"To finally find what you lost, only to discover you can't hold it anymore."
***
The shaman's breathing grew ragged.
Its transformed features twisted with emotions too complex for its monstrous face to properly express. Rhys could see human expressions trying to force themselves through inhuman anatomy.
Grief pulling at lips that had grown into a beast's muzzle.
Shame drawing down brows that had fused into a single ridge of bone.
The effect was grotesque and pitiful in equal measure.
"So you made a choice," the figure continued. Stepped closer with each syllable. The smoke parted before him like courtiers making way for a king.
"You found your master's forbidden texts. The ones he kept locked away in the heart of the oldest oak. The ones he said were never to be opened. You learned the blood-songs. The flesh-rites. The ways to steal power from those who trusted you."
The stranger's voice was almost gentle now.
