Swear on the gods

'Swear on the gods' circles around Gbolu, A young maiden from zorzor village, who has spent her whole life searching for a place where she belongs. Having grown up in a polygamous household, she vowed to never share a husband or fight for a place in her own home like her mother.

Therefore when kolubah, a charming young hunter, approaches her and swears to love her only, Gbolu is swept off her feet. She is married to him and finally leaves the house of her father where she had simply been viewed as another mouth to feed. For awhile they live quite happily, then fortune strikes their household. Wealth they say has a way of changing a man and it changed kolubah.

As Gbolu watched her life and dreams crumble before her eyes, her peaceful household slowly becoming a spot for quarrels, and feeling less and less seen by Kolubah. The village creek is the only place she can breathe freely and share suppress tears under the branches of the mango tree. There her path crosses with Nokul- A wandering palm-wine tapper surrounded by rumors. He looks at her in a way no man ever had- not a property or trophy, but a human.

Slowly those two lonely souls find comfort with one another. what begins as friendship gradually becomes something neither of them can deny.But in a village where promises are sworn before the gods and a woman's fate is rarely hers to choose, loving the wrong man may cost Gbolu everything.

Content warning: This story contains themes of domestic abuse, forced marriage, grief, alcohol abuse, and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.