What's Foretold in the Gilded Ink

If fate were the weather, she would be a hurricane. A storm of turmoil brewing in the distance, foreseeable though how would one know how severe the disaster would be until savage winds rasped against the windows of homes and uprooted the bottoms of dreams, displacing everything in its path for the sake of inevitability. 

The cruelest thing the gods gave humans was the illusion of free will, believing in choosing their lives while their path was written in dark ink, smearing. There was only so much the future could change. 

Above those ants which they called humans; gods and underlings bustled around the divine realm, completing their tasks for the world to run smoothly, all the while knowing that, unlike the mortals, they had a choice: the free will to cease their tasks and watch the world burn and mortals crumble. The Goddess Idalia raised the sun as a new mortal day began, able to plunge the world into never-ending darkness. Zev, God of the Afterlife, ferried the dead between the realms of the living and what waited for them after, working as bags formed under his eyes, for if he did not, the mortal world would be plagued by the dead, harassing the living till insanity. 

Scrawling a new life of tragedy a mortal life ending in depression as most did, Syntyche imagined words she’d write instead, ending the page with “happily ever after” like the mortal fairy tales she read instead of gore (in this case, a bullet between the eyes, person’s fate she who described living in pain for ten measly minutes before they were in Zev’s hands). However, that breach of what was pre-determined in her mind had consequences that Synthche didn’t care to discover. 

Synthche, Goddess of Fate. The words were rotten on her tongue, seared parchment, and acid reflex.

Adding a sharp period at the end of the person’s death, energy leaked from her being, the black ink became gold as the life was born. Synthche cried, not only for the new infant who hadn’t yet felt that consuming sadness but for the mother who held her new world in her grasp, for the siblings she’d know he had, the ones who felt their mother’s belly as it swelled with each trimester. She mourned their eventual mourning.

A break was needed, though she hadn’t been at her desk for more than ten minutes, she’d be consumed by the names of those she wrote if the walls of her study loomed over her head any longer. 

On instinct more than a desire to be there, Synthche made her way to the Center of the Divine Realm. God of Medicine, Rajni strolled with her underling, Lux, flipping through a book, talking seriously about a new cure for cancer. Music streamed through the area, Dove playing her harp with the most extravagant melodies that would one day make their way to earth. Lainalei waved around a vegetable that would be revealed during the next season’s harvest. 

Pathetically, Synthche couldn't help but be jealous. Every smiling face seemed to be an arrow, aimed towards the small doubtful part of her brain. Every god and goddess seemed to enjoy their domain, their powers, and the creation that was wielded in their hands. 

Jealousy and guilt. 

Synthche was the future, the progression of life. In another world, it could be enjoyable. If cruelty had not overwhelmed the world it would be. Gods weren’t tamed by fate, yet Synthche felt like a string puppet to her pen and book all the same. While she walked, the book’s weight was heavy in her bag. 

She settled under the shade of a Cyprus tree, hoping to absorb its oxygen–push the dizziness from her mind. A voice sounded behind her. Creeping around the tree’s trunk, Karami was talking with Solista, both goddesses had their shoulders squared, a tense posture to their bodies. 

“It’s just getting suspicious.” Karami ran a hand through her hair, showing off the sharp downturn of her lips. “He hasn’t left his palace in weeks, and you know that egotistical man loves to walk around town being gawked at.” 

Solista twisted her hair around her finger, looking worried. “Didn’t Idalia visit him recently?”

“Only to drop off a few scrolls, she didn’t even see him, only a few frazzled attendants. Zev is the only one who goes in and out of his palace now. I don’t trust Aris.”

Aris, his name echoed in Synthche’s head–the Sky God, mildly annoying sure, but far from suspicious. What did she see?  Her hands curled into the rough bark, barely felt against her pen-calloused fingers. And since when did Zev work with him? Usually, gods whose work didn’t directly interact stayed apart from one another unless there were some sort of familial ties. 

But from what she knew, Zev and Aris had no connection. 

Synthche quickly made her way back to the Palace of the Fates, its gothic turrets and polished granite gates a familiar sight. The few Underlings that worked for her bustled around the halls, carrying scrolls that held many mortals' lives from years ago. 

“Excuse me!” Synthche tapped the shoulder of an Underling passing by her. 

He blinked in surprise, probably shocked to see she was out of her study for once, framed by the light of the sun streaming through the arched windows rather than the low lamp light as she hunched over the Book of Fates. “What can I do for you, your Majesty?” His voice wavered slightly–probably assuming she was possessed to even be talking to him.

