my locker, unsure where to go. I can’t go home, and for some reason, I couldn’t leave the city. I know I still have to stop the necromancer—not for him, but for the city, for the humans. I’m not going back to the council, fuck them. Fuck him. I’m going to stop this shit show and then leave. Hit the road. Find my own fucking destiny, one that doesn’t involve the face god and his many lies.
But first, I need a minute to gather myself.
Why do I care if he let me down? He’s just another person to add to the long list. Closing my eyes, I rest my head against the wall behind me, but something strange happens, and when I open them again, I’m not in the locker, alone and hurting.
No, I’m in the forest. The forest where the attack happened when I was younger, and standing in the same spot where I almost died is a woman. She turns, and there is a long, wicked, jagged scar through half of her face, but she’s beautiful, hauntingly so, with long auburn hair in perfect waves. She’s wearing a long, hooded cape, and her bare feet crunch the leaves as she turns to take me in.
“Hello, my child. I wondered when you would find your way back to this place.”
“Who are you?” I demand, stepping closer.
She smiles softly and holds out her hand. “You don’t remember me, but you will.” As if unable to deny her, I step forward and lay my hand in hers, then I gasp as everything goes black.
I’m thrown through time, I feel it, and when I come to, I’m in my own memories.
I’m lying on the forest floor, and the corpse of the man who almost raped me is next to me, but I am dying myself. I know it. Blood covers my body, and every bone is nearly broken, hurt beyond repair. A part of me is relieved this is the end, the end of my suffering, but then she appears. The lady—no, the Fate. She kneels by me, watching me sadly.
“My child, you have given so much, fought for so long…” She touches me, and warmth fills me for a second. “I am here to give you a choice. For so long, we have waited for you, but this life is not easy, it never is.
“If you take my hand, child, you are choosing life, but not as you know it. I can save you, heal you, but you will be different. I have to give you a piece of me to do it. It will hurt, and it will be a constant battle.” She sighs. “I know you’re strong enough, but it is always your choice.”
Blood bubbles on my lips as I start to drown in it, the darkness beginning to claim me, and she smiles sorrowfully. “Choose, my child. Life or death? One will offer peace, one great pain and suffering. Life will not be an easy journey, but it was what you were born to do. It’s why you have these peculiarities, as you call them. The ability to take others’ powers to make them yours. You were born a wolf, my child. The tiger was from a passing feral shifter, don’t you remember?”
And as soon as she says it, I do. He attacked the pack while I had been hiding in the woods. He found me, and I had touched him to get free of his grasp, and the next thing I knew, the tiger faded into a man and I became it.
I wasn’t born with multiple shifts, I stole them like Khalid steals faces…
“Yes, and now you will have another. This one will be darker, but you will need it, need its fury.”
“Yes,” I whisper, half dead. “I choose life, I choose pain… Save me.”
I come back to the present, perched on my knees before her. She sighs and gets to her own, cupping my cheek and brushing away the tears escaping my eyes.
“You chose to live, you chose to be a monster, you remember now. But not all monsters are evil. You are who you were always meant to be, my daughter.
“From suffering and great sacrifice comes the heroes we need. If you never suffered, how would you know right from wrong? How would you be able to understand the darkness and guide into the light? The world is about shades of grey. Nobody is perfect. No one is pure evil or pure goodness. Both can