A Clove of Fates

1. Empty Promises

My family wasn't religious.

That isn't to say that we were unaware of the presence of the Gods, but rather that we weren't all that impressed with them. Which wasn't too strange, not for people out in Sveit, at least. We were disconnected enough from the city to allow this, and so far we managed to get on well enough without divine intervention.

This apathy towards the Gods was due, in part, to the stories that drifted through the valley and found their way to us. Cautionary tales of humans who'd forgotten their place or lost their way. Those who'd gotten too close to the Gods, and those whom the Gods tired of. Dead, or worse. Damaged and corrupted, then tossed aside like the mangled playthings they were. To us, it was the distance, the apathy, that kept us from suffering the same fate.

Of course, there was the issue of magic that had to be addressed, but we figured a way around this. We wouldn't pray, but we could sacrifice to them. The death of a few sheep every now and then kept the ljos-wick burning and our crops watered. We didn't have faith in them, but we would use them until we were proved correct and the Gods ceased to be.

So that's why when Elke moved to the city to study magic a year earlier, my parents had been shocked. I wasn't. I'd seen it coming for years.

My older sister had always been too interested in magic. She had to see how bright she could make the ljos-wick burn, how high she could make the flames leap. She collected all sorts of books on magic, and not just the sacrificial spells. I caught her praying once, though she begged me not to say anything.

Perhaps our parents didn't want to believe it, or hoped that by ignoring the issue it would go away. Or maybe they just couldn't fathom anyone wanting any more than this— the idea that magic could give them anything other than a debt too heavy to pay. Elke disagreed.

She'd told me as much before she left, which was more than the sparse letter she left for our parents.

"There's a whole world out there, Jarelis," she had said to me, "And Mama and Pa are too old to see past their fears into what life could be."

I asked her what that was, and she smiled simply at me: "Magical."

She then promised to write and to visit and to prove Mama and Pa wrong. I asked her to stay and she went anyway. I knew that it wouldn't work, but a part of me had hoped that she could see how much I needed her. A part of me wished that she would ask to take me with her.

But she left, leaving behind empty promises and a letter that said, I'm sorry.