“I was wondering if you could summon Lord Zev over at his soonest convenience?” 

“Of course…” His eyes held questions, questions that Synthche had no time for as she raced away to her chambers. 

…

In the hour while waiting for the God of Spirits, Synthche attempted to make herself as presentable as she could for the first time in years. Her work consumed every breath she took, leaving her appearing like a beast in human skin. 

Once upon a time, she’d be beautiful–her mother was the Goddess of Beauty after all–but as the population grew and the lives pilled up, Synthche’s cheeks sunk and her eyes stayed in a perpetual droop. She attempted in-vein to pinch some color into her pale cheeks.  

By the time that Zev was at her palace doors, Synthche had spent the entire time working the worst of the knots from her sliver hair–while and lustful as Karami’s moon. Everything else would have to remain as it was; if she was lucky, Zev wouldn’t mistake her for a spirit he was to collect. 

Zev stood in her foyer swarthed in his signature black cloak, the velvet material melting in with his navy hair. As he spotted her, he bowed deeply at the waist, “Goddess Synthche.” His cloak rippled around his legs, body weightless as he moved. 

“God Zev.” She bowed in return, “Thank you for making time to come here.”

He nodded, “Of course, I understand you’re quite busy yourself, though I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was shocked by your call.” He arched an eyebrow, mingling with the shadows, in the darkened corners where the sunlight didn’t quite reach. “By coincidence, I also had something to ask you.” 

Zev had always been kind from what gossip Synthche had come across, but as she watched him in real time, he was as mysterious as the nature of his work, all jarring movements and dark features with a kind smile gracing his face. “By all means though,” His eyes tracked towards the ground, “I’m an open book for whatever you care to know.” 

Even if he were to be closed, she knew how to pry secrets from books. “I wanted to know about you and Aris. You’ve been close lately. Am I wrong”

He made a small hum, “Everyone’s favorite question lately.” running his fingers along the banister, dust flew from the surface in their wake. “I don’t know what has caused Aris’s interest in me lately, though the company has been nice.” 

Watching the flicker of his eyes, the flexing of his palm, Zev was undeniably telling the truth–the full extent of it though, she wasn’t sure. “There has to be a pattern, a certain theme to his questions?” 

“Maybe…Although I might need to know some things before I tell you.” 

“If you want social info, the Divine Realm’s hermit might have been the wrong person to come to.” She snorted out a laugh, gesturing to the emptiness of the room around them. 

He smiled, genuinely, “Why don’t we sit down for this? He led them into the sitting room as if he were the palace’s owner. Nonetheless, Synthche followed him to sit at the unused armchairs, only a small coffee table parted the two. 

“I want to see my fate.” He grinned, the pearly white of his teeth matching the deathly pallor to his skin. 

Synthche laughed, the eager expression he wore almost too endearing to break. “I can’t control the god's fates, only mortals. I know nothing of your fate.” 

“I ascended, I was once mortal.” His head turned at an angle, the tilt of a raven examining a new toy. 

“I-” She’d never thought of that. Opening the book and clamping her stuttering mouth shut, Synthche flipped the endless pages, the blur of paper gliding past her eyes before Zev’s name caught her eye. Pinning it down like a bug, she was greeted with Zev’s fate, still written in black ink, shiny like it had yet to dry. 

His fate wasn’t in gold, meaning, alterations could be made. Did he know that? Was that why his face was drawn with eagerness as he tried to look over the book's edge, a ravnoues beast with a slab of perfected steak dangling in his face. “I won’t reveal your fate unless I know why you want it. And you still didn’t answer my first question.” She pulled her face into a sour pout. 

“Why is it important why I want it?” He tried to sound calm but his hands were being rubbed raw on the chair fabric, eyes darting around with anxiety. This man cannot lie for the life of him. 

“Tell me.”

“Do you promise not to laugh?” 

Another snort came from her before she could stop it. “Fate makes no promises.” 

Finally caving, he sighed. I visited a fortune teller in my youth, my parents were largely into that stuff, believing that my palm can tell my future and that kind of thing.” He traced his finger nails down the grooves on his hands. “When she read my palm she said when I was old, far in the future, I would be successful, but I’d be bound to be a fool in the end.

“My 100th birthday is getting close.” He shut his eyes tight, “I’ve been trying to get my mind off of it through work and getting myself stupid drunk at Aris’s palace, but I can’t stop. 

