They said that I had to join them. Was this to be my final end? To live my life as a brute in a distant village, my mind lost?

“You spoke of the daughter of the one who challenged me,” I said. “Who is this?”

“Me,” said a soft, familiar voice.

I turned and found Elizandra Dramali emerging from behind some trees nearby. She no longer wore her dress, and instead was wrapped in leathers that only just covered up her most intimate parts. Indeed, a full description of her figure would be too shocking for my more sensitive readers, and so I will forbear.

She still wore her spectacles, and her golden hair was pulled back into its customary tail, but her skin … her skin was now a shade of blue, such as I had never before seen.

Elizandra, fair Elizandra, was koloss-blooded.

“This can’t be!” I exclaimed, staring at my beautiful Elizandra. The woman I had grown to love and cherish above all others. The woman who had somehow hidden her true nature from me all this time.

Elizandra was koloss-blooded.

I wish I did not have to write these words to you, my stalwart readers. But they are true, true as my poor heart bleeds. True as the ink on this page.

“Makeup,” Elizandra said, demure eyes downcast. “As you can see, the blue cast to my skin is light, compared to some koloss-blooded. Clever use of powders and gloves have allowed me to hide what I am.”

“But your mind!” I said, stepping toward her. “You think and have wit, unlike these beasts!”

I moved to reach toward her, but hesitated. Everything I knew about this woman was a lie. She was a monster. Not my fair, wonderful noblewoman, but a creature of the wilds, a murderer and a savage.

“Jak,” she said. “I am still me. I was born to koloss, but have not accepted the transformation. My mind is as keen as that of any human. Please, my dear one, see past this skin and look into my heart.”

I could resist no longer. She might have lied, but she was still my Elizandra. I stepped into her embrace, and felt her sweet warmth in this time of confusion.

“You are in grave danger, loved one,” she whispered into my ear. “They will make you one of them.”

“Why?”

“You frightened away their chief,” Elizandra whispered. “And ruled the clan despite the challenges we provided. Finally, you killed their greatest champion. My mother.”

“The champion was a woman?” I asked.

“Of course. Didn’t you notice?”