Her breathing stopped.
The word landed differently than the others.
She stared at him.
Her jaw worked. The cold control of her expression fractured — not breaking, but showing the fracture lines, the places where the face she wore did not quite hold against the pressure of what he had just said with that much casual certainty.
"I—"
"Come, now." He tilted his head. "Half-blood. Slave-origin. Sold to a baron at—what, seven? Eight? Baron sold you up the chain because you had a talent for it — the undead work, the temporal magic." He looked at her trousers. He looked at the binding that had been stripped away. "Presented to the Prince. Useful. Convincingly male when needed."
Her hand had dropped from the wall.
She was standing on her own now. Not steadily — her legs were still producing the fine, continuous tremor of muscle fatigue — but standing, her weight on her feet, her hand at her side.
"Stop," she said.
The word was quiet.
