I stood in the middle of a bustling town, alone. Typhon, Zagan, Catherine, and the two guards accompanying me were gone.

There was a slight chance our separation was an accident, but I couldn’t convince myself to believe it. I didn’t even attempt to figure out who was behind this latest trick.

Several eyes wandered to me before looking away.

The smartest thing to do would be to find a guard and tell him my identity. The second best was to stay in one place, so it was easier to find me.

I didn’t do either.

With steady steps, I got lost in the crowd, the bag with my jewelry sent into the system's storage so I wouldn’t get pickpocketed.

The town was lively. Some people moved around with purpose, while others hung around talking in groups with easy smiles on their faces.

It was a market street, and the colorful goods caught my attention. I walked past all the food items and looked at the poetry and jewelry.

There was something special about getting lost in a crowd where no one knew who you were.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing to a bracelet.

“It’s a seashell from the south. Only-” Her words stopped. A look of fright appeared on her face to be replaced by disgust.

I turned, seeing an old woman standing beside me. My breath hitched, wheezing and rattling, as I forced air in and out of my body.

Dull pink hair streaked with gray-

Faded red eyes-

A wire-wrapped pendant-

My feet moved on their own, following her as she ducked into an alley. The liveliness of the street disappeared as we moved deeper into the slums. The rotten eggy smell of sewage and stagnant water was choking but familiar.

I stopped, turning to look at the bright street and then into the shadowy darkness. I looked at the light with longing before continuing to follow the woman. Her step hadn’t paused, and I jogged to catch up.

Soon she entered a house covered in vines, windows hanging off their hinges, and the door split in two.

The smell of smoke and herbs covered the rotting smell seeped into the nature of the slums.

My skin pebbled as fear settled in. We hadn’t seen a single person as we walked. That was the strangest thing of all.

I shuffled my feet, hesitating.

Determined, I clenched my fist and entered.

She was sitting on a chair facing the door. A smile tugged at the edge of her lips.

“I was shocked. So shocked. Oh, hmmm.” The old woman crooned, then hacked a cough that shuddered through her whole body, threatening to splinter her to pieces. Aged and withered, the only vitality she had shone through her all-knowing eyes as she stripped me bare. For once, someone's gaze on me was awed, and I didn’t get the feeling I was lacking. It was more than being a curiosity to her or amusement. “Truly a blessed child, despite having your fate plundered.”

The word ‘fate’ set my teeth on edge. The strange atmosphere popped, pierced by her words as my consciousness jolted back into my body.

Fate, a word I’d turned over in my mind and couldn’t help using to explain my situation.

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Fate used to brush over injustice and suffering by those with enough money and power to change the situation. Only the weak are forced to accept the situation as a fact, comforting themselves by calling it fate. As though using the influence of a higher power to make what happened inevitable would ease the pain of their suffering or lessen the hunger clawing at their stomachs.

“Fuck fate.” I looked at my feet - feeling betrayed - wondering why I left the light to wander here to listen to that tripe.

I looked up but forced down the words I wanted to say as I saw her head bobbing.

I wanted to caution her not to move. One wrong move, and it seemed as if her head would pop off and plop on the ground.

“Yes. I have never seen someone step so cleanly out of fate’s control. Never seen it. In all my years. Challenge the heavens. Yes. That’s what I hear.”

My heart stopped dead. The words of that voice in my head calling itself a system played over and over again. Cultivate and challenge the heavens. “What else did you hear?” I asked, whispering.

“Hmmm, I thought you didn’t believe in fate.” Her eyes drifted down, focusing on a spot on my chest. The wire-wrapped stone around my neck was identical to hers. It felt heavy where it rested against my chest.

“I didn’t say that.” I wouldn’t be so foolish. I knew of prophecies and the inevitability of some things. I just hated it as a catch-all term to explain the misery of people's lives.

I used my fate as a crutch to view my incompetence and stupidity as unluckiness while others' success was preordained. I ignored their planning, shrewdness, and malicious drive to do whatever it took to achieve their goal despite what it might cost.

“Once when I was younger-”

I wanted to tell her to stop the story and get to the point, but the look in her eyes warned me I wouldn’t get answers if I interrupted.

“I used to have beautiful pink hair that I dyed black. I couldn’t do magic but-”

My impatience vanished, replaced by a feeling I was familiar with. I crossed my hands over my chest and ignored the chill in my hands and feet and the sinking feeling in my stomach.

It was my first time meeting another member of the Kala Tribe, but I couldn’t be happy about it.

“I was skilled in other areas. Then one day, the priestess called me to her tent, and the next thing I knew, my mother brought me to my father’s house, and a bright red stone hung around my neck to remind me no matter how far I was from the tribe, they remembered me.”

I bit my tongue, the tang of blood filling my mouth. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It was clear she had the answers to what happened to me in the past, but I didn’t want to know. However, I was in a situation where I had to find out.

“He was a kind man. I lived in comfort, if not splendor until I turned sixteen. One day I woke up, and something felt off. Something I had before was missing.” She paused, taking a wheezing breath, the effort to speak taking everything she had.

I wanted to claw my hair out. Yet, I didn’t rush her. The differences in our stories weren’t comforting because the similarities filled me with dread.

I knew that feeling.

Total emptiness. It was as if someone dug a hole into my chest.

I attributed the feeling of desolateness to the experiences I endured on my wedding night.

“The sister I had always cherished and looked up to was kind enough to explain it to me” Her eyes misted over. Pale lips pulled into a brittle smile. “They stole my fate.” Gnarled, trembling fingers reached up to hold the stone at her neck.

My legs gave out. I slumped to the ground, my hand mirroring hers as it reached up, pulling the necklace out and clutching the stone I couldn’t bear to take off.

It was the only thing left to me by my mother. A reminder that I had somewhere else I belonged to. I clung to it even after knowing my mother sold me to the Duke.

Laughter bubbled out of me, burning my throat as I vomited it out. The old woman joined me. It was the sound of madness and desolation.

There was no use for sobriety.

Flat on the ground, heaving, caked in dirt, I was calmest since my rebirth.

There was no need to be clean. There were some things only dirty people could do. The struggle I experienced as I wondered what direction my life would take was meaningless.

“What else?” I asked.

“What happened to you?” she countered, greed replacing the craziness I saw before.

“I woke up from a long dream.”

“Bullshit,” she said, but the look left her eyes, leaving the frail woman who’d seen too much and accepted her fate. She slumped into the chair, smaller than before.

I shrugged. That was what happened. I died and woke up after having a long nightmare of a life. If I knew the secret to what happened, I would tell her.

“What else?” I asked.

“The Kala Tribe worships the Goddess Avea, the mother of all daughters. If a child is born in the tribe with a fate not gifted to her by the Holy Mother, Avea, her mother would bring her to her father, who would decide if he wanted to buy the child’s fate. My fate wasn’t strong enough to trigger a prophecy, and I never learned which god gifted it to me, but I was blessed to bring good fortune to everyone I care about.” She looked to the south.