Page 15 of Wild Reverence

At the top, I stood between two pillars, soaking up my surroundings.

Rowena’s villa was open and airy. There were no walls, but white drapes fluttered between columns, and the floor was smooth marble.

Wildflowers bloomed from small cracks, and ivy was growing up a rugged wooden table set with pots and jars and a bowl brimming with honey, glistening on the comb.

The vines then encircled a round feather bed, as well as a small prayer brazier, whose embers flared red.

Mortals bury their prayers to Underling gods, but they burn them for Skywards.

I would have spent more time studying this fascinating brazier, keen to learn how prayers arrived through it, but Rowena pulled my focus to the far side of the villa, where she sat weaving on a loom.

The sight made my heart pause, as if I had been here before, long ago.

As if I were remembering something I had forgotten.

I walked closer and then understood my reaction: It was a twin to the loom Orphia tended in the under realm. A loom with a never-ending tapestry spilling from its clutches.

“You and your sister have the same loom?” I asked, forgetting my fear.

“Yes,” Rowena said, but her eyes were riveted to her work. A pattern that I could not see. “This is how we speak to each other these days. What I weave, she undoes. And all her warps and wefts? I pick them apart. We strive to outdo the other by making patterns that cannot be unraveled.”

“That sounds like a difficult way to make progress on a tapestry.”

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

I was quiet, remembering the words she had spoken over me in the orchard. I have woven her threads wrong on the loom.

“Will you undo the pattern Orphia has woven for me?” I said in a wavering tone.

“No, child. It is too late for that. I must now look ahead when it comes to your threads.” Rowena frowned at the tapestry, tapping her lip with one long fingernail.

“I saw you born as a herald, but I failed to see you as half-Skyward. It was my mistake, my oversight. For that, your fate is now cloudy to me, save for one thing.”

I waited, but she did not offer what this one thing was.

Before I could ask, a small white owl flew into the villa, coming to rest on a perch beside Rowena’s shoulder.

The bird stared at me with large golden eyes, and I shivered, realizing this was one of her pets.

Fate’s owls could discern the design she—as well as Orphia—wove on their shared loom.

The birds would then fly to the mortal realm, exposing our life stories in dreams to writers, bards, and poets, such as Adria.

That was how our divine myths were translated to humankind.

That was also how our stories become twisted.

Sometimes humans embellished or changed them.

“I assume your owls have not shared anything about me to mortals?” I said.

“You can answer that yourself. Do mortals know of you? Pray to you? Sing of you?”

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 stared at the bird, but she turned her attention away, watching Fate continue to weave.

“Now, then.” Rowena set down her shuttle, glaring at me. “What is this message you have for me?”

I hated how I trembled. I hated how I felt small and uncertain, withdrawing Orphia’s letter from my belt.

“A request,” I said, holding the parchment out to her. “From your sister.”

Rowena froze, staring at the letter. I thought she might refuse it, and prepared myself to persuade her, when she surprised me.

“I knew this was coming,” she said softly, more to herself than to me. She walked around the loom, her clawed feet clacking on the floor. “I could see it in the threads, and yet… I thought it would come much later.”

Did she speak of Adria’s ascension as goddess? Bade’s disgrace?

It gave me hope, and I watched as she opened the letter, reading it with an inscrutable expression. And then the strangest thing occurred: Rowena threw back her head and laughed, and it was a cawing, contagious sound.

“How odd is this, ” she said, her voice turning smoky. “How delicious. I will not be outdone, sister.”

“Then… you will grant four of your stars to make Adria’s constellation?” I whispered. It suddenly hurt to speak.

Rowena seemed not to hear. She strode to her table, shooing a host of butterflies away to reveal a stack of parchment, an inkstand, a white-feathered quill.

But she did not write a message in reply, as I was expecting.

She took a paring knife sheathed on her leather belt and cut her palm.

With her ichor, she drew a five-studded constellation on the parchment.

“Deliver this to Adria,” Rowena said, handing the sheet to me. At once, my magic began to pull me to the Poet Queen. A warm firelit room, the smell of oiled leather, the distant clink of a forge.

She was in Bade’s burrow.

I took the parchment, shining with golden stars, and carefully stored it in my pocket. “What am I supposed to do after it is delivered?”

“Orphia will know. She is with Adria, waiting for you to arrive. Now go. Take the western trade wind back to the mortal realm. Should you ride the eastern one, you’ll be delayed, arriving at the Skyward hall instead. And I think you should avoid that for now.”

I nodded and hurried to the stairs, my pulse quickening, when she stopped me.

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

I paused, far too anxious to play a guessing game.

“I do not know, Matriarch,” I said. “Tell me.”

Rowena smiled, revealing sharp, crooked teeth. “We create a goddess of peace.”