Stolen Blood, Sacred Silence

They called her selfish the year she refused to be carved open for a sister who’d never once said her name without a wince. They called it God’s will, a family duty, a debt owed for the food she’d eaten and the roof that had leaked above her bed. Clara only knew this: the last time she’d said yes, she’d woken up empty, her miracle scraped from her and left nameless beneath a stone with no flowers. They came back for her body, not her. Not her songs, not her scars, not the child they left shiv… Continues…