---
The sheet was too cool. His skin kept remembering the heat inside the cloth. The soft rip of the seam replayed in his ear. He felt again the air on his hip, the mocking faces, the quiet ring of laughter that never got loud because good rooms do not shout. That was the worst part. The soft sound. Like knives in velvet.
His mind slid to the yard. The mud on his pride. The little orange beast laughing at him. The black round thing on the peasant's hand. That was the heart of it. The thing that pulled at light. The way dust had lifted. The way a leaf had trembled. He had not planned for that shape. Water he knew. Fire, wind, stone, he knew. The quiet pull, he did not. It sat now in his head like a heavy coin you cannot spend and cannot swallow.
He told himself, "He hid his last name at registration. He lied to the clerk. Everyone got a last name." That helped. It gave him one true wrong to hold.