“Please Synthche, what is my fate?” 

Scanning down the rolling lines of events. With a small gulp she placed down the book. “It ends when you ascended, I don’t know what will happen to you.” 

Zev’s face fell and her heart squeezed. “I guess you’d like to know the answer to your question right?” He asked but there wasn’t any mirth, any true smile wiped from his face. “Aris doesn’t even ask me anything. We drink booze and play cards.” 

“Oh.” It was underwhelming, especially when it seemed like she was on the brink of a conspiracy. She tried to hide her disappointment but Zev only looked away with a grimance, as if disappointing people wasn’t a rare occurrence. Synthche ran her hand across the Book of Fates cover–it wasn’t a rare occurrence at all. 

No matter how many opinions she could form of a person, their vision was shaped forever once she’d seen their fate. Zev was no different. Willing her eyes to dig up every secret and thought he held, she could only keep her eyes fixated on his hunched form. 

“I should get going.” He stood up, brushing the invisible lint from his cloak. “The dead aren’t the patient type.”

Synthche merely nodded. 

…

Tossing across the too-empty bed, Synthche's eyes were heavy, yet her mind wouldn’t shut up, feeding her a story she’d become far too familiar with today. It was boiling over her brain with the lie from earlier, the untruthfulness making a sharp, acidic bomb in her gut. 

Despite the way her feet ached when she did so, Synthche pulled herself from her bed, the Book of Fate emitting a small glow from between its pages where the ink–and by extension the lives–were solidified by gilded gold. 

The lamp beside her desk crackled–a warning–as she turned it on. A choice she could never reset. Her father would snap if he saw her, God of winter, demeanor cold as ice, and yet she was thawing to a sob story, one repeated every decade or so. But by the gods was it different when his shoulders fell, when his eyes grew misty. It was different when that faceless expression was sobbing versus a familiar face, with navy hair falling in his face while he cried. 

Earlier she had told Zev that Fate made no promises. But Synthche would make one promise now.

Fate was resourceful. 

The lie she’d told earlier, the one told to Zev. His fate was far from at an end, the lines stretching far beyond when he ascended. However, as Aris’s name was etched into his story, a wave of nausea overcame her. Scum. She thought he had no fate in her book, he was not one of her creations, he was a stain, a turned-over pot of ink–never to fully leave no matter how much one wiped it away. 

Even now, her head screamed, so loud, thundering that tears began to well up in her eyes. The words had always been whispers; a million stories drowned out by the pumping of her blood and each other’s overwhelming emotion, the whispers told her their stories and she wrote them down when one emerged distinctive from the crowd. 

Zev’s was there now, telling the tale–ending it. 

I gave in to Aris’s plan, I couldn’t take it I’m sorry. It was too close to his voice but even while she plugged her ears, she could still hear him, she could hear him even more. Then, he repeated the words Synthche had first seen in his story, the ones that had made her pause. I fell in love with the Goddess of Fate the first time I saw her. I’ll miss her dearly, I never truly got to introduce myself to her–too shy. I’m sad I never will…I died due to…

“No, No, NO!” Synthche tugged her hair so tightly that a few stains came out as her fingers popped. “That’s not how the story ends!” 

She opened the book, trapping the pages while they flapped and struggled like the wings of a pinned butterfly spread open on a dissection table. Her hand shook, the blood rushing to her head as the rules cracked beneath her. 

Black spots danced in her vision–a consequence. She drank the pain greedily, bleeding ink along the book as she crafted her ending. Dark lines slashed through every mark of Aris’s name, an eraser to the stain. 

The Book of Fate no longer binds the God of Spirits, Zev, he was set free, however, for the rest of eternity. He lives happily ever after. 

Buzzing was now overtaking Zev’s story, a story no longer able to be told. And as Synthche waved in and out of consciousness, the black words became a brilliant gold. 

However, that fate was far from erased–the mournful death at the hands of Aris, it merely passed to another. 

But that was no longer her story to tell. The last foundations of her rules crumbled, the darkness winning an edge over her vision, her head connecting with the ground as she bled ink from her mouth and nose. Ink that would stain. 

        Black came from her lips, oozing into gold, tasting metallic, both like a coin and gore, both being spilled, both exchanged. She didn’t know what the punishment would be. However, if it truly was death, she would happily wait for her God to bring her across the veil. 

             This spirit could be patient.