Forged in Fire (Forgotten Series, #2)

Chapter Seven: Part Two

I shifted my backpack on my shoulders. My entire life and most of my mother's lived in the rough canvas bag. It wasn't much, a few pictures, my clothes and several books. My entire life in a single bag. Many might have thought it was sad but it was all I really knew. My mother and I had lived like that for so long that it was natural and the thought of someone having more than that seemed strange and wasteful.

I hadn't grown up like most people, like most shifters even. I had been born with less and I would probably die with as much as I had been born with. It was all about balance. The mundies would have foolishly called it karma but it worked differently than what goes around comes around. The world was on the scales between light and dark, they constantly tipped but would always return to balance evenly. Shifters lives were the same way. We were born balanced and we would die balanced. The scales of the Goddess weren't a pathetic strip of karma, they were the end all justice for everything. I had been born in rejection, I would die by it. It was just how the fates worked, how Mene functioned.

I caught sight of the flowers I needed and continued my jog, following the trail it made. The woods became darker and darker and it became almost difficult for me to see but I pushed forward, letting my nose tell me where the flowers were as I looked for the obstacles that littered the forest floor.

The feeling of passing through a territory made me freeze and I darted my eyes back and forth. Temples were supposed to stay on neutral ground, the fact this one hadn't made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. However, as a shifter, I had a right to use the temple, trespassing or not. I fought back the faint urge to turn away and run and pushed forward, a bit more cautiously this time. I didn't like it, I didn't like being on territories. It always made it feel like everything was pushing down on me but I had a right to use the temple.

I knew I could explain the situation if a patrol found me but I wouldn't appreciate being drug around. I lifted my nose and smelled the air. Blood tainted the usually comforting smell of earth and life that filled the forests and I pushed forward, following the flowers. There was a murmur of voices ahead and I froze, feeling my body urge to run the opposite direction but the heavy feeling of sadness and grief drew me in closer and closer, they was heavy enough that it pushed the claustrophobic feeling I got away for a moment. I knew those feelings well, it was the feeling of loss and the blood in the air spoke of death. Something had happened and they were using the temple, preparing their dead for burial.

"Burial rights." I felt the words come out in a breathless whisper and I hated the images that flashed through my mind. Preparing my mother for her burial, saying the prayers the head priestess had taught me, locked in a small room with my guilt, my hate, and my self-revulsion for twenty-four hours until heard the prayers and left her body to join Mene. The images made bile rise up and I forced it all away and I turned around. I wanted to leave, I didn't want to walk into the memories the scene would bring but bodiless whispers tugged at me.

It's your penance, your punishment, Shey Abigail Lazera. Take it. The words swirled around me and I hung my head in shame. I had wanted to run from my punishment. I had done the unthinkable and when Meme handed me a punishment I was going to run. It was a cowardly and my mother would have slapped me for even thinking it. I turned back around and swallowed thickly. I took tiny steps, timid steps, forward. I was a stranger, a trespasser in their territory and I knew how most shifters reacted to that.

The trees ended and I hung around the edge of it, taking the scene in. the temple was bigger than most I had been in. It was well kept and moonvines climbed up the stone walls, giving it a rather cottage-like feel. I rubbed at my arm as I took in the ten makeshift altars that had been created in front of the churches doors. Five on each side, leaving a small path to go inside. Each altar held a shifter that had died. The blood in the air let me know it hadn't been a very pleasant death. I wondered if there had been a fight, if another pack had tried to take wasn't theirs.