Wild ​Reverence

by Rebecca Ross

“Matilda?” my mother repeated, surprised. “Why?” “It means mighty in battle.”

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.”

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.

Bade, god of war. Phelyra, goddess of revelry and coin. And Alva, goddess of dreams and nightmares.

I could have fallen to my knees to know I had been dreaming of her all this time.

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?

i love this description the author is painting..

“Life is difficult, is it not? The threads reflect it.”

Vincent?

“What sort of goddess is made when Fate and Death come together in unison after centuries of enmity and strife?”

“I do not know, Matriarch,”

“Tell me.”

Rowena smiled, revealing sharp, crooked teeth. “We create a...

A strange emotion welled in my throat and hung there as he carried Adria to the back room, to lie her down on his bed. I wanted to resist my feelings, how they crept over me like moss. But I bowed to them. And I wondered how it was possible for my heart to miss something that I had never experienced.

I walked to him, and he surprised me yet again when he opened his arms and drew me into them, embracing me tightly. I laid my ear upon his chest, where I could hear the steady thrum of his heart—his fault line, the weak point in his armor—and I closed my eyes.

He held me like a mortal father embraces his daughter, like nothing could tear me from him. It was the familial love I had often seen in dreams and marveled over, because it was absent—or very well hidden—in the immortal world.

This is the beginning of the end, I thought. If heartless gods can be made soft by such love, we are all doomed.