TRISTEN
“Emotions were the shackles of the weak and love was the most useless of them all.”
His father had said that to him the day She died.
He had been ten years old and he would not shape-shift for three more.
But the words had burned themselves into his brain, leaving behind blackened carved letters in the softness of his flesh.
And so the first thing the son of The Executioner of The Council learned was not to feel.
The one who did not feel was the one who stood above all else.
Another favorite of his father.
And a rule Tristen has lived by for so long he does not remember when it was first said to him.
And now, as he stands, chest heaving, hands in fists at his side and staring at a locked door in a house that suddenly feels like it is no longer his, Tristen realizes that is
