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“What if she ends up with some lackluster magic? She could be the goddess of taxes, or patience, or peace, or some other tedious thing.”
“Matilda?” my mother repeated, surprised. “Why?” “It means mighty in battle.”
“You know this as well as I do—I vowed to be childless unless they can be made in love. And I would rather be feared than ever be loved.”
Movement was destined to be my armor. I was not fully an Underling, and nor was I a full-blooded Skyward. I was both, and this had never happened before. I was Matilda alone. Matilda of nowhere and no kin. I would become the herald of the gods, much to my mother’s chagrin. And the goddess of death had certainly seen something out of place within my stars.
When he ate his scrap of parchment, I ate mine, and the vow tasted like the brine of the sea. Like a night laden with tears. Like drops of sweat provoked by a merciless midday sun.
He dreamt of the river again, and this time, he also dreamt of me.
And I would like to think my story began long ago when I came into the world as a pale, silent boy, destined to one day die. But it truly begins here, in this moment when my dreams grew bones and teeth and skin in the waking realm. The moment I met Red.
Red was not a girl but a goddess. And I knew the stars that belonged to her. I had memorized them. I could close my eyes at night and point in their direction. I could trace them on my palm.
You hold on to her. But who could hold on to the wind? And—better yet—who would be so foolish as to trust—to love—such a wild being?
This is the beginning of the end, I thought. If heartless gods can be made soft by such love, we are all doomed.
They did not realize the power they truly held over us, these humans who lived for a brief moment of time. But it was far greater than they knew.
The wine was rich, bold. I held it in my mouth, sifting through its layers. I could taste the season these grapes had been harvested in. The year, which had been seven summers ago. Fruit that had been harvested late beneath low gray clouds. A flood that had turned up golden silt from the river.
We had kissed once, that day long ago in the bracken. How innocent and young we had been, not knowing what awaited us. This time, Vincent did not miss.
“And what,” he asked thickly, as if he also felt the pull to me, “do my words taste like?” “Like moldering parchment.” Vincent blinked, frowning. “Like what?” “I tease you, lord. Your words are sweet, golden. Milky.”
“Yes,” I replied, tears welling in my throat. “Yes. I will carry your words back to him.”
He had called me Red again, and I had liked it.
I had never felt so safe as I had in that moment.
And I had never desired to be a god, to wield power as one, but in that moment, I longed to halt time. I would have made an interlude for us, a space when the hour lost its bite and the sun stood still. We could simply breathe and let ourselves unravel this knot between us, slowly.
Our fingers brushed as we both reached for the bread. Matilda smiled at me. That is when I knew I was doomed, knee-deep in this quandary. I loved her.
Dear Matilda, I wrote. I let the words flow for her. And when the ink dried, I gave my very heart to the fire.
The sun was rising, casting shards of amber light across the floor, when I opened the bottle. I breathed in the smoke. I could hear his voice vividly, as if he sat beside me. His words filled me like rain-washed air, and for the first time since I could remember, I let myself surrender.
Dear Matilda, You’ve been gone for three days, and I have never been so conscious of time before now. I count the hours, listening for the bells to mark them. I collect each moment that you’ve been away, and I feel them gather in my bones like winter. I long for you. I do not know when this happened, when the current rose and when I let it take me, willingly, but there came a moment when I looked at you and could not breathe. There was a moment when I watched you depart, and I wanted to fall to my knees. I know that you and I come from different realms, and that you will be prone to wander, as
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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.
“Because she is yours, as you are hers,” Bade replied quietly. “And she is precious to me.”
When she kissed me, it was not for anyone but for her. For me.
“Come inside,” he said. “I have been waiting for you.”
“I would wait a thousand years for you,” Vincent said. “If you asked me, I would wait for you until only my bones remained upon an altar. But if you must leave again, then let me follow you, Red.”
She pressed down on the key marked by I, then R. The M and the V.
