Page 28 of Polar Fates
“People you don’t know,” I add quickly to make it easier forthem.
Torben growls. “Are the Fates accusing us of killinghumans?”
“No…” I cringe. “But they want us to doit.”
“What?!” Finn jumps to his feet,outraged.
“Not humans. Shifters. The bear shifters that have gone rogue. If they are all gone, the Fates can allow cubs to be bornagain.”
“That’s idiotic,” Finn fumes, “if they want to kill people, they can get themselves assassins. Notus.”
“Yes, why us?” Torben asks. His frown is deeper than I’ve ever seen it – and believe me, Torben frowns alot.
“Because we can give them a choice. Those shifters have an option: they can either choose one shape, human or bear, and stay in that forever, or they getkilled.”
“How can they expect anyone to make such a decision?” Húnn asks in confusion. “If I chose to stay human, I’d condemn Pelja to a life of being trapped inside of me, never running free again. I could never do that tohim.”
I’m beginning to wish one of the Fates was here to do the explaining. It’s as if I have to play devil’sadvocate.
“They’re not like you, not like us,” I explain. “They don’t have their own bears. They’re both at the same time, which is why most of them are feral and crazy. But the Fates think that a few of them may be lucid enough to make a choice. So they want us to go there and find those shifters. They don’t want to kill them all if there’s a chance for a few of them to be saved. And if they take away their ability to shift, there will be no morebabies.”
“Babies?” Ràn asks in confusion and I quickly tell them what the Fates told me about VanDeen.
There’s only silence after that. They’re all equally as speechless and just as horrified as I was when I heard the story about an hourago.
“Van Deen is still alive as well,” I continue. “The Fates can’t reach him because he no longer has a thread. So that’s our task. But we can’t just kill him. That would kill Alis’s son, Arcas. We have to convince him to set Arcasfree.”
Torben laughs mirthlessly. “Convince a lunatic to give up the source of his power? I think the Fates overestimate ourabilities.”
I grimace. “They think that if he suddenly stands alone, without his shifter army, that he’ll giveup.”
“Unlikely,” Torben grumbles and I agree. Van Deen doesn’t sound like someone who would simplycapitulate.
“I guess the alternative is to capture him and hold him somewhere safe,” I think aloud. “Abandon him on an island, perhaps? But we’d have to make sure he survives. Alis would go mad if her son died, now that she knows he’s stillalive.”
Alis? Did you hearthat?
Still noreply.
“Alis hasn’t been speaking to me since we went through the Portal,” I tell the guys and they look at me withworry.
“Has that happened before?” Húnnasks.
“She generally leaves me alone when I’m… ehm… with one of you, or if she’s annoyed. But never when it’simportant.”
“Think the Fates have something to do withthat?”
I sigh. “I thought so at first, but now it’s clear that they need our help, why would they dothat?”
Húnn puts his hands on my shoulders and starts to knead them. I sigh again, this time in contentment. If I’d known he could give massages like that, he’d be on shoulder duty every evening. Well, that’s what’s going to happen from now on. He just doesn’t know it yet. I’ve always wanted to have a personalmasseur.
“I’m sure there’s a good explanation,” he says while working on a particularly tense spot on my neck. “Is it safe to ask them or will they see it as aweakness?”
“They can read our minds, I’m sure they know exactly what I’ve been thinking about. They probably know what we’re talking about just now,too.”
“Back to the killing thing,” Ràn says slowly. “I don’t think I could do it. Not unless you or one of us were threatened. That’s not what we do. These people... shifters... whatever, they didn’t choose to be like this. If they’ve done bad things, sure, they need to be brought to justice, but us going there and killing them randomly... no. Noway.”
I nod. That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. If the Fates know us so well, why would they suggest such a thing to us? They should know that we’re never going to dothat.
