Serena:
I stepped out onto the balcony to say something I might later regret. The night air hit my face, cold and sharp, and I let it fill my lungs as I gripped the stone railing and stared across the estate. Serena’s words, They’re dying free, kept looping in my head.
I understood what she meant. That was part of what made it so infuriating. I understood freedom and I understood responsibility. I had spent my life balancing both: keeping food on tables, doctors in districts, guards on the walls. Freedom sounded simple until you had to count the bodies left in its wake.
Still, the way she had looked at me, as if I were no different from the men who had owned her before, stung. I clenched my jaw and watched the distant city lights. For once I didn’t have an answer that satisfied me.
The
