Page 99 of Wild Reverence

LXXVI

Spring, Iron, Rivers

MATILDA

I need a wasted door.

It was my one clear thought, a fire in the darkness that was consuming me.

I forced myself to rise.

The eye was half lit in the gemstone. Bade would be in the wasteland now, traveling to the mists. I could bring him back, but as soon as I stepped foot there, I would begin my seven years of service to the Gatekeeper. I would be barred from the mortal realm during that time.

Vincent.

His name was like a second heart, beating in my chest, and I hesitated, caught in a web.

I did not want to make this choice.

My mind reeled; I could not breathe as I stepped away from Bade’s body. My knees were weak, my heart was in my throat. Tears stung my eyes as I stared at the falling snow, and I knew what I needed, what I wanted, to do.

My blood began to pound again as I prepared myself to ride the trade wind to the first wasted door I had ever encountered in the castle ruins.

From that threshold, I would chase Bade down in the wasteland; I would catch his soul before he slipped into the mists.

I would bring him back to Adria, and then I would dwell seven years with the Gatekeeper.

The trade wind was coming. I could hear it whistling through the forest, spinning up the snow.

There would be no time for me to explain my departure to Vincent or say farewell to him.

My mouth was sealed by the Gatekeeper’s agreement.

Even if I had the time to tell him of the seven years, I would not be able to.

He would wake in the thicket, and I would be gone again.

He would open his eyes to find himself alone, and I bit the inside of my cheek until the pain flared through me.

Seven years was a long time by mortal reckoning.

As if sensing my turmoil, the trade wind drew closer.

I stepped forward, eager to slip between its wings.

“Is the old god dead?”

Warin’s voice froze me to the spot. In my distress, I had forgotten he existed. But now that I sensed his presence, I was flooded with wrath so potent I nearly chipped my teeth when I ground them together. I gave myself a moment to breathe, to steady my heart, my plans swiftly changing.

“You should know,” I said. “You are now the god of war, are you not?” My hand flexed, but I willed him to step closer. Closer, so I could slay him before I departed.

The wind was coming. I only had seconds remaining.

The snow crunched beneath his feet as he took my bait; Warin moved within my striking range.

“He was easier to kill than I thought. I think you might have softened the old brute, Matilda. But I feel unchanged. His power is not so glorious, not so vast as we were all led to believe in the Skyward realm. I hardly feel it stir within my blood.”

He turned Bade’s body over and yanked the eithral arrow from his back.

I held my breath, watching the snow shift. He was so close, and yet I would only be able to strike him once. My palm hovered over my belt, waiting to call my own eithral scale into my hand.

Come closer, I thought, just as the wind began to tease my hair.

“Oh, look who has decided to join us now,” Warin said in a singsong tone. “How delightful! This night has gone better than I planned.”

My blood went cold.

I looked to my sinister side, where Vincent now stood between the trees, staring at me through the falling snow.

He was panting, his breath unspooling like clouds.

He wore his damp tunic and boots, and his hair shone with frost. His face was flushed, and a sword flashed in his hand, though I could sense how weak he was.

He needed warmth. Shelter. Sleep. He should not be here, stumbling through my winter magic.

The trade wind arrived at that very moment.

The clouds broke above us, spilling moonlight into the clearing. The breeze caressed my hair. And yet I remained firmly planted, unable to draw breath or ride the wind, my eyes fixed upon Vincent. I could not leave him here with Warin.

I would lose Bade, then.

I would not be able to reach him in time, and all the fury I had been suppressing rose to the surface. I saw Adria, alone in their burrow, weeping in the shadows. My own heart, half of it cut away from my chest, to know the only god I had loved as my father was gone.

Strike true, Hem had once said to me.

You must not hesitate, Phelyra had advised, mere hours ago.

I quietly summoned the eithral scale from my belt.

The wooden shaft fit perfectly within my hand as I spun to face Warin.

But he had moved in the split second that I had looked at Vincent.

If I had glanced down, I would have seen the snow marred at my feet, directly before me.

I would have realized he had used that brief distraction—my moment of weakness—to position himself to wound me first.

He struck me so hard that I gasped.

I felt the sharp edge of the scale as it sparked across my ribs, punctured my lung.

The pain was familiar—had I not felt it lash me relentlessly?

—until it went deeper, slicing through me as if I were gossamer.

I felt it pierce my heart, a mortal blow, and there it came to rest. An arrow that had found its mark.

The cold started to seep through my veins. My heart felt stung, swollen in my chest. It filled me with an odd rhythm until I realized… my pulse was slowing. My fault line was beginning to crumble.

Warin had known where to strike me, just as I knew where to strike him.

I could taste my blood like it was sap, rising up my throat with each strangled exhale. My legs were weak, but I would not kneel. I would not collapse. Not before I did this one thing.

I could sense Warin, standing face-to-face with me. I could feel his breath on my cheeks, hot and fermented, like rotten fruit.

With one hand, I reached up to find my cloak.

It was soft, eager for me to touch it. I yanked the fabric from his neck, and with it, the enchantment.

Instantly, he appeared before me, vivid and cruelly beautiful.

Ashen and pale and blue in the moonlight.

He was grinning; his eyes shone with hunger as he watched my blood begin to trickle down my chest, fragrant, luminous.

“I will miss you, old friend,” he crooned.

I smiled. “As will I, when you wander the wastes eternally, rejected by the mists.”

A frown pulled his brows closer. His eyes narrowed.

I had once slipped through his fingers and I would do it again, one last time.

I took the scale that had killed my mother, and I plunged it through his neck.

I twisted my hand until the scale had cut through him, severing every golden vein. Warin stumbled away from me with a gasp. He pressed his palm to his neck, but his ichor was a cascade, drenching the front of his robes.

He dropped to his knees, wheezing. He gazed up at me, confounded, as if he could not believe I had just given him a mortal blow.

I watched his face blanch white.

“Matilda,” he tried to say, but his voice grated like steel on stone.

He crumpled to the ground and breathed his last with a shudder, his magic flooding toward me, eager to find its new sanctuary.

Spring, iron, rivers.

There was no war to claim. That magic had never been his, even as Bade had died beneath his hand, but I did not have time to marvel over this mystery. To unravel what it might mean and how Bade had retained his power.

I drank Warin’s magic down like dark red wine.

Three swallows, until my blood was thick with it, and my mind was dizzy, reveling in the new splendor.

Nectar warm in the sun, rusted metal, cold water with a hint of mud.

It was overwhelming, like diving into the ocean during a storm, feeling the pull of the undertow.

I closed my eyes, imagining how I could hold all this magic without breaking, without losing who I had been before.

I felt the cool shadows of Warin’s hall in the sky, a hall that now answered to me.

I commanded the shackles to fall away from the mortals who dwelled there.

Vincent’s people were free to return to their realm, beholden to no god.

Their joy was incandescent. They were coming home.

In the brilliance of the exchange, I forgot I was dying. My heart struggled to beat; my soul was melting away. My shadow was fading.

I was drowning in power and my own blood.

But it was not until I looked at Vincent—when I watched him run to me, his sword falling from his hand, fear burning in his eyes—that I let myself come undone.

I fell face down into the snow.