"Then you pray, Piccola," he had commanded, his voice dropping into a low, burning rasp. "You pray to any and every God in this world that it may be a girl. A daughter."

His eyes burned like red-hot coals, fixated first on my stomach, and then on my mouth. "And maybe, just maybe, they'll let you keep her. Like my mother got to keep my sister. Because the Oro had no use for a daughter, especially a bastard one."

There was no mistaking the words now. He had said it. What I had thought I was ...