Without turning in His chair, He merely held up a finger, and the attendant went stiff, as if my spine had turned to stone, I could not blink my eyes, hot tears rolling down frozen cheeks, the emperor’s fingers making shapes in the air, the attendant’s body contorting in accordance with these shapes, my scream breathless and silent as my arm twisted out of its joint and my leg snapped back, my heel pressed between my shoulder blades, His fingers weaving the invisible threads in the air as my body folded inward and inward, until all that remained of the man was a box of twisted flesh that
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