Months blurred forward in a rhythm that felt both too quick and painfully slow.
Arik carried the weight of something he couldn't explain. Some days it pressed hard against his ribs, flashes of marble halls and laughter that wasn't his, pain that didn't belong to a nine-year-old boy twisting into his chest until he woke in a sweat. Other days it was nothing more than a shadow at the edge of thought, easily drowned beneath ether drills with Gregoris or whispered jokes with Noah.
He tried to speak of it once, halting words about eyes like glass, about poison that seared down to the bone, but even to his own ears, it sounded like nonsense. A child's dream. He hated the way the adults' gazes lingered too long when he spoke of it.
It was Gabriel who first set the choice on the table, his tone deceptively casual as Arik curled on the couch with Cecil snoring softly against his side.
