IV
That Which Is Forbidden
MATILDA My mother sat at the table by the hearth, directly across from Phelyra.
Between them was a spread of strange coins, as well as something odd. It was oblong and iridescent, half the size of my palm.
My heart suspended in my chest.
This thing did not belong here in our burrow.
I took another step closer, unable to look away from its bold glimmer, even as Zenia rose from her chair.
My breath went shallow when I realized it was a scale from one of Dacre’s eithrals. I had never seen a stray one like this, plucked clean. The wyverns were dangerous, temperamental beasts that lived in the lowest, most volatile level of the realm. Sometimes, I could feel their roar through the stone floor, and sometimes I could catch the faint taste of their rot in the passages. But I had only seen a clutch of them once, and it had, ironically, not been below but when Zenia and I were walking the mortal realm.
The eithrals had turned a warm, verdant spring day into a bleak, cold winter. Their wings had veiled the midday sun. They had created a gale that stung with decay.
In the distance, a village bell had started to toll, a warning sound that had made me shiver more than the chill of the wyverns, because a bell amongst mortals meant imminent death. I watched, awestruck, as the eithrals cut through the clouds, swooping low as they hunted for prey.
Come, my mother had said, taking my hand and drawing me to the cover of a nearby copse. Do not let them see you. They are attracted to movement.
Dacre—the lord of our clan—occasionally set his eithrals, which he dubbed his “pets,” loose in the mortal realm to feed and cause terror and disaster for both humans and Skywards.
I suppose it is a good time for me to note that Alva also happens to be Dacre’s half sister.
Before I could ask about the scale, Phelyra had covered it with her hand.
“Matilda?” Zenia came between me and the table, blocking my view.
“Where is Bade?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, distracted by the eithral scale. By the chime of coins as Phelyra raked them into a velvet bag, as if keen to hide them before Bade arrived. They did not look like the gold, silver, and copper ones we minted in the under realm. Instead, they were blue as the sky, dark as midnight, and radiant like starlight, captured and pressed into coins.
“You are supposed to be with him, at his side, when you leave the burrow’s door.” My mother’s displeasure was crisp like a tart apple. “You are never to be alone.”
My gaze drifted from Phelyra’s fervid activity back to Zenia.
“How am I to find my magic if you are always suffocating it?” I asked,
just as sharply.
My mother struck me with her hand.
She had never hit me before; the surprise of it stung more than the contact.
I stumbled, but only because I was weary from bearing the shield. As my cheek flushed a mottled gold, I looked up at her. My mother’s own shock and remorse flickered across her countenance before she went cold again. I was weak, as she feared. I could not even hold my ground against
the brunt of her palm.
I want to be feared, not loved.
“Go and clean up,” she said, turning back to Phelyra. “I do not want blood on the floor.”
I had forgotten about my knees, which had finally scabbed over.
I curled my tongue, imagining all the words I wanted to say but was not brave enough to utter. Obedient, I strode past the table and hearth.
The back half of the burrow was dimly lit, the air cool and fragrant from Zenia’s collection of bottled perfumes, dripping with myrrh, honey, and rosewater. The shadows were long and blue, the walls laced with veins of gold, and small white flowers bloomed from vines that crept across the domed ceiling. This was where my mother occasionally slept in a round feather bed, where we stored our raiment as well as our coffers of jewels and gold. Well-worn steps at the very back of the room led down to the trickle of a rill, creating a private bathing pool.
As I sat on the top step and untethered my sandals, I could hear the whispered exchange between my mother and Phelyra.
“Where is it?”
“Safe,” Phelyra answered. “But she saw it.”
“Yes. I will speak to her,” Zenia replied a breath before Bade arrived.
“Is she here?” he asked, his voice an unrecognizable rasp. I was expecting his fury to rattle the walls, even though I had only seen him lose control of his anger once. For all his renowned temper and bloodlust, he rarely let me see it.
“Yes,” Zenia drawled. “What happened to your duty to protect her? She is too young to be alone outside the burrow.”
“She is,” he panted, “very swift.”
“Swift?”
“Yes, as I said. Although why should we be surprised? Matilda is a herald. I would like to see her run in the open, unhindered by the turns and narrowness of our passages. I think one day she could even outpace Shale and all his celerity.”
“My daughter will not be racing the god of the wind, and a Skyward at that.”
There was a pause, as if Bade had just taken note of Phelyra’s presence.
His obtuseness made me grimace as I rinsed cold water over my scabs, washing away the dried ichor on my legs.
“Phelyra,” he said, and there. A hint of suspicion in his voice, despite their long-standing allyship.
“Bade,” she returned. “I assume you wish to speak with Zenia alone?”
“No.” A snap of a word. “Why would you think that?”
“You often linger behind after our meetings.”
