Wild ​Reverence

by Rebecca Ross

I vowed to be childless unless they can be made in love. And I would rather be feared than ever be loved.”

“But have you failed to notice it, my old ally? War only makes love flame brighter, defiant. It seems to bloom from the bloodshed you leave behind, unfurling from the most unlikely places. From the broken seams of the world. From the graves and the anguish and the fear you inspire.”

But the truth is … there has been no divine born to the Underlings or the Skywards since.

“Your daughter will be a messenger, carrying words and tidings and proclamations from one realm to the next.”

Death was moonlight on a sword, an ocean eddy at high tide. Ephemeral and vicious and cold, like frost over iron.

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.

Because of this constant threat, my mother’s closest allies became my own. Bade, god of war. Phelyra, goddess of revelry and coin. And Alva, goddess of dreams and nightmares.

“Next time, you hold on to her.

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.

“Forgive me, but I must kiss you now.

I savored it as a man who had gone days without eating. I drew the air deep into my lungs, holding the earth, the forests, the moss, the soil within me like it was sustenance.

Matilda smiled at me. That is when I knew I was doomed, knee-deep in this quandary. I loved her. I had loved her for a long time and I did not know what to do about it.

“I did it for you,” she replied.

“Because she is yours, as you are hers,” Bade replied quietly. “And she is precious to me.”

I waited for her return like the stars wait for the sun to set.

And then one rainy night, in the darkest, coldest hour before dawn, a knock sounded upon my door.