Page 8 of Conflicted Fate
“Hello, Jada,” she said.
I stiffened. I might not recognize the image in front of me, but I couldneverforget that voice.
“Fate,” I said, bowing my head respectfully. “Thatiswho you are, right?”
“Yes.” There was a slightly airy, almost ethereal, quality to her voice that I hadn’t heard when she was in my head. “That is a name I have been referred to.”
“Whatisthis place?” I asked, taking the lead, due to my “familiarity” with the goddess, bred out of us occupying my mind together for weeks on end. “Where are we? Are we under Mount Triumph? We are, aren’t we?”
I clamped my mouth shut at a glance from Kiel. His point was clear. Shut up and ask one question at a time. Running on like a child wasn’t appropriate when talking to agoddess. He might have had a point.
“We are deep under Mount Triumph,” Fate said. She evensoundedtired. “This is the first temple that was ever dedicated to me.”
“The first?” Kiel echoed, looking around once again, taking it all in.
“This is where I was … made? Born? Neither word is accurate, but they will have to suffice,” Fate said. “The worshippers believed in me, and so, eventually,I was.”
“Wow,” I whispered. Just how oldwasthe temple? Kiel had said there was no knowledge of it from his time, which meant it wasat leastseven centuries old. But it had to be old enough to be forgotten by then. So, how much longer? A thousand years? More? The ancientness of the temple weighed in me as it sank in. Our ancestors’ ancestors had come here and worshipped. Maybe some ofmyancestors had knelt there in that very spot.
“Why are we here?” Kiel said, breaking the silence that had followed. “It’s no coincidence that we ended up here, is it?”
Fate was silent, but her head slowly swung toward him. Though he didn’t flinch under her gaze, his body went rigid. I could understand why. Centuries ago, he’d been one of the nine who’d helped bind her. Her weakness was, in her eyes, partiallyhisfault. I could only hope she would see that he’d worked a long time to undo his mistake.
“It is not,” she agreed. “I need your help.”
“You needourhelp? I find that hard to believe,” I said softly. “You’re a goddess.”
Fate laughed, a soft tinkling thing. “Do Ilooklike much of a goddess to you right now, Jada? I ampartof one. A sliver.”
“The part that was inside me,” I guessed. “From Arcadus’ Fate Stone.”
The wretched image of the goddess nodded slowly. “Yes. I am but one piece of a whole, and I must be reunited with the others.”
“And you wantusto do it,” I said, feeling a bit irked.
Fate nodded.
I glanced at Kiel. “You’ve been inside my head. You know it’s our intention to do that already. So, why put us through this whole ordeal just to ask us to do something we’ve already been intending to do?”
“That’s a big ask, anyway,” Kiel said. “Wanting us to destroy all the remaining stones. There’s no guarantee we don’t die in the process. Then, where will you be?”
“You must try,” Fate said, speaking over both of our objections. “Time is no longer on our side.”
“How so?” I asked, looking at Kiel. “We’re going to need time. All of the remaining Alphas, they’ll be on guard for an attack as soon as word reaches them about Arcadus. In fact, most probably know already. Any attack now would be suicide for us. Unless you’re going to come along for the ride again.”
I said the last part rather hesitantly. There were benefits to Fate living in my body. Immortality, increased stamina, strength, and much more. But at the same time, her power had quite literally been ripping me apart from the inside.
“No,” she answered. “I must stay here. Now that I am back in the world, this temple is my limits. I am my most powerful here and can protect myself from any further attempts to be bound.”
She didn’tquitelook at Kiel when she said it, but in the corner of my eyes, his face went flat.
“You still haven’t answered how time is running out,” I pointed out. “We should have some time. Lycaonus is buried under half a mountain. It’ll take his men a long time to dig him out and find him in all that.”
“Days,” Fate whispered, the sound carrying throughout the temple. “He will be free in days at most. When he is free, he will summon the other Alphas to his side.”
“And?” I pressed. “You’re holding something back. Just say it.”
“The other pieces of my being are currently bound to the stones. Stones that were made in the heart of the Great Forge of Nycitum,” Fate explained.
