Page 92 of Wild Reverence

LXXI

Debts Owed by a Murderess

MATILDA

I could not return to Wyndrift empty-handed.

If Warin was planning to clad Grimald’s troops in river shoes made by Vincent’s people, then I would meet their forces with my own surprise.

The end was coming; I would break it like a rock does a wave.

Enva had warned me to stay away, but I traveled from the wind to the grass and then farther still, down to the darkness of the under realm.

A debt was waiting to be called in.

I walked on bare feet, relishing the cold stone. I made no sound as I moved from corridor to corridor, following the gemstones, keeping to the shadows. At last, I reached Phelyra’s door. I stood before it, remembering the last time I had been here. The day my mother died and I fled Skyward.

The memory sat like fractured glass in my mind.

Quietly, I knocked.

“Who calls?” Phelyra’s voice was melodic. A chime from a bell, but it made me think of tarnished silver.

When I remained silent, knocking again, she answered the door.

If she was surprised to see me on her threshold, she did not reveal it. Her brow only arched as if to say, What took you so long?

“Matilda, welcome,” she said, but there was reservation in her tone.

I ensured I did not turn my back to her as I stepped into the burrow, surveying the common room.

It gleamed with endless trinkets, most from the mortal world.

Glass baubles and gilded bowls, sculptures made of smooth white stone, jewelry boxes overflowing with pearls, a mountain of folded silks, leather-bound books with illuminated spines, a tattered constellation chart.

“I suspect you have come to ask for a payment,” Phelyra said, twisting the bracelet of hair she still wore about her wrist. “For sparing me that night in the hall.”

I met her gaze. If there was one thing I could commend her for, it was knowing better than to waste my time.

“Yes,” I said.

“What would you like? You are welcome to anything in the burrow. Any jewels, any coins, any books.” She swept her arm out, offering her wealth to me.

I could not help but glance at the spot on the floor where my mother had bled out. The ichor had been scrubbed away, but if I narrowed my eyes, I could still see the faint shimmer of it.

“I would like to borrow your magic,” I said. “I would like fire and winter for three sunrises and three sunsets.”

Phelyra was silent, but she pressed her lips together, sorting her thoughts.

“I will let you borrow fire and winter,” she said at last. “But only for one full day.”

I did not think that would be enough time. But I had come to her unarmed, with no shield, no blade. I stood in her domain, in the place where she had slain a goddess. All I had were Adria’s two stars, printed on my collarbone, hidden beneath Vincent’s tunic. Stars I still did not understand.

One day would be enough.

And I held out my palms to her.

Phelyra withdrew a dagger from a hidden pocket in her dress. Its hilt was gold, its blade polished to a brutal shine.

She could kill me, I thought. I could bleed out in the very place Zenia had, my magic harvested. But I did not move. I had no choice but to trust Phelyra and her word.

I watched as she cut her hand. Her ichor, fragrant as white wine spilled across pine floors, welled in her palm.

The dagger was returned to its hiding place; she dipped her fingertip into the blood.

I held my breath as she began to draw my mother’s constellations on my palms. Fire on my right, winter on my sinister.

I had memorized these points and lines countless times.

I had drawn them myself as a child, imagining their power.

Now, they sat upon my skin, illuminating my hands.

“The borrowing spell is complete,” Phelyra said. “It is yours for one whole mortal day.”

I curled my fingers inward. The blood crackled over the lines of my palms like embers. But the magic was sinking into me. I could feel it stirring my blood, a heady sensation that made me close my eyes for the briefest of moments.

I was fire and winter, souls and words.

The rhapsody was cut short when Phelyra leaned close to me, a shrewdness in her eyes.

“You kept the scale, I hope?” she murmured. “I left it behind for you.”

I swallowed, holding her stare. It had never occurred to me that she had intentionally left the eithral scale for me to glean from my mother’s death. I had thought she had been so intent upon fleeing that she had forgotten it. But if she knew I possessed it… the element of surprise would be lost.

“Whenever you choose to use it,” Phelyra continued, “make sure you strike quickly. You must use all your strength and hit the center of the fault line. You must not hesitate, or you will only wound your target.”

When I remained silent, she walked to the door and opened it.

“Farewell, Matilda,” she said smugly.

I moved to leave but paused on the threshold. “You were the one to meet my father in secret for the black market, to deliver the scales to him. You gave four to him, secretly kept one for yourself, and traded one to Warin without my mother’s knowledge.”

I had shocked her, but she recovered quickly, licking her painted lips.

“That was so long ago, child, and my memory is not quite what it once was.”

“I will keep your secrets,” I said, but her eyes flashed. She heard the words I did not say: so long as you keep mine.

Phelyra bowed her head to me, and I left her behind, reeling in the shadows.

I arrived on Maiden Bridge by the Underling door, just as the sun was setting. I ascended the stairs to the rooftop, passing warriors along the way, and gazed at the fortress. An ache pulsed through me when I saw the destruction that had occurred while I was gone.

The trebuchets had punctured the proud stone walls; the holes gaped, reminding me of open wounds.

