---- I didn't raise my voice. I didn't need to. "There's no blood between us. No love. No contract. So who do you think you are to question me?" Avein stood out along his neck, pulsing with rage. But no words came. Because he had nothing. Everything I said was true. "You used to be the kind of person I couldn't scare off, no matter how I shouted." That was all he could come up with in the end- something dry and absurd, stripped of all power. And I did laugh then. Really laughed. Probably for the first time in front of him. "But that was then," I said. "And you just said it yourself." With that, I turned and walked away, leaving him ---- standing there, stunned and alone.