Kārta (KAHR-tah)

Where Laima begins and Dēkla tends, it is **Kārta who concludes**. The eldest — or perhaps the youngest — of the fate sisters, she appears not at the start of life, nor in its seasons, but at the moment when all stories close. To some, she is feared. To others, revered. But in truth, **Kārta is not death — she is completion**. She is the silent one at the threshold, the unseen presence when a last breath is drawn, the invisible hand that ties off the final knot in the fabric of being. Her thread does not fray, nor break — it is clipped cleanly and placed aside, never wasted.   She is remembered across mythic memory as **Atropos**, the cutter of life’s thread; as **Skuld**, who represents what must come; and as the **Sudice**, Czech and Slovak goddesses who determine the end of a human fate. In Baltic tradition, Kārta governs the fate of adults, especially those nearing the close of life’s pattern — warriors, widows, exiles, and elders. She appears not to punish, but to ensure that every life leaves behind meaning. Her realm is one of memory, legacy, and irrevocable truth.   Though she is rarely invoked directly, those who deal in endings know her well: executioners who weep in private, hospice nurses who hold cold hands, archivists preserving the stories of the dead. She is present in endings both literal and symbolic — the dissolution of relationships, the fall of empires, the burning of letters never sent. And yet, her essence is not sorrow. It is *precision*. Kārta holds the knowledge that nothing lasts forever, and that this, too, is sacred.   Those who accept her find release. Those who resist her still pass through her hands. For even gods cannot untie the thread once Kārta has bound it. She is not cruel, but she is unyielding. And in her stillness, there is grace — the kind that can only come when nothing more must be said.