Page 74 of Conflicted Fate
“I didn’t know that there was anything left,” I said.
“Nobody does. The Alphas destroyed it thoroughly, then erased any and all evidence they could, so nobody ,could find it. Not that they would want to, given what the Alphas said about my people.”
“Oh, Kiel,” I whispered, leaning on his head. “My love.”
The tremor that ran through him when I said that warmed me to the core.
“After seven hundred years, this is all there is. But it’s where I went when I needed to find myself, to find balance.”
“And you need that now?” I asked quietly, letting myself be led back to the clearing, which I could now see was a former courtyard.
“No,” he said, picking his way carefully to one spot, where he knelt down and started peeling back vegetation and growth. “I’ve found balance.”
“You have?”
“Yes. She’s standing right next to me.”
I grinned, a flush of warmth running up my neck. Who could have known there was a romantic in there after all? But Kiel sure was demonstrating he had a lot more to give than just being a fighter.
To my surprise, Kiel started hauling bricks out of the ground, slowly but surely revealing an entrance.
“This is what I came for,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him into the underground chamber. “The last piece of the puzzle. A final end to everything.”
The chamber was small, perhaps ten feet wide by twenty long. And at the far end, nestled in a hollowed-out tree stump, was an emerald stone perhaps the size of a human head.
“A Fate Stone,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Of course!”
Somehow, despite it all, I’d never put it all together. There was nowayKiel could have lived all that time if he didn’t have a stone. But we’d never talked about it, the stories never mentioned a ninthstone, just a ninthalpha. But, of course, he had one!
“Fate deserves to be truly free,” Kiel said. “This has been my biggest source of hypocrisy. All these years, I tried to destroy those belonging to the Alphas, all the while harboring my own.”
“I don’t think it’s hypocrisy. You knew if you destroyed yours, if you died, then all knowledge of thetruthwould die with you. The rebellion would die. And Fate would never be free.”
“Maybe,” he said, shrugging. “Maybe not.”
He took the stone in his hand, holding it up to eye height. We both stared into the emerald depths.
“She’s ready,” I whispered, feeling a tingle in the back of my mind. “And she understands why you did what you did.”
“So, she doesn’t hold a grudge?” he asked.
“No,” I said with a laugh.
“Good.”
Then he smashed the stone against the floor.
A ball of green light burst from the fragments, whirling around us twice and then shooting out through the entrance and into the light before disappearing entirely.
“It’s done,” Kiel said. “Fate is now truly free.”
“How do you feel?” I asked. “Being mortal again?”
“Everything aches,” he joked. “How else do you expect a septa-centurion to feel?”
“Are those even words?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m old. I can’t remember anything anymore.”
