My family came from riches. They were the sons and daughters of kings. My mother’s heritage was nothing like that. My father married her when they were both fourteen and “stupid,” as she calls it. They didn’t understand what would come of it when they eloped and had a child.

  Normally, my father and mother would have been imprisoned for that. He abandoned his duties to the crown, while my mother had the audacity to seduce him. Fortunately, fate was on their side.

  His older brother was murdered by poison. His younger brother could not leave the city of Adelia, where he is held captive. Doing so would invite invasion and war — tension was already high between the two cities.

  My father was spared from imprisonment and wore the crown, but my mother was not as fortunate. She was home, waiting with open arms, when she heard a knock on the door. She didn’t check the windows, nor did she speak to them first through the door. She just opened the door with a wide grin. “A big mistake,” she calls it.

  She was impaled, and because she resisted, they removed her additional arms and broke her remaining two. I imagine they tore them off violently, like a lizard ripping the wings from a bird.

  My mother, who hadn’t done anything wrong, was tossed into this prison and left there to rot for eternity — or however long she had left to live. Seducing my father, as someone of humble beginnings, wasn’t a crime in itself. If she were normal, the worst punishment would have been a few years of hard labor. No, her true sin was doing so as a “half-breed.” They are descendants of monsters who tried to reach humanity, only to fall and land somewhere between beast and man.

  She committed a sin she had no choice in.

  Does being a monster constitute a death sentence? Is her worth nothing more than entertainment for affluent men? Was her end meant to be slaughtered for a sadistic crowd while the gluttonous of our society snort and choke on laughter at our suffering? Is this my worth as well? Am I meant to become someone else’s joke?

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  The woman I respect most, in this moist, fetid dungeon, still waits for my father to save us. She fights hordes of monsters and men seeking glory, all to survive one more day for him.

  She speaks of him softly and with kindness. My mother never fails to make excuses for him or glorify him as if he were a god among mortals.

  To hell with him. He never loved you, and you are too blind to see it. I hate y—

  No. I don’t hate her. I just… Maybe I’m just tired.

  Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if she held onto hope, however false it might be. While others have been crushed by hopelessness, my mother remains a beacon of light, clinging to hers.

  But I can’t. I can’t hold onto that kind of hope.

  The screams that filled every night of my childhood in this cage. The beatings I heard, night after night. The way people were treated like animals — it breaks a person slowly. Cages empty, only to be filled again. I’ve seen it too many times. I’ve seen a child snatched from their mother, watched that mother lose her child in their first fight. Anyone would seethe with rage. I cannot get their cries out of my head.

  I want out. I want out before the madness of this place sets in and turns me into one of the insane.

  I’ve seen the strongest prisoners here. They are powerful — and deranged. Some sing beautiful melodies for irrational reasons, like my mother. Others crave nothing more than the warmth of blood on their palms. They want your entrails out of your bodies and offered to their twisted gods.

  I want to survive with my mother and be free from this colosseum. But even more than that I don't want to end up insane. I want my actions to be mine and not because of something I fear or misunderstand. I want to be free in the truest of sense, without a chain or leash that anyone could tug or pull. I want to be the author of my life.

  Tomorrow, I’ll be old enough to leave my mother’s cage and have my own. That also means I must pick up a sword and fight.

  My mother always hesitates to teach me. She says she never had to wield a sword. She wove webs, from what I’ve heard — better than anyone else of her kind. I’ve never been able to weave anything. I was told I am closer to man than monster. It was not given as a compliment. I am a fool. A disappointment. A waste of food, water, and the air I breathe!

  But I won’t let that stop me.

  I will find my freedom.