“Do I? Ha. I did not realize you watched my comings and goings, Phel.”
“Enough, you two,” my mother interjected. “Phelyra? I know you have been summoned to a private court. I would not want you to be late.”
“No, indeed. Thank you for the wine, and the conversation, Zenia.”
I could hear a chair scrape the floor as Phelyra stood. I held my breath and rose, stealing closer to the door that was cracked open, where the three of them stood just beyond, out of my sight.
Inwardly, I begged Bade to take note of the tension in the room. Surely, he must see the bulky coin purse Phelyra was concealing. Could he not hear the clinks every time she moved? Underling coins did not make such sound, which meant Phelyra held forbidden Skyward currency.
But the truth is this: Phelyra had been born the goddess of revelry, an eight-point constellation. She had been a member of the Middle Court until she killed to gain the power of coin, ascending to the High Court. And one of the more peculiar powers that complements her magic of coin is that she can create pockets from anything.
I had no doubt in that moment that she had concealed the purse of strange coins in a secret pocket she had made in her robes, alongside the eithral scale. There would be no way for Bade to see the bulk or hear the coins clink, and Phelyra left without another word.
I wondered if my mother would mention it to him now that they were alone, save for my skulking presence in the adjacent chamber.
But Zenia only sighed, and asked, “How was your time with the mortal queen?”
“Horrid,” Bade said. “She wants nothing to do with me.”
“You should visit her again.”
“I offered her my favor, my power, my wisdom. I asked for a seat on her council, but she said that she does not need me.”
“I told you to woo her, not force your way on to her council.”
“And how—?”
Bade cut himself off, like he had been motioned to stop speaking.
A moment later, my mother called, “Matilda? Join us.”
I stepped into the room, reluctant. But I saw that Bade had brought my shield with him, which he extended to me as an offering.
“This belongs to you now,” he said. “Carry it on your back when you walk through the passageways. Let it guard your heart when you sleep.
Bear it from room to room, even when you are tending the simplest of tasks. You will only grow stronger, more familiar with it as time passes.
Soon, the shield will feel like it is a part of you.”
“Does this mean our training has ended?” I asked, my throat narrow as I accepted the shield.
“No. I will be gone these next five days.” Bade paused, his gaze dropping to my cheek, which still smarted from my mother’s hand. “But when I return, we will resume our lessons.”
I nodded. An apology was on the tip of my tongue for abandoning the first lecture, but I could not humble myself enough to say it. Divines rarely admit to being in the wrong due to the vulnerability it creates, and Bade did not wait for me to offer one.
He left without another word. He did not ask to borrow my mother’s cunning magic again, which meant he was returning to the Poet Queen in his own strength, wielding his own bloodstained magic.
He would speak his own words to her this time.
“Phelyra and I are creating something for you,” my mother said later that day, during resting hours. I was sitting before her on her bed, Bade’s shield at my side, chin propped upon my still-tender knees as she sorted the tangles from my hair with an antler comb. “A gift. We want it to be a surprise.”
I knew this was not a true gift but a way to placate me from speaking about what I had seen earlier.
“Does this gift require an eithral scale?” I said, surprised by how sarcasm dripped off my words. “And coins from the realm above?”
My mother’s hand froze, the comb snagging deep in my hair.
“You recognized the scale,” she breathed. “I was not sure if you would.”
“Of course I did. How did Phelyra come by it? Did she pluck it off an eithral herself? Surely Dacre will be very upset if he—”
Zenia took hold of my shoulder, firm enough that I felt her nails press crescents into my skin. She spun me toward her, her brown eyes wide, imploring.
“Yes,” she whispered, as if the walls had ears. “You might have thought it strange to see Phelyra hide everything from Bade, but if he knew of it … Bade would tell Alva, and Alva would tell her brother. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Matilda?”
I swallowed. I thought I understood then, and while I knew parts, I could not see the whole of it yet.
“Yes,” I murmured, even as doubt sawed through me like a sword.
“Then you must not speak a word of it to Bade. Or Alva.” My mother turned my head and resumed her brushing with harder strokes. I winced as the comb snagged on a tangle. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” I was quick to reassure her, if only to soften her hand. “But may I ask why? Why have the scale, if it is so dangerous? Why have the Skyward coins, if they are forbidden here?”
My mother paused.
She set the comb aside and then pressed something smooth and cool into my palm. One of the Skyward coins, and how my heart swelled to hold it up to the light.
It was not heavy and solid like Underling money was, and I studied it intimately, surprised to see the blue within its circle, and clouds that drifted, like the coin was a living entity, or a mirror of the mortal sky.
“Come with me,” my mother said with a hint of excitement. “I want to show you something.”
I followed her to the main hearth. The flames had been low, but when they sensed her presence, they rose, dancing for her. All fire answered to her, as she was the goddess of it.
