How could she choose?
How could any mother choose?
The two girls clung to her dress, faces pressed against her sides.
The boy stood slightly apart, his eyes moving between his mother and the beautiful woman who'd spoken such terrible words.
He was the quietest of the three, the one who'd learned earliest to make himself small, to avoid attention, to survive.
And somehow, he understood.
He understood before anyone explained.
Shuyin bent down, bringing herself to the children's eye level, her jade eyes softening with something almost like kindness.
"This Auntie wants one of you," she said gently, sweetly, as if offering a treat rather than separation.
"Your mommy promised one of you to me."
The simple, childlike words made the transaction somehow more horrifying.
The girls pressed closer to their mother, beginning to cry.
But the boy stepped forward.
Small.
Brave.
Already protecting his sisters the only way he knew how.
