Isabel's Choice

Chapter 41 - Lars

While waiting for Sven I give my dad a small tour of my territory, including the greenhouse Isa and I built. He's impressed by the architecture, but not so much by its contents. I have ten minuscule pot plants that do fairly well, but Kari has a hard time believing I am only growing them as car and electronics budget.

„Want to plant my tree with me?" I grin, extracting my Solstice present from the seed box in which it spent the last month.

My father agrees, so we walk through the forest to the place where he called me a rogue last year. The remains of the young oak are dry, but I cannot bring myself to dig it out. Maybe it will sprout again from the roots in spring. I chose another spot, some feet away.

"So what else did you find out about defenders?" I ask, focusing on hacking at the frozen ground.

After Eino shared his findings with me, he asked for a break from his research duties for some months, until he would be done with his high school graduation project. I obviously agreed and I didn't think my father would keep digging in maps and obscure ancient pack documents.

"It's complicated."

"When is it not?"

"We have some indirect evidence that the last Defender squad was not so much dissolved as...neutralized on the Witches' Council orders."

"Excuse me?"

His green eyes meet mine, before closing briefly as they always do when Kari ponders how to answer a complex - or annoying - question.

"Who says that?" I continue because I know what indirect evidence means.

"I obviously cannot share this with you," my father replies without a smile, "but your mother dug a little deeper into the story of Defender Lukka. You know that in the Split agreement the witches vouched to forbid the use of dark magic and punish any transgression severely. Just like we vouched to keep our pack minds sane and prevent our wolves from going rogue."

I nod and drop my shovel to the side, definitively abandoning the hole digging, so that I can pay attention to Kari's story.

"But it seems they also didn't want to take the responsibility of training Defenders. So the few that survived the Great War lived at the edge of the law, wielding dark magic for training purposes in a tiny coven at lake One. It's that coven actually that Lukka joined when he got his wolf. And it's from that coven that an artifact they used for training was stolen."

As he speaks Kari lowers himself to the ground, sitting cross-legged next to me.

"Soon after the attacks against the healing witches - including your grandmother Morgane began. Lukka sensed the dark shield that was cast around your grandparents' house, but he arrived too late to save them. He only managed to get Ayn out...and bring her to the Teaching Clan."

He pauses and I hear his heart thudding, torn between gratitude for his mate having survived and a terrible regret about her losing her parents.

"He told Sybille about the stolen artifact. As the Council loyal witch she was - is -, she told him that his coven lead has twenty-four hours to inform the Seven. And he did. The Witches Council thanked them for the information. Then they contracted the Defenders to conduct a search for dark magic throughout the Witches Plains. They gave them a squad of OKers to escort them and they neutralized all witches that possessed cursed objects. All of them."

The way in which Kari stresses his last phrase curdles my blood.

"The official records state that during their last mission, a certain coven at Lake One put up a terrible fight during which all the Defenders have lost their lives..." my father concludes, resting his chin on a balled-up fist.

"Let me see if I understood correctly. The witches refused to train the hybrids officially because they were afraid some would use their ability to wield dark magic for evil purposes, but they weren't ashamed to hire them for house cleanings?"

"It's called coven shut-down, apparently, and yes, that is correct. This incident has demonstrated that the possession of cursed artifacts is a liability, something that the Witches' Council was - and is not - willing to take on...

"But this is stupid. That woman from the Red had an artifact. Others can be brought into the Land and we will never know about it," I bristle at my father as if it would be his fault that the Witches think their blanket ban on curses is effective for controlling them.

"I also think it's stupid and I am hoping that this last incident will convince them their preventive measures are not effective anymore. But politics is sometimes stupid."Kari sighs, as he stretches and lays on the forest floor.

"Does Rio know your position on this?" I show him a bitter grin and he waves his hand dismissively.

"Look, Lars, take the situation of the female leaders. Those female Alphas who were kidnapped left orphan packs behind them, with nobody to hold their mind. So the Shifter's Council concluded that the liability was their gender. Nobody would kidnap a male Alpha though, because no powerful witch would put themselves through the risks of pregnancy - not even for the prize of a hybrid child. Well, except one, but she didn't kidnap me and we were not necessarily aiming for hybrids," my father chuckles, before reverting to his serious tone. " But instead of thinking of how to work with the Witches for maintaining the peace between the subspecies, potentially even raising Defenders together, the Shifters gave into Sol's idea and removed the female's birthrights from the Wolves' Way."

It's lead grey around us now and our breath has become visible in the late evening air. Yes, he's right, politics is stupid and, even if I trust at least two wolves in our Council with my life, I don't have time to wait for their diplomatic games. My life plan includes keeping my mate, myself and, by extension our pack, safe. I won't be able to do that unless I develop and train Defender powers. More or less legally.

My phone buzzes and it's a dry message from Eino. Where do we meet? Sven is here and I am hungry.