Wild ​Reverence

by Rebecca Ross

My mother struck me with her hand.

Alright bitch

He dreamt of the river again, and this time, he also dreamt of me.

Excitement coursed through the hall. This was why Dacre had called the clan. He wanted us to bear witness to his altercation with Bade.

Oh this poor man did he fall in love with the mortal

This query seemed to break Bade. He dropped to his knees; his desperation stung the air like smoke.

😭😭😭

“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.”

Oh

And I wondered how it was possible for my heart to miss something that I had never experienced.

“The god of spring,” he answered, just as he disappeared into the mists. “Warin of Skyward.”

Bitch

An eithral scale was protruding from my mother’s neck.

Oh ?!

Phelyra, who had been standing directly behind my mother, watched with cold eyes as her ally went down, golden blood spurting over the floor, sweet as honeyed milk.

HELLO ?!?!

Thile, god of dusk, oaths, and summer. The Lord of the Skywards.

as I held my dead mother in my arms.

Girl maybe get away from the murderer ????

A moment later, I realized why when the hounds slammed into his body.

If Bade dies I’m suing

She no longer met me in dreams, despite my longing to see her again. The white owl likewise ceased visiting my windowsill, and I realized Matilda must have been connected to the bird in some way.

We were not a devout family, having shed whatever esteem we had once harbored for the gods when my mother had abandoned us to become a Skyward vassal.

THAT WAS HIS MOM ?!

It was the winter solstice, a bitterly cold night. I crawled through the blood-soaked hall, one hand pressed to the gaping wound in my side, holding myself together. I crawled past Finnian’s corpse, his eyes open and blank, and then Marcher, his body prostrate. I crawled past my father, his neck shorn to the bone, and then down the corridor, knowing that if my uncle or any of his men saw me, they would realize I had lived and would grant me a proper blow. But Death seemed to overlook me that dark night.

😟 bro are you good ???

Trembling, I wrote: Matilda, help me.

and that was how Warin became my lover. Skin to skin, breath to breath, he laid me bare on his bed.

Oh could we not 😒

“Marry me,” he rasped. “I want you to be mine, and only mine.”

Men are pathetic

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.

“Who is he?”

IT’S VINCENT (PIKACHU)

Vincent of Beckett, Lord of Wyndrift

FUCK

And then came his voice again, soft and unguarded. Something I could recognize, as if we had met in a dream. “Matilda?”

Ugh please get married

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

😯😯😯

“You are touching me now.” “Only because I am trying to remember the feel of you.”

He was not strong enough to hold on to her, and it is no wonder he lost her to the gods. That she chose to dwell above, leaving her own offspring behind like—”

Who tf is his mom the harp woman ?

The arrow caught me in the chest, just above my swift-beating heart.

Shit

“Will you show me?” he asked, a throaty whisper that made the hair rise on my arms. “Show me where I should touch you?”

😭 I love them

“I hear that you have requested an audience with me?” Warin asked.

Bitch

And I dove into the river after her.

I envisioned him in the river, but then cast that ridiculous image aside.

!!!!!!

Matilda, help me. “You wrote this to me years ago,” I said. “And I have only just received it. I would have come to you instantly that night, as soon as you called, had this letter found me when it should have. If I had not been Skyward.”

“Did you follow me last night?” I asked. “Into the river?” He said nothing,

This is where I found Bade, lying prone. I crossed the room and knelt at his side. “Bade?”

Shut the fuck up is he dead

But there was no wound upon him. He was not dead but sleeping.

Oh thank god

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

“Matilda,” I said again. “Come back to me.”

“It was good of you to come, and I thank you for it,” I whispered. “But I release you from your salt vow.” Bade reeled as if I had struck him, his expression haggard with shock. “You do not mean that,” he said, a hitch in his voice.

GIRL WHAT !!!!!

He had killed someone, someone whose fate was twined with mine.

Not the kid :(

“Ten years by mortal reckoning, beginning the next time you come to the wasteland. Within those ten years, you must serve as my herald. You will have the power to come and go between mist and waste, but you cannot stray back into the world of the living. Not until your service is complete.”

Uh

As an immortal, ten years should be like dust. A mere page in a tome. But I was measuring it by something else now. I was measuring it by Vincent’s breaths.

Bade raked his fingers through his beard. “All right, why, then? Why are you breaking my vow to you? Am I not enough?”

Aw :(

“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.”

I long for you.

My home is your home. My arms are a haven for you to rest. My last name is yours if you desire it. I will love you to my grave, and even beyond it, when the mists welcome me, when I am hopefully very old and gray and grouchy and have spent the seasons beside you when you are here and dreaming of you when you are gone. I love you, dearly, Red.

The bolt struck the eithral’s broad chest.

Shit

Are you all right? Do I need to kill her for you?

What had we been discussing? Was it something dire?

Oh girl this ain’t good

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

“Matilda,” I breathed. “He is here because he cares for you.” She fell quiet, but a pained expression stole across her face.

“No,” I said.

Good boy