Wild ​Reverence

by Rebecca Ross

His hand was large enough, powerful enough, to crush me into dust, and yet he held me like I was a fragile thing.

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

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

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.

Death changes mortal hearts in ways that are difficult for us to fathom.

“You will make a salt vow to my daughter,” she said. “You will be her loyal ally, and will never betray her, even if you and I should become enemies. Even if it costs you your very life, you will aid her whenever she is in peril, in need. You will teach her how to fight and defend herself.”

I longed for a father, even though I existed in a realm where fathers often killed their daughters and daughters their fathers, all to steal magic. But I wished that it had been Bade, even with his warmongering ways. I wished that he had not hesitated when it came to my mother’s price. I wanted someone to claim me.

This was magic that I could not cast but could still feel in my body, in my soul. And I desired more of

“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.”

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.

It was another one of Vincent’s. He dreamt of the river again, and this time, he also dreamt of me.

I had never seen this mortal boy before. I had only read his dreams, and yet he knew of me. Somehow, he had seen me, and I had slipped into a dream of his, unknowingly.

But now my heart felt twisted, confused, as I watched him gaze down at Adria. I had never seen such a delicate expression on his angular, ugly face before. As if he was made of feathers, thistledown, sun-warmed sand.

“If you take her soul now,” he whispered to Orphia, “I will follow her to the mists. I will gladly let a divine strike me down when she breathes her last.”

mine. At first I thought, He is afraid, but then I realized his embrace was not because he feared for himself. He was holding on to me like he was an anchor in a storm. A weight to keep me grounded. He held me because he feared I was about to be carried away. And should I be, he was so entwined with me that the beast would have to take us together.

“I … I’m sorry,” he breathed. “You’re the bravest girl I know, and you’re here, after all these months when I’ve only seen you in dreams. I did not know that you were real. I thought … I don’t know what I thought. But I—”

I pressed my mouth to his like a seal. A kiss of innocence that was brief but earnest. When I eased back, we looked at each other again, sharing another moment of pure, delighted shock. Then I laughed, joy cresting through me like a wave.

“How did you find me?” Vincent asked once our laughter had subsided. “I was not trying to,” I confessed. “I stumbled upon you.” “Like you did in my dreams?”

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

“Because I can smell your essence, and it is one that I have never encountered before.” He leaned closer, drawing a deep inhale. “You are parchment, ink, cloves. You are water dripping down stone, and the smoke of a burning scroll. You are something deeper, darker still. Something I am not sure how to describe, which means you came from the realm far below. The only place I have never been.”

No, I was quick to think, but then I remembered Vincent, and my breath caught. He had been dreaming of me for seasons now. Our fates must be entwined on the loom, even if Rowena would not confess it to me, and I imagined one of her owls had seen such and decided to meddle with Vincent’s dreams.

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.

The wasted door at the fortress. I had opened it and seen a strange land. A gate that led to a dreamscape.

I said her name, over and over, until sunrise melted the last shadow in the room.

“I will not forget this, Mother,” I whispered, and then rose to my feet. “Find your rest in the mists.”

“I … think he will torture me for information. Wound me and then heal me, again and again.” “Then you run. And you do not look back.”

“You are strong,” she said. “You are brave. And you will return to us.”

Soon, spring gave way to summer, and summer to autumn. Autumn to winter, and I became another year older. And then another year, and another, until I hardly remembered that boy who had once embraced her in the bracken. Who had once dared to kiss her lips.

I presented myself as a meek goddess of the Middle Court. I was no threat. But even so, I drew Skyward attention; I had been born in darkness and smoke and bejeweled firelight. A place they had never seen.

This is how the troubled relationship between Enva and Dacre had started.

Phelyra was very fortunate that I was unarmed, although my fingers twitched, eager to recall my shield. I gave myself one heady moment to imagine slamming it into her chest, knocking her to the ground. Breaking her nose, her teeth. Watching her ichor creep across the floor, as I had once watched my mother’s.

It unfolded in my hands, exposing a crooked, desperate line. Matilda, help me. I inhaled sharply. No one had written a prayer to me before, and the revelation struck me like a hand: All the prayers I had just burned? They were not for Zenia, but for me. I fell to my knees, desperate to reclaim them.

I was tempted to say no. No, I do not want to be alone with you. No, I do not want to hear what you have to say after all these years of silence. No, I do not want to return to childhood, when I felt safe with you.

I cried out to you, and you never answered.

“I never claimed you were foolish,” Vincent said, his tone sharpening. “But surely you can understand my confusion, Matilda. You were in my life until you suddenly were not, and while most of the gods deem us entertainment, a mere means to get what they want, I never thought of you in such light.” “What, then, did you think of me?” “You were my friend,” he said, almost a whisper, as if it hurt to speak. “That is the only reason why I am giving you the time of day, allowing you to sit here in my chambers. I am making an exception for you.”

I knew about debts and weaknesses and divided attention. How once a letter was opened and read, its words carved themselves into the mind, the heart. Matilda, help me.

“I am an Underling, but I am also a Skyward. I cannot claim one over the other. And I am the worst thing that has ever happened to the gods.”

“Then let me accompany you,” I said. “Let me be at your side. Not only as a goddess, but as your wife.”

His appearance fascinated me; the closer I looked, the more stories I found within the details. And I wondered how each winter would leave its mark on him as he grew older. The wrinkles, the scars, the silver tresses. The unique characteristics that I rarely encountered amongst my fellow gods and goddesses because aging in physical ways took centuries.

I studied the flowers again, carefully preserved in glass. I felt foolish for acting as Vincent’s cupbearer earlier that evening, sipping his wine while all along he was immune to poison that grew, wild and beautiful, on his island.

This, then, I could carry home, and that was when I acknowledged it. I felt the expanse yawn wide between us—Matilda and me. The mundane and the magical. The mortal and the divine.

I had little faith, but in that moment, looking at her … I believed we would be victorious.

“He chose me first,” I replied. “He dreamt of me before I knew of him. His soul found mine before I even knew how to look for his.”

He had tried and failed to bring her back. And while I knew he was sworn to Matilda—he was her ally—he did not know what I was to her. He did not know that once, she and I had lain beneath the sway of bracken, holding on to the other as if we were so entwined that nothing—not even a creature from the under realm—could tear us apart. Once, we had wandered through dreams, side by side.

She leaned her head back onto my shoulder. I could tell she was aware of me now, how my body was aligned with hers. How we drew breath together, our chests heaving in tandem, the feel of my hands and the cadence of my voice, how they both held her tethered to me. It was greater than any prayer I could have uttered, any words I could have written down in ink.

For what sort of divine would risk their strength, their beauty, their power for mortal kind?

“You have only just returned to me,” he said in my ear, low and gruff. “And I have sat at your side through the night, full of wonders and questions and agonies. I have longed to speak with you. Please … do not leave yet.”

I loved the feel of his hand on mine. The calluses of his skin, the strength of his grip. The way he smelled like wild herbs and wind. He held me to his realm like an anchor, and I savored the pull of his breath in my hair. The promising warmth of his presence at my back.

“If you are below, bury my words. If you are above, I should burn them. To be safe, I should do both at once, because I can never know exactly where you are.” “Yes,” she said. “I would welcome any words of yours.”

“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.”