A week has passed since I arrived in Greyhollow. Seven days of watching, listening, and learning.

  The village is a wounded animal, still trying to graze while the wolves circle. Children chase each other through muddy streets, farmers coax stubborn crops from rocky soil. But there's a frantic edge to it all. Every laugh sounds like a scream, every swing of a hoe like a grave being dug.

  The dawn is the colour of wet stone. Villagers gather in the square, their movements slow, as if wading through deep water. I disappear into the mass of bodies. All around me, neighbours keep their eyes on the mud-caked ground, their shoulders hunched. We're packed together like livestock, yet each person might as well be alone in a void.

  I know why we're here.

  The bell tolls, and the fluid in my eyes trembles with the sound.

  The Elders mount a weathered platform at the square's centre. They grip the railing, their knuckles looking like stones pushing up through thin soil.

  Elder Ursula claims her spot on the platform's edge, her white hair stark against the grey sky. Her eyes lock onto me.

  I steel myself. It's her. The woman from the street, with the crow's eyes. Her stare makes the skin on my face feel thin again.

  It's the way a crow watches a newborn lamb and sees a collection of weaknesses that promise an easy meal.

  "It is time." Ursula's voice carries to the farthest corners of the square. "We gather to select this season's payment for the Flesh Tax."

  The restless shuffling of a hundred people ceases. A child's cough is swallowed halfway. The only sound is the wind rattling a loose shutter. I feel the press of a hundred bodies pushing in on me from all sides.

  Ursula speaks again, her voice flat, hard, and final. "For forty years, we have paid this price. Our blood, our sweat, our very flesh, given so that Greyhollow might endure."

  "We must remember," Ursula continues, her eyes sweeping over the crowd, "the alternative is extinction."

  Isn't this slow sacrifice just another form of dying out?

  As Ursula steps back, Elder Reginald shuffles forward. I recognise him instantly. The old man from the tavern, his eyes clouded with cataracts, who warned me about the Twisted One.

  "One life, freely given, guarantees the survival of many." Reginald's voice quavers, his grip on the cane trembling. "Resist, and the mercy of the bag? The clean, quick selection? It will be gone. They will simply come and take who they please, when they please."

  There's nothing free about this giving.

  Elder Gwendolyn is the last to speak. Her blue robe should be a calming sight, but against the grey sky, it looks like a bruise, ringed in a sick yellow gold. "Let us face this moment with dignity," Gwendolyn pleads, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "Let us support one another, for we are all Greyhollow. We are all family."

  I look around at the crowd. She speaks of family, but all I see are prisoners waiting for the gallows.

  Thunder rumbles overhead. The wind picks up, cold and sharp, whipping cloaks and stinging skin.

  The crowd begins to hum. A low, mournful sound. The hum finds words. It becomes a song. Voices blend, children's high notes rising above the deep bass of the aged.

  A farewell, sung for someone still among us.

  "Forget the hearth fire, warm and bright.

  Forget the face you wore in light.

  Let mind be mud, let thought be stone.

  The swamp now claims you for its own."

  The chant fades as Elder Ursula steps forward once more. She clutches a worn leather bag, its surface dark with age and use. My throat constricts at the sight of it.

  One by one, the Elders reach into the bag. The only sound in the square is the dry click of stone on stone as each draws their lot. Elder Gwendolyn hesitates. Her hand hovers over the bag, shaking, before she plunges it in and draws her stone.

  Time stretches as the Elders confer in low, urgent tones. Every heartbeat is torture as we wait. At last, Elder Ursula turns back to face the crowd. Any hint of performance leaves her face, leaving only bone and shadow.

  "The choice is made," she announces, her spine rigid. "This season's payment for the Flesh Tax shall be—"

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  The square holds its breath. Her eyes lock onto mine.

  "Alistair."

  The name lands in the quiet. The crowd's faces blur. The square vanishes. The smell of mud fills my lungs. I am face down in the muck. There is a sword in my chest.

  I might as well be back there. The end result is the same. A different path, but the same cold earth waiting at the end of it.

  Then the world crashes back in.

  A hundred shoulders, once hunched to the ears, now drop.

  Elder Ursula's voice cuts through the stillness, softer now, almost gentle. "We chose the one with no deep roots here, no family to leave behind. Alistair, we recognise the burden placed upon you. Your name will be honoured in Greyhollow's memory."

  I wait for the rage, for the fear. Nothing comes. Only numbness. My body refuses to move. My legs might as well be carved from the same oak as the platform.

  Honour, they call it. Seven days I've been here. Seven days, and now I'm their sacrifice.

  The crowd parts for a moment, revealing Evangeline and Pip. Evangeline's eyes meet mine. There is relief in them, but it's a guilty, fragile thing, already being devoured by the shame that follows. Pip looks up at her, then at me, confusion evident in his small face.

  A new sensation takes hold in my chest, a fierce, protective warmth that feels like a hand closing around my heart. Then the cold knot in my stomach loosens its grip. I can take a full breath for the first time since wearing this skin, a clean pull of air that scours something heavy from my lungs.

