Page 1 of Wild Reverence

I

Death and Her Horoscope

MATILDA

Once, long ago, I believed the god of war was my father, but only because he was the first to hold me in his arms after I was born.

His robes were stained crimson from a mortal battle, his cloak torn to ribbons from swords and morning stars, and his skin—warm from a vernal sun—smelled like salt and sweetened smoke.

He had come to visit my mother’s burrow, far below where the earth is darkly quiet, to ask for her advice on a skirmish and ended up witnessing my delivery.

I arrived so suddenly that he had no chance to drain his wine and depart, as he would have preferred, for he was keen to return to the battlefield and avoid all matters that pertained to birth.

He says that I came into the world with a cry that could have split tree roots and thunderheads, that would have made mortal kings bow.

My voice, no doubt, echoed down every Underling passage.

“Hold her,” my mother, breathless but rosy-cheeked, had insisted of him.

And so he had, pressing me awkwardly to his bloodstained breast. A god whose heart was rumored to be hard and unyielding as quartzite, who was the goddess of death’s only son, and who raked in souls by the hundredfold without remorse.

“What will you call her?” Bade asked, cupping my head in his palm. His hand was large enough, powerful enough, to crush me into dust, and yet he held me like I was a fragile thing. A god-child made of damselfly wings and spider silk and daydreams.

My mother paused, wiping the golden blood from her legs. The air smelled green and spiced, like freshly harvested sage and the sloe wine she had spilled. “I do not know.”

“Her father…?”

“ No. I am keeping her a secret from him. At least, for the first few decades. She should grow in her own strength before they meet.”

“That is wise of you,” said Bade, but then fell pensive, gazing down at me, still crowned in my mother’s ichor. “But a little goddess cannot grow up without a name to guide her path.”

There was a lull, only punctuated by the fire crackling from the hearth. This memory is not mine, but it has been told to me so many times that it feels like my own.

My mother tilted her head, black hair flowing over her shoulder like a waterfall at midnight, a furrow in her brow. She suddenly seemed troubled, although he could only marvel as to why.

“A name shapes a divine as much as the stars do,” she finally said, stroking the fair silk of my hair. I was quiet but scowling, blinking as I took in the haze of the new world. “Perhaps I should wait and see what the horoscope says. To name her after her magic has been defined.”

“I would not wait for that, Zenia.”

“How come?”

“What if she ends up with some lackluster magic? She could be the goddess of taxes, or patience, or peace, or some other tedious thing.”

“Then what would you call her, if she were your daughter?”

“Matilda,” he said without hesitation. As if he had thought of what he would name a child, many times, despite the absence of them in his immortal life.

“ Matilda? ” my mother repeated, surprised. “Why?”

“It means mighty in battle .”

“Of course you would name a daughter such a thing.”

“Is it not fitting?”

“For a child spun from your bloodlust? Yes.”

Bade offered a half smile, which softened his ugly, scar-flecked face. His shoulders relaxed as he continued to hold me close to his chest. “You know this as well as I do—I vowed to be childless unless they can be made in love. And I would rather be feared than ever be loved.”

“As would we all,” my mother agreed. “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.”

“I have not noticed,” Bade said, unable to hide the brusqueness in his gravel-like voice. I became restless, crying once more, stricken by a sudden wave of hunger. “Here, take her.”

I was passed to my mother, who held me for a long moment, gazing at me with unguarded fondness.

“Matilda,” she said again, and the name seemed to fit, even though she had yet to learn what constellation I had been born beneath—what magic hid in my veins, and where my place was destined to fall within the divine courts.

Zenia fed me, and as I swallowed down her golden milk, she resumed her advice to the god of war on his upcoming battle, as if my birth had been an ordinary, slightly inconvenient event.

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

Zenia cloistered me in her burrow for three days, ignoring the knocks on her door and the inquisitive voices that melted through the stone lintel.

The Underling clan was curious about my birth, my unnamed magic, my unclaimed horoscope, and—most of all—who my father was, for the courts below knew he must be an enemy.

A god of the haughty, conniving Skywards.

