Wild Reverence serves as a prequel to the Letters of Enchantment duology, with the novel’s events taking place centuries before the conflict that rages in the duology’s first book, Divine Rivals. In both Divine Rivals and Ruthless Vows, the only gods present in the narrative are Enva and Dacre, who play small but important roles in Wild Reverence as well. In Wild Reverence, Ross expands upon the gods’ role and their magic, as one of the two protagonists is the goddess Matilda.

In the original duology, all but five of the gods have been killed by infighting among both the Underlings and the Skywards: Enva, Dacre, Luz, Alva, and Mir. In Wild Reverence, Ross reveals that when a god kills another god, they absorb the dead god’s magic and power and are able to wield it themselves, offering a motive missing from the duology. When Phelyra kills Matilda’s mother Zenia, she takes Zenia’s power over fire and winter. When Warin kills Xan, he takes Xan’s power over iron. The gods are therefore incentivized to kill each other to obtain and maintain power, which explains how the number of gods reduces from over a dozen in Wild Reverence to only five gods years later, in Divine Rivals. The number falls further in Ruthless Vows, when Enva kills Luz, Alva, and Mir to prevent Dacre from killing them and absorbing their power.

In this novel, Ross also introduces the vulnerability of the gods: their “fault lines.” Gods can be killed by injury to their head/neck or their heart/chest, depending on whether their fault line is located in their head or their heart. Matilda is killed by a wound to her chest, as her fault line lies in her heart. In Ruthless Vows, when Iris finally kills Dacre, she beheads him, severing his fault line and ending his torment of the mortal world. Before his death, Enva and Dacre are at war after Dacre wakes from the enchanted sleep Enva placed him and the other remaining gods under. Enva’s ability to enchant gods to sleep also plays a role in this novel, saving Matilda from Alva’s murderous plan to steal Matilda’s power. This act foreshadows her ability, in the duology, to lull Dacre and the others to sleep for centuries with the help of Alzane, the last king of Cambria, to escape her unwanted marriage with Dacre. Ross also elaborates on what brought Enva and Dacre together: Dacre yearned to control her power, and Enva agreed to marry him to stop him from hurting mortals.

Enva’s empathy for mortals has its limits, as she utilizes a mortal army to fight against Dacre, using her power of music to influence mortals to fight for her. Ross continues to explore the empathy, or lack thereof, in the other gods in Wild Reverence, as Matilda forges a strong connection to Vincent, Nathaniel, and the other mortals of Wyndrift. Bade also forges a strong connection with Adria, challenging the other gods’ beliefs that mortals exist only to offer them prayers and tithes or to be their playthings. Matilda’s affinity for mortals also serves as an example for Enva’s nuanced empathy; in the duology, Enva uses Matilda’s magic to create the Alouette typewriters that will help Alouette Stone communicate with her friends during her illness, an unexpected act of kindness that allows Iris and Roman to fall in love and save Cambria from Dacre.