Wild Reverence

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.