Alek knew it was not a dream, because in his dreams the world still had smells and tastes. The empty street outside Jade's store was quiet, wind blowing but without bringing scent with it, without sound. He couldn't smell the bakery, though its front door was steps away from him.
A figure walked down the empty street toward him, her shape vaguely female, but shifting, always shifting. Ears of various shapes and sizes came and went in her white hair, her face grew whiskers which were then replaced by soft black fur that shifted to an eagle's beak. The Council had come to speak to him. Carlos had told him once of a visit from the Emissary, but Alek had thought such a thing was far beyond any attention he himself merited.
Once, he would have dropped to his knees in awe. Those days felt far away. Instead he stood and watched the Emissary approach. He had expected this, though he could not guess what the Council would want to show him.
Alek turned his eyes away from the shifting figure and looked up at the dark window above Pwned Comics and Games. In reality, he was up there, his tiger-self curled around Jade's little body, watching over her. His impatience surprised him. This vision might be important. Its timing was no coincidence, not after such a long silence from the Council. He had started to wonder if he were still a Justice, but had pushed away those thoughts, fighting off the dark wave of despair such thinking brought with it.
He could not fight himself forever, he knew. Hard questions would have to be asked, and soon.
Perhaps now.
"Aleksei Kirov," the Emissary said. Her voice was neither male nor no female, a blend of tones and pitch. It had the same chill as night winds on the steppe.
Once, he might have shivered. But he was tiger and had been born to the cold. Here, his heart was colder still, wrapped in a blanket of doubt.
"What do you want?" he said, trying to keep his impatience out of his voice.
"The Hearteater comes for the woman," the Emissary said. "You will give her to him."
He took a physical step back, his tiger rising within, his lips peeling back into a snarl. "No," he said, his voice almost inhuman.
"Look around you."
Alek tore his eyes away from the shifting figure. The buildings now burned, smoke rising, untouched by the odd, steady wind. Bodies littered the street, their blood red like paint, unreal without scent to back it up. Harper lay to his right, her face a beaten mess. She stretched a broken, twisted hand out to him, the look in her eyes one of utter and complete betrayal. Her lips formed words he couldn't make out, the wind taking away any sound she might have made, the vision still silent.
"No," Alek said again. "I will not betray my mate."
"Then they will all die. You will die. Is one life worth so much? You vowed to protect and serve our kind. Would you throw that oath away, throw your life away for a non-shifter? She is not of our kind. She and her battles are not ours to fight."
Alek felt a tightness in his chest. He looked down and watched as a gaping wound opened. There was no pain, just thick spurts of cold ruby blood and a hint of gritty white bone beneath the carved-up flesh. Embedded in his chest just above where the wound gaped, beneath a translucent layer of skin, his silver feather gleamed, infused with power.
He had told Jade once, not so long ago, that he strove for balance. He wanted that feather to weigh more than his soul, when the time came.
"When the time comes," he said softly, speaking mostly to himself, "it will balance."
"You must choose," the Emissary said. "Give up the woman to her kind, and you will save many lives. You are at the crossroads, Aleksei Kirov. You must choose."
Alek willed his fingers to be claws. He sliced his own flesh, digging the feather free. It came out clean and light as down, cool like a snowflake in his palm.
He raised his gaze to the Emissary and met her yellow, cat-slit eyes.
"I have chosen," he said.
Then he opened his palm, and let the feather fall.