Page 13 of Wild Reverence

VIII

You Hold On to Her

VINCENT

One moment, Red was there, sprinting up the hill. The next, she was gone.

And I would like to think my story began long ago when I came into the world as a pale, silent boy, destined to one day die. But it truly begins here, in this moment when my dreams grew bones and teeth and skin in the waking realm. The moment I met Red.

I remember it, vividly.

How I shivered, standing in the grass. How the sky was too bright, and I shielded my eyes, staring at the place she had disappeared. How the wind gentled until the air became still and warm, oppressive.

I could not hear anything other than the roar of my own heart.

Red was not a girl but a goddess.

And I knew the stars that belonged to her. I had memorized them. I could close my eyes at night and point in their direction. I could trace them on my palm.

When a mortal kills a god, their appointed stars vanish from the sky, never to be seen again. Not many constellations have disappeared. Only a few of my kind have managed such a mythical feat.

When a god kills a god, the stars remain firm in the sky, but their magic answers to the victor.

And when a new constellation emerges—which, in this era, is just as rare as one vanishing—all of us take note of it, because we know it means a divine has been born.

Red’s constellation—six points to brighten the western sky—flared into existence not long after my own birth.

Our astronomers added those six to constellation charts, marveling over whom they belonged to.

What magic did they bear? We had been waiting for that divine to make their presence known to us, to claim those stars.

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

Finnian and Marcher spun their geldings around on the hill. My older brothers seemed perplexed by her disappearance. I was so intent on watching them, wondering what they were saying to each other, that I failed to sense the other horse clomping behind me.

“You let her go.”

I startled and spun. My Uncle Grimald sat on his destrier, staring down at me. The sun flashed on his armor. The bloodstains from yesterday’s battle were dark, splattered like ink across his breastplate and gauntlets.

“I didn’t know who she was,” I lied.

She was my secret, as I imagined I was hers.

Grimald heaved a sigh, disappointed. But his face softened as he extended his hand.

I accepted his wordless offer for a ride; he hauled me up with the hearty groan of a middle-aged man, but he was not through speaking.

“Next time, you hold on to her. Demand her name, her favor. We could have used her. You do not let go of a goddess, especially a young, nameless one, whose stars we have been wondering about for over a decade now.”

My hands curled into fists. A memory only moments old spun golden in my mind.

The way I had clung to Red beneath the bracken.

But my hold wasn’t for me and my fear; I wanted to protect her, my companion in dreams, my friend who had helped me overcome nightmares, and yet now I saw how weak and futile my efforts had been.

What could I have done to keep a goddess safe?

I realized it could not be achieved by embracing her. Only by letting her go.

This thought left me bruised, aching.

“Ease up on the lad,” another voice said.

I glanced to our right to see Lord Hugh had joined us, his armor just as bloodstained and dented as Grimald’s.

Hugh was like kin to me, taking the role of an uncle, and he was our strongest ally, riding beneath his banner of the mountains.

He had likewise been devoted to Adria’s cause.

Fighting for her had united our two families.

“This is a lesson he needs to learn,” Grimald said to Hugh. And then, firmer, to me: “Do you heed me, Vincent?”

“I heed you, Uncle.”

“If you see her again, keep her at your side by whatever means possible.”

He thankfully ceased speaking as we began the trod back to Wyndrift, Hugh casting me a sad glance. We followed the river home, but my uncle’s words were like burrs in my clothes, scoring my skin.

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?