A week was a century in Viregate. A week was a lifetime.
Nerisse's warning had become the silent, terrified scream at the back of Clara's mind. No one has ever survived being Rulien's favorite. The words echoed in the hollow spaces between the bland, tasteless meals and the long, dreamless nights in her small, cold cell.
The brand on her hip had begun to heal, the raw, weeping wound slowly scarring over into a series of elegant, silver lines that shimmered faintly in the gloom. The number 820. Her new name. The pain had subsided into a constant, itching throb, a permanent reminder of the moment her identity had been burned away.
The "re-education" began on the eighth day.
