She can’t meet my eyes, and with each passing second, dread builds in my chest. Something is terribly wrong. Daciana fidgets with her hands, opens her mouth several times as if to speak, then closes it again. The silence stretches between us like a chasm.
Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. “How much did you know?”
The question breaks her. Daciana collapses into the chair beside my bed, her face crumpling as sobs wrack her body.
“There are things far too terrible for a child to be part of,” she chokes out between tears.
My stomach drops at the way she words this, like she’s speaking from experience. “Daciana, what are you saying?”
She rocks back and forth in the chair, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. “As the Beta’s niece, I had firsthand knowledge of what was being done to you
