"Stop crying, I'm okay," the woman whispered breathlessly.
"I won't ever let any of those women touch you. I swear on our mother's ashes." Her voice was filled with determination and fighting spirit.
"But the experiments are destroying your body, and no one has ever survived it....I know what you want to say, but it can't be the only way to rise in rank." He gently placed his hands over her lips, silencing her.
He knew she was enduring the experiments to raise their status, hoping that their poor treatment would improve and she could protect him from the other women.
He couldn't keep watching her cough up blood, or bones creak when it was cold. The woman sighed sadly at the pained look on her brother's face.
She couldn't give up now. If she did, she wouldn't be able to stop the other women from abusing him.
Here, it was lawful for men to sleep with women so their reproductive sperm would be taken and used to create children, combined with the mother's blood.