visible. Unavoidable. “Please,” Eijeh said. “Please, I don’t know how to do what you ask, please don’t hurt him, don’t hurt me, please—” Ryzek stared down at Akos, who was clutching his face, his neck streaked with blood. “I do not know this Thuvhesit word, ‘please,’” Ryzek said. Later that night I heard a scream echoing in the quiet hallways of Noavek manor. I knew it didn’t belong to Akos—he had been sent to our cousin Vakrez, “to grow thicker skin,” as Ryzek put it. Instead I recognized the scream as Eijeh’s voice raised in acknowledgment of pain, as my brother tried to pry the future from
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