THE SHIFTING PATH
Prologue
The Paths
Blue eyes opened slowly. The world was a hazy blur, her senses dulled by the loss, the forgetting of self. She blinked several times and rubbed at her eyes, clearing away the exhausted sensation she had awoken from and the waxy feel of her eyelids. Her body had been ravaged, transformed into something it wasn't. In the moment, it was both with her and far away. Beneath her was a world of sand, above a sky of midnight blue, which hosted a great multitude of stars. They slowly vanished high above her head, just as they did near the border between ghetto and city.
And then she turned towards her left, frowning at the odd glow of light that sought to overpower the beauty and wonder she had seen above. A gasp escaped her lips, and her jaw fell regardless of her self-control. A white tree of light ascended from the far horizon, so vast that raising her hand to try and block the intense glow wasn't enough to cover its full majesty.
Footsteps approached from her right, muted by the sand. She glanced over, her chin-length blonde hair briefly masking her vision. She pushed it aside and recognized the man.
"Warchief Zeke Jaeger," she greeted stiffly. "Inheritor of the Beast Titan."
"Warrior Annie Leonhardt, the inheritor of the Female Titan," Zeke stated, staring down at her. Intelligent blue eyes hid behind wire-framed glasses, his blond hair and beard slightly scraggly. She suddenly thought of his titan form, noting how unkempt his hair was. And that, Annie realized, was because of that bizarre vision she had before awakening, a Titan that matched what she could be in the future, yet grotesque enough to be clearly inhuman.
"Where are we? What is this place?" she asked, gazing at the tree of light once more. She felt helpless, with how enthralling it was. Something in her blood thrummed at the sight. It was old, older than anything she could think of.
"Here is where the one who possesses the Founding Titan can come and dominate the Eldian race," the Warchief answered. "You will never see this place again, Annie."
She frowned, her pronounced, Marleyan nose twitching. "And why not?"
"Because you have the Female Titan's power, not that of the Founding Titan. My unique circumstance allows me to speak with our fellow Titan shifters here, but only upon their inheritance of a new power."
Would that mean… "Do you know everyone who has one of the Nine then?"
He laughed boisterously at her question, though his expression as it fell away made her nervous. "I wish I did. Whoever has the Founding Titan at present has blue or maybe violet eyes. It is a sign of their power, or merely a family trait. Their power blocks my vision, and so I cannot describe them further." Zeke sighed, running a hand through his hair. "We still do not know the identity of the Attack Titan, even after a century since the Great Titan War."
Annie blinked. She knew that Marley only had seven of the Nine Titans within their possession, yet she had never suspected a Titan power could vanish. But then, she reflected, Eldia had been in turmoil when the Warhammer betrayed his king for Marley and brought other shifters to that banner.
Frowning, she asked, "Not even the previous holder of the Beast Titan knew?"
Zeke appeared troubled by her question, an expression Annie had never seen from him. For all of her cold discipline and social distance, she admired the Warchief's strength. Reiner and the Galliards idolized him as how a shifter should behave, and Pieck certainly had a crush on him. Bertholdt struggled to string two sentences in her presence, so she didn't know his thoughts.
"He did not," Zeke said after a long, silent minute. There was no wind in this realm to fill the silence between them. "I am…stronger than him. I had to be stronger than him. You, Bertholdt, Marcel, Reiner, and Pieck must be stronger than those who came before you."
"Because of the Paradisians?"
Older blue eyes appeared thoughtful and curious before he said, "Because of the Coordinate—that great power visible here, which unites the Subjects of Ymir. That is the true power of the Founding Titan that the King of the Walls possesses. With it, one could end the world. We are the only hope everyone has."
Annie looked to the light tree—to the Coordinate—once more, frowning while a great multitude of branches reached out. Nine in particular were strong and bright, reminding her once more of the rumored great mission to come:
Four Warriors of Marley to infiltrate the Eldian Kingdom of Paradis Island.