Part 1 – Before
Twenty years prior
The air inside the Karras home turned suffocating as soon as I scrawled my signature on the line, on the contract that bound me to a future no boy would choose for himself. Just like my father, Origen Karras had built his empire on lies and suffering, on business arrangements, and on the arrogance of a figurehead who sat behind a desk, striving to unite the six families for his own selfish greed.
Anyone could see it if they merely looked hard enough, seeing past the proper veneer of the image he tried to present. Glimpsing the monster residing beneath his skin.
I stumbled out the back door of the house, my lungs heaving with the ridiculousness of it all. The arranged marriage that loomed on the distant horizon, to a tiny slip of a girl I’d only seen in passing, sent me spiraling out of the stuffy estate and seeking fresh air.
The girl was five years old, far too young to already have which monster would share her bed when she was old enough to breed contemplated, yet that was precisely what a group of grown men had chosen to do on a sunny spring afternoon.
At thirteen, I’d already lost my virginity and appreciated what girls my own age could do with their changing bodies. The thought of that with a girl less than half my age made my skin crawl.
I leaned against the railing at the edge of the elaborate wood deck, my eyes catching on the bright green blades of grass that had only sprouted from the frozen ground weeks prior. As my gaze dragged up to the expanse of yard at the back of the estate, my focus narrowed on the form of a young girl twirling between the beds of narcissus that her mother must have been fond of to have so much growing on the property.
She looked at me, a smile on her heart-shaped face as she spun, completely oblivious to the contract that had been signed only moments before. The ink of my name probably hadn’t even dried on the page yet, as our fathers and her brother toasted to the agreement.
To cementing the alliance between our families despite her mother’s obvious desire to stall it. But there was no stopping tradition and there would be nothing to save little Thalia from becoming mine after she became a woman.
As a kindness to her mother, they’d agreed Thalia didn’t need to know until she was old enough to understand. She could have her childhood and enjoy the promise of freedom when she would come of age.
Even if it was a lie.
My legs guided me toward her, closing the distance between us even though I knew I should stay away. To get close to her and never tell her the truth of what was to come felt like a cruelty she didn’t deserve, and nothing of the five-year-old girl would last until our marriage. She’d be a new person by the time she became mine.
Our lives dictated that.
She continued spinning until dizziness overtook her, falling to her back in the grass and staining her yellow sundress. My mother would have disapproved greatly, because young ladies should always present themselves properly, not be stained with grass after rolling in the dirt.
She stared up at the sky, sun sparkling off the unique amber of her eyes, completely oblivious to my approach. ‘Shouldn’t you be inside?’ I asked, stuffing my hands into the pockets of the suit pants my father made me wear.
Already a man in his mind, ready to take the city by storm, I was no longer a boy.
She startled, pressing a hand to her chest as she flung herself up to sitting, and that distinctive stare landed on mine. Fixating on something on my face, she squinted as she tilted her head to the side. ‘Why?’ She rolled her eyes and shrugged, dropping back to the grass, as if she couldn’t be bothered to concern herself with what the adults might be doing inside.
Despite my better instincts, I moved closer and risked my mother’s wrath to sit on the ground next to her. Kicking my legs out in front of me and feeling strangely awkward, I picked at the blades of grass beneath my hands. ‘That’s a good question,’ I admitted and huffed a laugh.
‘Being inside is so boring. Out here, I don’t have to be so quiet.’ Her face pinched, not quite pretty enough to be adorable. Her eyes were too big for her face, her lips puffy, and her ears had an odd sort of point at the top like she was something straight from a fantasy book. Her face was intriguing, her features bright as she turned a smile my way, but between her odd face and undersized frame, no one would ever call Thalia Karras pretty.
Perhaps that would change by the time we married.
I swallowed back the despair that tried to settle over me, knowing the future waiting for us wasn’t one either of us would have chosen for ourselves, yet trapped by the forces working to drive us together.
‘What do you like to do?’ I asked, thinking maybe I could send her gifts. Get to know her a little, bit by bit, without ever truly being a part of her life. Just enough so it wouldn’t seem so agonizingly painful when the contract came due and her life became mine.
‘Draw, but Daddy doesn’t like it. I like to draw flowers, but the colors are always wrong, and—’ She cut off suddenly as if she’d realized she’d said something she shouldn’t. With a swallow, she sat up, curling her arms around herself protectively.
‘You’re five. Flowers can be any color you want,’ I said, in an attempt to comfort whatever nervousness had settled over her.
‘Can they be black and white?’ she asked, her eyes turning hopeful as she pinned me with that wide-eyed stare.
‘Wouldn’t you rather they be pink?’ I asked, furrowing my brow. What little girl painted black flowers?
The hope faded from her eyes as she pushed herself to standing once more, leaving me staring after her from the ground. ‘I have to go.’
I moved to follow, taking up a slow walk at her side as her little legs worked to make her way back to the house. She was so painfully thin that it seemed as if each step required too much energy. Still, there was a stern determination on her face that didn’t belong on anyone her age.
As if she had to do it for herself, or the consequences would be dire. ‘What color flowers do you like best?’ I asked, resolving to send her some that she could draw.
She paused, her steps halting as she hit me with a concerned stare. ‘I’m not supposed to talk about it,’ she said, biting that too-large bottom lip and staring nervously toward the house. Her eyes darted from window to window, swallowing when she found no one watching us.
‘About your favorite color flower?’ I asked, grinning down at her in my confusion. She was such an odd child, and if her parents truly forbid her from talking about the flowers, then I couldn’t imagine what kind of life she had with them.
‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I can’t see them.’ She picked up her steps, quickening her pace as her lungs heaved with exertion. I was half tempted to lift her into my arms, knowing she couldn’t weigh much.
‘Flowers?’ I asked, laughing at the ridiculousness of the notion. I’d only just seen her twirling in the fields surrounded by narcissus and never harming a single flower.
‘Colors,’ she whispered as she reached the back door, taking the handle in her grip. She turned back to me, her eyes silently pleading for me to keep her secret. Whatever she saw on my face must have reassured her, because she nodded once and pursed her lips thoughtfully.
Looking far too old for her size and age, she turned the handle and swept into the house. She was gone by the time I followed, disappearing like a ghost in the wind.
Like she’d never been meant to exist at all.