Zenia took a second Skyward coin from the small purse of frozen cobwebs she kept belted at her waist. I leaned closer to study the money.
This one was dark as night, with a half-moon glowing upon its face.
Another glimpse of the sky, immortalized as a coin.
Before I could say anything, my mother flicked it into the fire.
“Mother,” I cried, flinching. I dropped, my knees hitting the hearthstone with a crack, and I reached out my hand, desperate to snatch the coin from
the flames.
Zenia held me back.
“No,” she said. “Listen, daughter.”
I paused, stricken. But as the midnight coin began to melt, it released an ephemeral sound. At the time, I did not know how to describe it, but it was a long exhale of music. A trio of flutes, woven together by the notes of a harp.
The sound was exquisite. And now that I had heard such splendor, I could not forget it. The way it had filled me like the darkest of wines, the brightest of moons.
This was magic that I could not cast but could still feel in my body, in
my soul.
And I desired more of it.
I could not move. I could not breathe as I listened, but once the coin had fully melted, the sound became smoke, dancing up the chimney.
“What was that?” I asked.
My mother merely nodded at the Skyward coin I still held, gripped in my fist. The shade of the midday sky wreathed in fluffy white clouds.
I gave it to the fire, conflicted, and listened to another snippet of music.
One that stole my breath. One that filled me with such delight that I felt bereft when it vanished into smoke.
For a while, my mother and I took turns tossing coins to the fire, inhaling the music the melting coins gave to us. We felt sorrow, triumph, anguish, pride, all inspired by the sounds the coins held. We did not have such beauty in the under realm. We had our drums, which beat like a second heart in our chests when we heard them, dictating our dances, but we did not have the collective emotion that the Skyward flutes, lyres, auloi, kitharas, cymbals, and harps possessed.
The goddess of music is a Skyward, and her name is Enva.
By the time my mother’s purse of coins was empty, we were both heavy, satiated by the snippets of music. It was Zenia’s way of apologizing for
hitting me earlier, and I rested my head on her shoulder, watching the flames.
“I still do not understand why you had these coins,” I said, my voice low, dreamlike. “Can we get more?”
“The Skywards pay a great amount for an eithral scale,” Zenia replied.
“Far more than they do for our gemstones, our marble, our obsidian.”
We could trade such goods for Skyward nectar from the clouds, garments spun from wind, and honey from their apiaries. These exchanges were acceptable, even amongst enemies. But she was speaking of the things we traded in the dark, in secret. The things that were forbidden.
Her candor only emboldened me. She was seeing me as an ally, and not a god-child.
“And how difficult is it to come by a scale? Did Phelyra truly steal one from an eithral while it slept?”
“No.” My mother caressed my hair, but her eyes were trained on the fire. “She found one, in the lowest reach of the realm, where the eithrals are kept. The scale was loose, lying abandoned on the ground, and she took it.
Occasionally, they fall free from the beasts, after Dacre wounds them.”
“Dacre wounds them?” I echoed, my stomach twisting.
“Yes. How else could he control them? When they begin to diverge from his wishes, he gives them a mortal blow, and then heals them. The beasts are compliant afterward. He does the same with his pack of hounds.”
I was respectful of the wolflike hounds, who lived in dens scattered throughout the realm, as I was of the eithrals, which meant I rarely encountered them on my own. But imagining such extraordinary creatures being wounded, just to keep them subordinate, filled my mouth with ash.
“That is sad,” I whispered.
“Do not waste emotion on such beasts, Matilda.”
I accepted the rebuke but picked at one of my fingernails.
“Why do the Skywards want an eithral’s scale?” I eventually asked.
“What do they do with them?”
“To possess one equates to power.”
That revelation sobered me, as if Zenia had splashed ice-cold water in my face.
“Power? In what way?”
“An eithral scale can cut through anything. Even the mind, the heart of a god. To harbor a single scale instills fear, even amongst Skywards.”
“Why are we giving the Skywards such power?” I asked. “They despise us.”
“The scales are few and far between. They do not make their way into any Skyward hand but only a select few, if that is what you are worried about. But also because we possess hearts, as much as we try to ignore them, and a heart always wants what it cannot have,” Zenia responded.
“What would you give to hear such music again, Matilda? To feel such magic stir in your blood?”
I bit the inside of my cheek until I felt a throb of pain.
And I realized that I would surrender just about anything to hear that fleeting music once more.
The Skyward harp was still echoing in my memory hours later as I read Alva’s dream scroll. She had delivered it to me with such a strange smile, a knowing gleam in her eye that I did not understand until I opened the scroll and read the first dream, freshly inked.
It was another one of Vincent’s.
He dreamt of the river again, and this time, he also dreamt of me.