Luka let out a laugh at the memory, the sound rough and fleeting, as though it escaped him before he could stop it. It faded quickly into the stillness of the house. Years had passed, yet the image remained painfully intact. He could still remember the moonlight catching on tall hedges, a maze that felt endless, small trembling hands clutching at his sleeve, and a girl crying without making a sound, as if even her tears were afraid to exist.
He had been a child then.
Too small to understand cruelty.
Too weak to stop it.
Too frightened to do anything but stand there and feel it burn into him.
And yet, that night had marked him in a way nothing else ever had.
He remembered what came after just as clearly. The tension of his defiance, the arguments that turned sharp and loud, the way hi
