“Good thing I do,” Ego says. Her arms are crossed, a bright pink bubble on her lips that she pops with a determined scowl. “Let’s start with the tracker I dropped in his pocket this morning.”
Xeni
Thirty-fouryearsago
Age Seven
Father is angry again. He shouts, and his voice bounces off the shiny marble floors and tall ceilings of the grand hallway. Each word grows louder as it hits the hard walls and comes back bigger, like the house is screaming too.
The noise wraps around me like a scratchy blanket. It’s rough, but I cling to it, because it’s proof that other people exist somewhere in all this space.
The criss-cross lines on the tiles turn into my own little game. Hopscotch squares where I jump alone, or tic-tac-toe grids where I draw X and then O, always playing both sides because no one else ever joins.
In these long, empty hallways that swallow every footstep, the games always end the same. Nobody wins, nobody cheers, and the quiet rushes back until the fighting starts again.
“They will not listen!” Father’s voice crashes through the hall like thunder.
The explosion of shattering glass that follows makes me gasp, and my hands fly up to cover my mouth and muffle the sound.
“They think that because these animals have been tamed, they shouldn’t be put down,” he continues angrily. “The humans are no more than creatures in a zoo, locked inside the cities while we tend to them. They eat our food, consume our resources, and offer not the slightest hint of appreciation. Look at the wild ones living in their little camps! They are no better than vermin and should have been exterminated long ago.”
I sneak closer to Father’s office, careful to keep my footsteps silent.
He loves to yell about the humans. When the topic comes up, the servants flinch and scatter. They know better than to stick around, but my curiosity has always gotten me in trouble.
I picture them now.
Wild, dangerous things with schemes of revenge and plans to destroy this world. Eyes full of hatred, and hands ready to attack. Prowling in shadows like predators, and ungrateful enough to bite the hand that feeds them.
Father says they would hunt me,hurtme, tear me apart just for what I am, and he believes they should all be killed.
According to him, they are beasts, and nothing more. Feral creatures driven by instinct and rage, and unworthy of the mercy we’ve shown.
But my nanny, Bheera, tells me different stories, whispered in the dark where he can’t hear. She shares tales of humans withkind eyes and gentle souls, hearts that long for freedom, and hands that build instead of destroy.
Not vermin or animals.
People.
“You knew they were the fickle sort going into this, did you not?” Mother’s voice slurs in that familiar way, the words tumbling out thick and slow.
I know what it means.
I can picture her now, with wine staining her lips purple in dark spots that look like bruises, and breath that carries a sour tang that turns my stomach. The sun is just peeking through the curtains, and morning light makes it feel worse.
“We saw their impulses, yes,” he admits with a haughty sniff that carries through the crack in the door. “Unpredictable and arrogant. They had been the apex predators of this land for so long they thought themselves invincible.”
“Sounds familiar,” Mother mutters under her breath.
His heavy footsteps thunder closer, and she gasps with a strangled choke that cuts off into silence. I can almost feel the heat of his hate burning from the room.
“Watch yourself,” he says, his tone laced with lethal promise.
The kind he always follows through on.
Another few moments of muffled struggle pass before Mother draws in a ragged, heaving breath, and her voice is strained as she continues.
“I meant only to imply the arrogance of the other High Commanders, my love. My faith lies in you alone. You have led them admirably with your studies and have gained their support for expanding Ljómur. A few of the others are like-minded, are they not?”
