All's Fair in Revenge

Chapter 53: Fate

In Kelvia, stories have explained everything the scholars could not. As in other realms, how we understood life and our place in it changed over the thousands of years since the voids collided. Yet, one thing remained; there has always been divine faith in beings with no evidence. Things that could be explained were. That which could not were given explanation. We knew divinity existed. Our energy was proof of that. Therefore, that which we couldn't prove must also have been divine.

One such entity was fate, represented by the three Norns who dwelled at the bottom of Yggdrasil. I mentioned them here and there but not at much length for it wasn't necessary. But now, it's important to know cultures across the world have their own beliefs, but in Kelvia we pictured three entities, both feminine and masculine in their ways. Sometimes between or even beyond any preconceived notions of gender.

Many will say they know what they look like, coming up with their own notions of the three, but in truth the tomes say little about their appearance and were never depicted. For the Norns could not and should not be seen. To lay eyes upon them was to forfeit all senses. Which begged the question, where did the vague descriptions come from? To which I have no answer.

Faith is suspension of disbelief.

However, we knew the Norns' purposes well; one represented the past, another the present, and the last the future. Our stories stored nothing novel about their roles but differed in their power and influence. We believed the Norns not only controlled the fate of mortals but of the goddesses, too. They could saw through Eyr's root just as easily as my own. And they had. Not of Eyr's, of course. She was the golden child. But others: Icor, the bitter god who sold his daughter for a wagon. Sheel, a vain goddess who poisoned infants. The horse god, Nynth, who— well, it's quite gruesome and it doesn't really matter what he did. He died for it. Horribly. Which brings me to my point: the Norns could do whatever they wanted to whomever they wanted. Be you a goddess or lowly healer who made a series of rash and rather poor choices; not that any of them mattered in the long run when my fate was as malleable to them as saturated clay.

There in the church abbey, images of the Norns interplayed between moments of my reality. My eyelids drooped with weariness as I watched the king-for-a-day stagger forward, his torso straightening, a gagging sound emitting from his mouth all while my fate slipped through the Norns' fingers. I tried to cup it in my palms, save it from spilling out all over their ragged feet. They laughed at my feeble attempts while Enric gasped for breath.

Along the pews, a collective shock sucked the air from the room. Ladies yelped as red bloomed through Enric's crisp white coat. His eyes searched me. His fingers danced around the tip of the weapon as it twisted inside of him, forcing a grunt from his shriveling lungs. Then, the king of Dorsette careened face first into the carpet with a very human thud.

Behind him, an apathetic princess with caramel eyes and violet-black hair watched her brother wheeze. Royal blood covered the short sword in her grasp. She pinched it between two fingers as though it were infectious and dropped it onto his back.

"Finally," she said, as though she had waited an eternity to speak it.

From the altar, Sephanie ran to her son while Nathara summoned a familiar Second Guard with a braided cornet of bronze hair circling her head. I blinked the image of the Second Guard away, but she only came closer, clearer, her oily black armor shinning in the noontime rays. The backstabbing guard grabbed Sephanie by the waist.

"No," I said, but the word chocked. I tried again, "Thorne where are they?" I turned to him, grabbed him by the shirt. "Where's Liv? Where's my mother?"