"It makes me sick to do it. So sick. Thank the Eternal Radiance multiples are less common now.
"Still, last month I had to euthanize the younger two of a set of triplets. They were not embryos I terminated in the womb or newborns I ensured emerged into the world stillborn. No, they were seven months old and beginning to crawl. Their aunt, the Praetor, found out about them and called upon me to do my duty.
"Look how pathetic I am. I keep calling them 'they' and 'them,' as if the impersonal words make the horror less real. I must face this.
"Baby girls. I killed two baby girls last month. I did it with all the gentleness I could offer, and I did it for their sake and the well-being of their surviving sister, but still, I did it. And it is not the first time I did it, and it will not be the last.
"So is the lot of every lifeholder. I envy that you were born Lightless."
—Comis Floritio,
lifeholder aedilis eightieth rank,
in a letter to her sister
YOU ARE READING
Garden of Light: Beneath Devouring Eyes #1
FantasyAn abandoned boy, a grieving prince, and a reclusive sorcerer find themselves caught in a web of peril and mystery... Domi, a young thief abandoned on the street at birth, just wants to save his dying foster mother. But first, he must survive the m...
