“If I had known what waited for me after that decision,” Carol began, her voice low and unsteady, “I would’ve begged to follow my parents back to the soil they came from. Instead, I stayed. And I stepped straight into a world built on pain—blood, guilt, torture, sorrow. A world I could never claw my way out of.”

Her eyes hardened, but Mia reached out anyway, slipping her hand into Carol’s.

“I’m so sorry you had to live through that.”

Carol gave her a brittle smile, the kind ...