There was one section of parapet that had been demolished, crumbling like a rotten tooth, but the others had held firm through the scathing.

Vincent’s tower still stood, to my immense relief, although it had been battered.

A gust blew mist over the river; the droplets met the sun’s final rays. Prisms bloomed in the air, arcing over the fortress like a banner, and I swallowed the emotion that rose, surprised by how it had gripped me.

Wyndrift will always be yours, even when I am no longer here.

“Matilda!”

I turned to see Nathaniel, fitted in armor and chainmail, arriving on the tower roof. He must have spotted me below from the bridge and run to greet me. But he smiled when our eyes met, and it was brilliant as the sun.

This was the first time I had spoken to him since the wastes, and I moved forward to greet him, pleased to see how vibrant his soul was, as if Death had only made his life sharper, bolder.

“Nathaniel,” I said, surprised when he pulled me into a tight embrace. I patted him on the back, his armor cold against my palm. “Tell me what has unfolded today.”

He eased away so he could look at me, but his joy dimmed.

“Grimald began firing at dawn. He stopped about a bell ago, but we are preparing for the next round. Vincent has remained on the fortress parapets, but he stationed me here on the bridge. Would you like me to take you to him?”

I could not help but glance at the castle again. I could see torches being lit on the battlements, and figures moving, their armor flaring in the light.

“I need to remain on Maiden,” I said, meeting Nathaniel’s gaze again. “This tower is built on a ley line, and my magic will be strongest here. But can you deliver a message to your brother for me?”

“Yes, of course. What is it?”

“Tell Vincent that I am here, on the bridge, and I will support him from Maiden. But he needs to prepare for Grimald and his men to cross the river underwater. They will use night as a cover, and once they make the crossing, they will scale the castle walls. There will be hand-to-hand combat, and soon.”

Nathaniel was quiet, his eyes narrowing in contemplation. He was envisioning it—warriors rising from the river, scaling the fortress wall. It might have seemed preposterous until he remembered that I had done the very same. But he nodded and said, “I will carry this to him now. Anything else?”

“No,” I said, but the word emerged soft, pained.

I wanted to go to Vincent myself. I wanted to touch him, set my mouth upon his, whisper my own words into his ear.

These longings would only distract me. I let them rest as Nathaniel hastened away, and I set my mind on the night to come. The magic of fire and winter, which felt like smooth stones in my hands, their weight eager to be hurled across the expanse.

I decided to practice and turned to an unlit torch. My heart quickened as I coaxed a flame forward, watching it ignite with a pop of sparks. How keen the fire was to dance for me, as if it waited for my further command.

Next, I looked down at the wooden planks beneath my feet, damp from the rain. What I desired came to be, and the water hardened to ice. It shined like stardust, crackling with fervor.

“What are you planning?”

I spun to see Bade standing a few paces behind me. He was scowling at my bare feet and the ice that glimmered across the wooden planks. It felt odd to see him here; had I not released him?

“I thought you would be below, with Adria,” I said.

He grunted and moved forward. “You have me worried.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“Yes, but I am. And I do not know what to do with these… feelings. ”

Strangely, I did not know how to reassure him. So I did the only thing that felt natural. I held out my hands to him, my palms to the sky. The constellations still gleamed gold from Phelyra’s blood.

Bade’s eyes widened, but he cradled my hands in his own, calloused and scarred. He stared down at the stars I could command. The magic I held even if it was only for a day. A muscle feathered in his jaw; I knew he was sad, thinking about my mother. His old friend and ally.

“Good,” he said gruffly. “I am no longer worried.”

But I sensed otherwise.

He settled beside me for the long night.

“Sister.”

Nathaniel returned, sooner than I expected. Bade and I watched his approach, his chainmail shining in the dusky light. But it was Enva’s violet cloak and my moonstone belt, draped over his forearm, that made my breath catch.

“I delivered your message to Vince,” he said. “He thanks you and said he will be prepared for Grimald’s arrival by river. He also wanted me to say that he will repay you, handsomely, for your aid and intelligence after this battle ends. You only need to tell him what you would like.”

“ Repay me?” I said, frowning. “I want no—” I cut myself off, a sudden thought blazing through me.

Skin on skin, his mouth like a seal upon mine. The sounds he had drawn from me last night.

I glanced at the fortress battlements once more. My divine eyes were sharp; I could see a shadow that seemed planted there between the crenellations, unmoving in the firelight.

“And he also wanted me to deliver these to you,” Nathaniel said, clearing his throat. “Although I should have also brought you armor, and some boots. You’ll catch a flux and he’ll have my head for it.”

Bade snorted.

I only smiled and accepted the offerings. I did not feel the cold, and I sighed as I brought the belt around my waist, the cloak around my throat. They were familiar, comforting. But I gazed through the gloam and found that shadow again on the battlement, steady as the northern star.

I knew it was Vincent, standing at the edge. He gazed at the tower, where he knew me to be. And the distance between us suddenly felt vaster and wilder than the sea.