But at last my mother’s own curiosity swelled, and she emerged from her chambers and carried me through the winding, fog-laced passages of the under realm, bundled in sky-blue velvet, to Orphia, the goddess of death and the matriarch of the clan.

It might seem odd to take a newborn to visit Death, but the truth is that we measure life by the end of it, or the lack thereof for immortals.

Regardless, Orphia was one of the oldest and wisest amongst our kind, and she could read a horoscope, which my mother was now anxious to learn on my behalf.

“Put the child down, there,” Orphia said with a flick of her sinewy hand.

She would not dare cradle me in her arms like the god of war had done, and my mother was grateful for that omission as she laid me down on a bolt of sheepskin, close to the hearth where the stones were warm and drenched in firelight.

But there are a few things to know about Orphia’s burrow.

Her door is hard to find, and her chambers are a honeycomb of vaulted chambers and marble columns carved into terrifying beasts.

There is a hearth, where the fire never extinguishes.

There are rafters high above, which are draped in long, dark robes.

There is a great loom, with a never-ending tapestry caught within its maw.

And there is a crack in the stone ceiling, which invites a pillar of celestial light to stream down to her tabletop scrying mirror.

This is where she can keep watch over the constellations and deem horoscopes; the night sky is reflected on the oval sheet of obsidian.

Zenia approached the scrying mirror, betraying her anxiousness.

But Orphia called her to the fire, where she was steeping a bundle of white flowers in a copper pan of rainwater.

Steam danced upward as the liquid cooled on the hearthstone.

There was no fragrance save for a very faint hint of pepper and honey.

Orphia was making a concoction of bittertongue, boiling poisonous flowers down to their essence. Blooms that were harvested from the mortal realm. And my mother was about to drink it.

“Here, Zenia,” said Orphia, pouring a small glass. The liquid was clear as water. “You know you must answer truthfully if I am to read the stars for your descendant.”

Poison cannot kill a divine or even make us unwell, like it does mortals. But we still bend to its power. To drink it means we can only speak truth while it filters through our veins. A lie would burn our tongue and turn our voices into smoke.

Zenia hesitated. Her face, lovely and pale as a winter morning, was dewy with perspiration. She had her secrets to keep, but she took the cup and drained the liquid, grimacing as the bitterness coated her tongue.

“My heart is open,” she said, meeting Orphia’s unwavering stare. “Please. I want to know where my daughter falls within the court. If she will grow up safe and unnoticed, or if I must raise her to kill to protect herself.”

“You must raise her to be on guard, regardless of which constellation she was born beneath,” Orphia said, moving to the table where the scrying mirror rested. “But let us begin. You must answer every query I voice to you. Do you understand?”

Zenia nodded. Her hands trembled as she clutched the edges of her cloak.

“When was she conceived?” Orphia asked, gazing down into the mirror. There was no reflection of her angular, moon-white face. Only black mist, and a shimmer of stars as if she were waking them at eventide.

“It was summer,” Zenia replied. “The first fruits had just been harvested. The olives had just been pressed. The sheep had just been shorn. The rain had just abated, leaving the rivers high. The sun had set and the moon was rising as a waning crescent.”

“You describe the mortal realm.”

“Yes, that is where our couplings happened.”

“And who is the father?”

My mother paused, biting her lip. “I cannot speak it, Orphia. Upon our parting, he made me swear an oath. That should I utter his name, even far below where the sun has never touched and he has never trod, he would hear it, and he would find me.”

“To reunite with you in love, or to kill you?”

Zenia was silent. “Once, he loved me. I was a secret that he kept, but our dalliance did not last, and our parting was not gentle.”

Orphia’s eyes, blue and sharp as sapphire hewn from rock, glittered as she continued to gaze into the mirror. More stars melted through the darkness. “Then confirm to me that he is a Skyward.”

“He is.”

Given the hints my mother had dropped about him— summer, oaths, the moon, an Underling enemy —Orphia inferred who my father was, even without his name spoken into the shadows.

“I suppose you do not have anything of his to—”

“I do,” Zenia said, procuring a lock of fiery red hair from the inner pocket of her cloak. “I cut it from him when he was sleeping, the last time we were together.”