And how is your hand today?

His hand broken, his father dead, his brother rebelling and his mother dancing the bones, Einas ein Iteme has nobody at the Eyrie but his uncle and one cursed question he can't escape.

Contains: A transgender, aro-ace, autistic prince with chronic pain, dealing with the expectations and abuse wielded by kin unable to value him for the person he is. 

Setting: Marchverse, spanning a space of time beginning several months before and finishing shortly after Their Courts of Crows.

Length: 4, 945 words / 14 PDF pages. 

Books in Series: Different in Other Ways | Their Courts of Crows | Maybe When the Bones Crumble | A Prince of the Dead | Loveless | The King of Gears and Bone 

Note: This is a self-indulgent story about chronic pain and way my relatives ply the invalidating, ableist Catholic-Dutch tradition of at least it isn't worse whenever I start to express the emotional pain and struggle of enduring said chronic pain. (Which, because autism, is difficult to phrase in ways folks don't take as whining or exaggerating.) Folks should know this story does not have a happy ending. 

I don't plan on Ein's ever being "recovered" from chronic pain in the sense that it no longer exists. That's a fine fantasy on which I no longer dream; to gift it to my characters is to excise myself from my own narrative. No, thanks. (Which is the main reason why the Marchverse lacks effective, accessible healing magic.) I do plan on his finding a priest at Sirenne, a priest knowing of what it is to be both autistic and disabled by chronic pain ... but that's a whole other book in progress.