Fate's Exchange (Twisted Fate, Book 1)

Chapter Thirty-Five

The Brothers

In The Void

The First took a deep breath and rapped his knuckles against the door made of golden thread twined together in swirls of protective designs, ancient and powerful. If he hadn't known where to look for the Sisters in the Void, a place made of darkness and magic, he would have never found their home through the protective barrier the designs erected. But when he'd answered his brother's question, the truth had lain in his intentions. He had been planning this visit even though he wasn't expected.

The Sisters hated spontaneity, anything that they couldn't foresee, which ultimately meant that they hated him, and the rest of his kind, on principle. It couldn't be helped. He knew that fate wasn't determined by the actions you make, but weaved at conception, and firmly decided by the time of birth. Your lifeline was spun, your gifts bestowed, the end pre-cut by golden shears. You can fight it—free will and all—and some do. But if a person chooses to fight fate, happy endings were in short supply—challenging fate never ended well for those involved. The Sisters weren't a presence unless they felt slighted, and resisting was a slight to the very reason they existed.

The First wanted to know what happened to someone who defied fate while they were a part of a bigger picture. Even more importantly, what was the bigger picture?

The door swung open to reveal one of the Sisters appraising him with a critical eye. "Why are you here?"

The voice echoed throughout the cavernous room and his mouth dropped open as the other two sisters stepped out on either side of the first, almost as though they'd been merged as one. All three were identical, individualized only by the colored streaks in their white, waist-length hair: red, blue, and black, like death. Each wore identical custom dresses of layered gauze and silk colored to match the streaks in their hair.

"We have a shared interest, I believe."

"You have your instructions," the sister with black streaks in her hair—Atropos, he knew by the shears in her hand—said.

He stuck his foot in the doorway so they couldn't shut him out. Not many could find the Sisters' home and none who could would be able to force an entry. They either let you in or shut you out.

"Unless I get some answers, I am pulling my brother out and away from the girl," he said without inflection.

It was better than using a secret password.

The door swung wide open and the sister with blue streaks in her hair stepped forward. She pushed her head through the door and looked right and left, up and then down. Then she fixed a withering glare on him.

"Clotho?" the sister with red in her hair called without looking away from him.

"He's alone."

"Lachesis." The First nodded out of respect to the Sister with red streaks as they ushered him inside the room seemingly spun of gold, the only exception a single wooden table with three chairs, one for each sister.

A circular staircase split the room in its center like liquorice twisting into the sky, a blue glow shining out from the bottom. The top climbed too high to see where it led, and he didn't have the guts to ask. Did Goddesses sleep?

Everything glinted with gold—the faucets, the furniture, the hearth that followed Lachesis when she moved. All but the table and, when he squinted hard enough, the pots and pans. They weren't gold but a kaleidoscopic of clear, nearly invisible glints of light that could only be seen from the outlines they formed against the golden, lacquered walls.

He looked around for another place to sit.

"A Guardian such as yourself can surely handle standing, don't you think?" Atropos cooed, bringing her shears up for inspection and admiring her reflection in their blades. "Especially since unannounced visitors are so hard to plan for."