Chosen by Fortune

The first time I died, it was a Tuesday, and I was cheating at cards.

Not the clumsy kind of cheating, either. I'd spent three hours at that felt table in Macau, smiling at a man named Wei whose pinky ring cost more than my apartment, and I'd done it clean. Counted the deck. Tracked the cut. Let him win twice early so the blood would be up in his face and his math would go soft. By the time I pushed my whole stack forward on a pair of kings, he was already reaching for the chips, already tasting it.

Then the chandelier came down.

I remember the sound more than the pain. A shriek of metal, a pop like a champagne cork the size of a man, and then the world tilted sideways. Wei's face went from triumph to confusion to something almost apologetic, like he was sorry I was about to die before he could gloat. The last thing I saw was the ace of spades on the felt, upside down, winking at me.

And then I was standing in a room that didn't exist.

White. Not bright white. The white of a hospital sheet, of a page before anything's written on it. No walls, no ceiling, no floor, just white and the smell of ozone and something older underneath it, like the inside of a church that's been closed for a hundred years.

A screen floated in front of my face. Blue, translucent, the kind of interface you'd expect from a video game, not from the afterlife.

**WELCOME, LUCK.**

**YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED.**

I laughed. It came out wrong, hollow, the way you laugh when your body still thinks it's alive and your brain hasn't caught up. "Selected for what? I had a good hand."

**YOUR HAND WAS IRRELEVANT. YOUR NATURE WAS NOT.**

**YOU MANIPULATE PROBABILITY. YOU DO IT INSTINCTIVELY. YOU DO IT WITHOUT TRAINING. THIS IS RARE.**

I checked my pocket watch out of habit. It was still there, gold and warm, ticking like nothing had happened. Twelve forty-seven. The time I'd died. "So I'm dead."

**YOU WERE. NOW YOU ARE SOMETHING ELSE.**

The screen flickered, and text scrolled faster than I could read. Something about soul-binding, about anchors, about a system that would grow with me if I fed it. I caught fragments. *Attribute points. Skill trees. Bonding mechanics.* It read like a manual for a game I'd never agreed to play.

"What's the catch?"

**THERE IS ALWAYS A CATCH.**

The white room dissolved. I fell. Not down, exactly, more like sideways through a membrane that resisted and then gave, and then I was lying on my back in a field of grass that came up to my chest, staring at two moons.

Two moons. One silver, one the color of old blood.

I sat up. My suit was still on, the pinstripes somehow not wrinkled. The pocket watch still ticked. And the screen was still there, waiting, patient as a dealer who knows you'll come back to the table eventually.

**YOU HAVE BEEN REBORN INTO THE WORLD OF AETHERIA. YOUR BODY IS YOUR OWN. YOUR LUCK IS YOUR WEAPON. YOUR TASK IS TO GROW STRONG ENOUGH TO SURVIVE WHAT IS COMING.**

**BOND WITH THE GODDESSES. EARN THEIR FAVOR. ASCEND.**

I stood up, brushed grass off my trousers, and took stock. A forest edge to my left. A road to my right, dirt and rutted, heading toward a walled town maybe a mile off. Smoke rising from chimneys. The smell of woodsmoke and something cooking, something with spices I couldn't name.

"Goddesses," I said out loud. "Of course it's goddesses."

**THE FIRST TRIAL BEGINS WHEN YOU ENTER THE TOWN. YOU WILL KNOW IT WHEN YOU SEE IT.**

"Helpful. Really."

The screen didn't answer. It just hovered there, blue and smug, and I had the distinct feeling I was being watched by something that found me amusing.

I walked.

The town was called Thornwall, according to a wooden sign that had been carved with more enthusiasm than skill. The gate was open, the guards were bored, and nobody looked at me twice. That was good. In my experience, the moment people start looking at you twice is the moment you need to run.

The main street was crowded with merchants and farmers and a few people who looked like they might be adventurers, swords on their backs, armor that gleamed too much to be practical. I kept my head down and my hands in my pockets, counting exits out of habit. Three alleys, one side gate, a temple at the end of the street with a bell tower that would give a good view of the whole town.

The screen pulsed.

**TRIAL ONE: THE PRIESTESS OF THE SILVER MOON.**

**SHE IS IN DANGER. SAVE HER. BOND WITH HER. GROW.**

I stopped walking. "And if I don't?"

**THEN YOU DIE AGAIN. PERMANENTLY THIS TIME.**

The temple at the end of the street. Of course. I started toward it, and the crowd seemed to part for me without meaning to, bodies shifting aside like I was a stone in a stream. Luck, I realized. Passive luck. The system was already working, nudging probability in my favor, smoothing my path.

That should have felt good. It didn't. It felt like a leash.

The temple doors were open. Inside, it was cool and dark, candles burning at the feet of a statue I didn't recognize, a woman with a crescent moon for a crown and hands held out like she was offering something. Or asking for something.

A scream cut through the silence.

I ran.

The back of the temple was a maze of corridors, and I followed the sound, my footsteps echoing off stone, my heart doing something uncomfortable in my chest. The system had given me a body that was young and strong and fast, and I hated how natural it felt.

I found the door. It was heavy, iron-banded, and locked. I put my hand on it, and the screen flickered.

**LUCK CHECK: SUCCESS.**

The lock clicked open.

Inside, a woman was backed against the far wall, her silver hair loose and wild, her robes torn at the shoulder. Three men stood between her and the door, and they turned when I came in, and I saw their faces, and I understood something important.

They weren't surprised. They'd been waiting for me.

"You're late," the biggest one said, and grinned, and drew a knife.

I checked my pocket watch. Twelve forty-seven. Still.

"Actually," I said, and reached for the deck of cards that was suddenly, impossibly, in my jacket pocket, "I'm right on time."

The woman's eyes met mine. Silver, like the moon above, and full of something that looked a lot like recognition.

The screen pulsed one more time.

**BOND INITIATED.**

**DO NOT FAIL.**