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When one of our kind loves something that is mortal … there is always a sacrifice that must be made. Although perhaps you just began to pay it.
If the under realm belonged to Orphia and the Skyward heavens to Rowena, then Adria was the matriarch of the mortal kingdom. There had always been three realms in our world; we should have expected a third matriarch to rise amongst us. We should have been waiting for her, knowing she would come from the mortal realm.
“I love her,” I said. Her hand froze in shock and then dropped away. “I have loved Matilda a very long time. Before I even knew you existed. And there is nothing you can offer me that I want. Nothing you can give me that I need. I am hers.”
“He may be irreverent toward all of us, save for you. I think he desires to worship you.” “I do not want him to feel like he must worship me. I do not want to change who he is, or what he believes.” Rowena smiled. “Oh child, you are still quite young, aren’t you? He longs to worship you, but not in the way you think.”
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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Rowena wove the things to come, and as I stepped closer to the loom … I realized that I did not want to look. I did not want to know when I was destined to lose him, when his thread ended and mine continued on, alone.
I should have been surprised to have yet another god within my fortress, unannounced. They were like cats, I thought, drawn to the people who liked them least.
What does a lord do when an impatient god unexpectedly arrives at his hall and hovers? You invite him for supper and hope he will decline. To my distress, Bade accepted.
It was not lost on me that I, the herald of the gods, was asking someone else to deliver a message on my behalf. It felt odd. But once, long ago, I had carried a letter for Bade as Adria had been dying in his arms.
“Because she is yours, as you are hers,” Bade replied quietly. “And she is precious to me.”
I saw that Death’s letter to me—the one I had yet to open and read, the one that had first brought Matilda to my window—was still on display, tucked into the greenery.
One moment, you were there before me. The next, the wind had carried you away. And I missed you as if a part of me had been torn. I would have done anything to follow you.”
We were doomed, she and I. One day, I would perish, and she would live on, endless as the stars. But if we were doomed, then let us fully embrace it.
“Oh gods,” I breathed, clinging to her. “Are you blessing or cursing me?” she asked wryly, kissing me again. “Can it be both?”
Tears stung my eyes. I would have taken every single lash for her.
“This will break us both in the end,” I said. “It will break me, to live on when you have breathed your last. To visit the river, years from now, and see you in every current, in every rainfall, only to remember that you are gone.”
My emotions were no longer aligned with my past.
“If you have a crown of stars … why can’t I see it?” I asked. “Because the crowns can only be seen by the one who knows your soul. Adria can see mine. Vincent, I suspect, can see yours.”
“Father,” I said, my voice hitching. “Father!”
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“I hear you,” he said at last. “Daughter.”
Matilda, your seven years have now begun.
Life went on, as it always had, even when it felt like it shouldn’t.
“There are some things that are doomed to be, no matter what divinity believes.”
Once there is a child, you begin to see how quickly the days pass.
I have lived thirteen years without her once. I can make it through seven. I can endure ten. If she will only return to me.