  The path is true. The Echo of Alistair strengthens.

  It ascends to Vivid, and its flame, once a fragile warmth, is now a grasping light.

  ?

  The Blight, once a wet, sickening squirm, is now a dull throb.

  ~

  Someone appears at my side. Derrick. Without meeting my eyes, he touches my shoulder. His lips part, and a word escapes, so quiet I almost think I imagined it.

  "Sorry."

  Before I can respond, Derrick speaks again.

  "Come." He jerks his head towards the tavern. "There's one more thing to be done."

  Derrick's hand grips my shoulder, and I let him steer me through the parting crowd. I don’t see faces anymore, only eyes. Ward's are hard with a grim respect. Grace's are wet with a relief that makes my stomach turn. Most just stare.

  We reach the tavern door. A graveyard of small, straight lines in the wood. Derrick pulls a knife from his pocket. He sets the blade against the oak.

  A scrape of steel. A raw, white line appears.

  He might as well have carved the line into my own skin. That's all I am now. Not Alistair. Just the next number in a long, quiet row.

  The sound of that blade marking the wood follows me into the night. I'm in my room. I haven't slept. The room has become a cage, and I've paced every inch of it.

  I force myself to look in the mirror.

  I catch my reflection, my eyes drawn to my shoulder. The dark veins that had crept across my skin are gone. The flesh is clean.

  And yet, I can still feel the squirming beneath it, a rot in the root of me.

  My eyes look up, finding Alistair's stare. They are the eyes of livestock staring at the abattoir door.

  The solution is simple. Abandon Alistair's doomed fate. Claim a powerful identity. Avoid Collectors entirely.

  I hadn't even considered this as an option. But isn't this what I am? A thief of lives, always seeking the next identity to slip into?

  Picture yourself as Elder Ursula, shaping Greyhollow's destiny. Or as Elder Reginald, your decisions backed by his years of respect and insight. Either way, the Flesh Tax selection will never touch you again.

  The temptation is overwhelming. To shed Alistair's doomed skin and step into a life of safety, of purpose. To never again fear Collectors or the cruel lottery of the Flesh Tax.

  My head pounds. The options turn over in my mind, each one a different kind of poison. If I became someone with real power, couldn't I protect more people than just myself? Deep down, I know this is just self-serving justification for an unforgivable act.

  Four paths lie before you. Which will you choose? Choose wisely.

  I try to resist, push the Voice away, but it's useless. A taste of each unclaimed victim seeps into my consciousness, relentless.

  Your first option is Ursula.

  I feel the strength to make the hard choices that protect this village. I see the people not as individuals, but as a single entity to be kept healthy. I feel a cold satisfaction in cutting away the weaker parts to preserve the whole.

  Your second option is Reginald.

  My mind becomes a fortress of calm, a space to forge the perfect plan. I feel my senses sharpen, using my apparent weakness as a way to gather information. I feel the quiet thrill of knowing I am the only one who sees the board.

  Your third option is Gwendolyn.

  I am filled with the power to soothe the village's grief and unite them. I feel my empathy, a tool I use to find the cracks in their hearts. I feel the deep satisfaction of helping them find the beauty in their own sacrifice.

  Your fourth option is Derrick.

  I feel a low, steady fire burn in my chest for my daughter and my people. I understand the need for secrets, for a hidden network to fight the enemy. I feel the grim acceptance that to keep the wolves at bay, sometimes you must throw them a lamb.

  Remember, the person you choose to consume will cease to exist. Their responsibilities, relationships, and role in the village will become yours to maintain.

  These aren't strangers passing through. They're pillars of the community. To erase them would tear apart the foundation of Greyhollow. Can I justify such an act, even to save myself?

  I stagger to the window, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. Outside, the first hints of dawn paint the sky in shades of soft pink and greys.

  I think of Evangeline and Pip, of the trust beginning to form between us. Of Derrick and the Resistance, fighting against impossible odds. Even the Elders, making choices no one should have to make. Could I betray them all?

  The village below begins to stir, oblivious. Below, a baker opens his shutters. The smell of fresh bread rises, a scent from a world that no longer belongs to me.

  My attention settles on Queen Lilith's portrait, still watching me from across the room. What would she do if faced with such a choice?

  I shake my head, banishing the thought. I'm not her.

  I try to name myself. To find a solid piece of ground in this shifting mud.

  I am...

  Nothing comes.

  My reflection stares back from the window, features indistinct in the growing light. Who am I? A thief of lives, yes, but am I nothing more than that? Is there no line I won't cross, no identity I won't steal, to survive?

  The ghost in the glass offers no answers. I look to Alistair's hands. To my hands.

  They can take.

  No.

  They can protect.

  And they will.

  The Voice falls silent. The pressure in my skull lifts. Relief makes me light-headed. But the silence that replaces it feels wrong. My own thoughts seem to rattle in the new, vast emptiness of my skull. Small and thin.