SAGE

The pain came in waves sharp enough to steal breath, then thought, then language.

It felt as if my insides were tearing themselves apart and rebuilding wrong, like bones grinding to find new places, like veins unraveling and being threaded again by hands that did not care how much it hurt.

I screamed until my throat went raw, until the sound fractured into something animal and humiliating, until even that was swallowed by the agony.

"What is happening to me," I sobbed, nails scraping uselessly against the floor.

No answer came.

I cursed the goddess first, loud and vicious, words spat with all the bitterness I'd swallowed over the...