She gazed out upon the thousand soldiers standing before her, and she understood then, with a certainty she’d never felt before, exactly why she’d been born. Alizeh was meant to be a conduit for all this pain. She was built to bear it. She would draw it into her veins and transform it, and unleash it as rage back upon the world. All these years of uncertainty; all her hours of doubt; all the grief she’d carried like rotting bodies on her back. Now, finally— Clarity.
