyes.

“I will agree with you, Hugh of Delavoy,” she said, and her voice was smooth and rich as polished wood.

“But there is something about divinity you do not understand. The myths may claim we descend from the sky and emerge from the earth as bloodthirsty immortals, keen to snatch up your lovers and your children for our own. But we cannot simply take humankind. They must either agree to go with us into our domains, or be given to us by their own lord. We may steal from one another, but we rarely steal from mortals. We take what is offered to us.”

“Then this must be Vincent’s doing,” Hugh was quick to say. “Lord, perhaps it was an accident of yours, as these people belong to you and Wyndrift. They are not mine to sacrifice to any god.”

“Yes, but they fell under the protection of your holding,” Matilda replied, and her voice had sharpened, as if his accusation of me stirred her anger. “They could be taken without Vincent’s knowing, but only if you agreed to it.”

“I have agreed to nothing, ” Hugh said. He held my stare, imploring me; his face was pale and wan beneath the candlelight.

He wore his age like an ill-fitting garment, every wrinkle pronounced and crooked.

“Nor is this the right time for us to discuss this, with battle coming at dawn. This will be the last quiet night we have before the assault begins. I would recommend that we rest and sleep on this troubling dilemma, and perhaps there will be clarity come dawn.”

I did not like the thought of sleeping on such a grave matter, but Hugh was right.

There was not much I could do for my people at the moment, not with a dark night awaiting us.

I could not leave the fortress to travel and reassure them.

I could hardly fathom where the missing might have vanished to, leaving no trace.

But it did remind me of the night my mother had left us for Skyward.

Somehow, divinity was involved. And the longer I stared at Hugh, the more I began to believe he had betrayed me.

“Then let us go our separate ways and rest,” I said, keeping the suspicion from my voice. “And I will see you in the hall the hour before dawn.”

Hugh returned the letter to me. He bowed his head and left, and Matilda and I were quiet for a long moment before she reached out and took my hand.

My pulse leapt; her palm was soft against my calloused one.

“Come,” she said, lacing her fingers with mine. “We have more we need to discuss, but we should do it in your bedchamber.”

I let her lead me away.