Cradle of Thorns and Roses

Prologue

"They called it a curse. I called it proof I survived."

- Leonidas

They say you can see a person's soul through their eyes.

If that's true, then mine must look like a cracked window.

Blue - too blue, people say.
Vibrant, electric, ringed with darkness.
A color that doesn't belong to someone like me.

I've spent most of my life trying to keep them hidden.
Eyes down, hoodie up, hair long enough to fall into my face.
If you can't see me, you can't hurt me.
At least, that's what I used to believe.

My name is Leonidas.

I'm fifteen.

And right now, I'm counting the seconds until my stepfather comes home.

The apartment smells like cheap cigarettes and something sour that clings to the peeling wallpaper.

Outside, the city keeps breathing - horns, voices, life that feels so far away it might as well be on another planet.

Inside, it's quiet.

Quiet is worse.

Quiet means they're gone just long enough to come back angry.

My mother hates my eyes.

She says they look like the man who ruined her life.
The man whose name I don't know.
The man who gave me skin so pale I burn in the sun and lashes too long for a boy.

She says it's my fault she wakes up screaming.

She says it's my fault she drinks until she forgets.

My stepfather doesn't bother with words.

His love is fists and the heavy silence afterward.

Most days I survive by shrinking.

By folding myself small.

But even small things break.

Sometimes, late at night, I press my palm to the mirror.

And I whisper the question I never say out loud:

"Why me?"

No answer ever comes.

Just my reflection staring back - hollow-eyed, lips cracked, skin ghost-pale under streetlight glow.

I used to dream about running away.

I'd lie awake, staring at the ceiling, and picture a place where no one knew my name.

Somewhere warm.
Somewhere quiet.
Somewhere I didn't have to flinch at footsteps in the hall.

But dreams don't keep you alive.

And hope?
Hope makes the punches land harder.

Then the night came when the shouting stopped too soon.

Two bodies on the floor.
Empty bottles rolling across stained carpet.

The smell of vomit, sweat, something sweeter that curdled my stomach.

My mother's chest didn't rise.

Neither did his.

For a second, I thought maybe it was a trick.

That any moment now, the door would slam and the cycle would start again.

But the apartment stayed silent.

Too silent.

I don't remember picking up the phone.

Or my voice, cracked and low, telling the operator,

"They're not breathing."

I do remember the woman's voice on the other end, calm and steady,

"Help is on the way. Stay with me, sweetheart."

No one's ever called me sweetheart before.

They came. Lights flashing red and blue against the walls I hated.

They took the bodies away in zipped bags.

They asked me questions I barely heard.

They looked at me like they were waiting for me to cry.

I didn't.

Not because I didn't feel anything - but because there was nothing left to feel.

Then they took me somewhere else.

A white room that smelled like disinfectant.

A woman with soft eyes and too-bright clothes sat across from me.

"Leonidas," she said, voice careful, like I might break.
"We found something."

I didn't answer.

"Your father," she continued, "your biological father... he's alive. And he's been looking for you."

Alive.

Looking.

Words that didn't fit into the shape of my life.

"He thought you were gone," she said. "He never stopped hoping."

For the first time in years, hope burned in my chest.

Small.

Fierce.

Dangerous.

They told me his name.

Told me I had brothers.

Cousins.

A family with a name that sounded like history and old blood - Greek and Italian tangled together.

I didn't know them.

They didn't know me.

All they knew was the boy with broken bones and too-blue eyes was theirs.

I don't know what waits for me on the other side of this door.

A mansion, maybe.

A stranger who shares my blood.

Men who might call me brother.

But as I sit here, heart pounding too fast, knuckles white against the chair -

One thought keeps beating louder than fear:

Maybe... finally... I'm going home.