My internal radar struggles against what it is seeing—a cobbled street I have not walked since I was eleven rotations old, a relic of my past I’d hoped to keep lodged deep in the cave Argus protects within my chest.
I grip the white material around my body and keep my face firmly downward. The open rectangles of the metal below are little windows that replay scenes from a rhythm that brings nothing but sorrow—sour breath, hard fists, screamed words.
Gripping my hands to my dirty, exposed feet, I let a drip fall from my eyes, then close them, squeezing my eyelids as tight as I can.I will not let evil win.
“Wren?” the prayer falls from my lips. I don’t know why I bother. I know she won’t answer—never when I’m sad or angry. Aftereverything we’ve been through, she can’t bear to feel the extreme emotions lacing our shared past.
One thing I am now certain of is that no one is coming to save me. The Goddess wanted the wolf to find me. Otherwise, she would’ve never let me sleep under her.Right?She would’ve made me leave.
I sang to her, and she listened. She gave me strength when I had none, when I only had fear.Is it my fate to fight this or surrender?Mother Goddess, do you want me to fight?I close my eyes and release my thoughts towards the stars.
Something reaches within my chest and pulls—well, that’s what it feels like—and my breath leaves my body in a shock wave.
What does that mean?I shout at the Goddess in my head.Are you the one constantly tugging at my chest as though an invisible rope is pulling me towards something?
My eyes open to the cage and the dark sky above. The expansive moon illuminates the sky, and the brightest twinkling stars surround it.We always loved to look at the night sky together.Until he took it away from me.
The thought of my father envelops me with a rage darker than I have ever experienced. If the psychopath hadn’t killed himself, I would have done it for him. Instead, all he left me with was serpent-green eyes and a fire scar running down my neck.
“Argh!” I bash the bars.
“Look, she speaks.” The voices following my procession cease, and I notice the villagers around me clearing the way for my unceremonious parade towards the king’s manor.
The temptation to scream reaches me, and I take a deep breath and let a crazed screech fly. The villagers gasp, hearing my gravelly voice. Itisn’t crisp or sweet, but I was never mute. That was just something the priestesses chose to believe when I never spoke after the incident, and I never swayed them otherwise. I don’t know why, really. At the time, it felt like an extra layer of protection—something I got to have all to myself when so many things had already been taken from me.
Now? Now, it feels like every part of me wants to scream with the pain of my existence, and everyone should be privy to it. I want to roar at the villagers who looked the other way when I needed them most. I want to bash at the cage like the animal they think I am. I want to scream.I am the animal of your creation.
Because that is what I am. An animal created by the negligence of this kingdom.Did humanity even exist in a place like this?
The cage jostles to a stop, and I notice villagers surrounding us on all sides. Castor and his horse rear up, startling the people in front, and I hear his laugh all the way back in my cage.
“Make way,” the wardens protest, and that’s when I finally see who they are trying to get past—people in rags, shivering, lying on the steps leading up towards the manor.
The manor steps are long. When I was younger, I used to think they were so long they could touch the Goddess herself. I often gazed at them from the high priestess’s quarters, but I could only see the top half of the staircase—the part beyond the gates that kept the villagers from reaching the precious king and his son.
Now, I see what is hidden below the gates. With this new acceptance, the Goddess’s song starts to burn a hole through my body.
Hundreds of people—elders, children, men and women—huddle together under blankets on the steps, faces dirty and eyes sunken.Are they displaced?The villagers never mentioned this in their weekly offerings to the Goddess.
None of this seems real. Food is scarce, but I didn’t know it was this dire within the village. I suspected but never heard definitively.
My fire burns bright as the injustice spurs me on to catch the eyes of all the people I pass. The wardens demand they make way and leave the steps, pushing and shoving the villagers to get their point across, which only stokes my fire brighter.How can they treat their own people this way?
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice someone—a very large someone—drop small pieces out of his pocket as he moves up the steps.
My cage begins its climb up the stairs. At the sight of children rushing for the small bits lying on the steps, my heart tears anew, latching onto the sullen face of a dirty-looking little boy, his hands greedily shoving the dropped treats in his mouth.
The wind whispers one word.“Sing.”
“What?” I question the air around me.“Sing, sing, sing”repeats.
I know only one song. A song meticulously researched and practised for a Goddess long remembered but ultimately forgotten.
I watch on as Castor and his guards push through the impoverished people before us. The beast lingers behind them, leaving a trail of food in his wake. Children clamber for any morsel they can scavenge, and I start to sing a song never celebrated by my people but now ingrained in my soul.
fifteen
Rivern
