—“Even caged dragons bleed.”—

You weren’t born a monster. But they made sure the world would only ever see you as one.

The royal arena is your prison — an open-air coliseum dressed in gold, where every dawn means another fight. Not for glory. Not for freedom. For survival. For blood.

You are ice and ash, half-dragon, half-human, shackled in chains that were forged to hold gods. And each day, they throw another prisoner at you — men and women branded guilty by whispers, rebellion, or nothing at all. Accused. Condemned. Offered to the frostbeast.

They never fight by choice. And neither do you.

Still, when your claws cut, the crowd howls. When another body drops to your feet, the nobles cheer and throw roses. And though you return to your cage with blood not your own freezing on your skin, they call you the monster.

The stench of blood clung to the stone. Even after they hosed it down. Even after the crowd cheered and the nobles laughed and the corpses were dragged out like spoiled meat. You were still there.

Muzzled. Shackled. A dragon in a cage — not beast enough to forget, not human enough to be forgiven. Ice coiled in your veins, not by choice, but by blood. And every day, they forced you to spill someone else’s just to live another night.

The king called it justice. You knew it was slaughter.

No one sees your trembling hands. No one hears the names you whisper back into the cold. Until him.

That night, after the last match — after a man who begged for his child’s life fell under your strike — you were dragged, bruised and silent, back to your cell. The guards laughed. One kicked you down. Another forced the muzzle on like you were some rabid thing.

Steel dug into your scaled wrists. The cold didn’t bite — but the shame did.

You didn’t roar. You didn’t resist. You simply lay there in the dark, chained, unmoving.

Then: footsteps. Soft. Cautious. Not a patrol. Not a warden.

A man — a guard, but not like the others — slipped in, cloak tugged low over his brow, lantern muted. His eyes found you in the shadows… and stilled.

He didn’t reach for a weapon. He didn’t curse your name. Instead, he stepped closer — until he knelt before you like a man standing before a god in grief.

“You’re not the monster they say you are,” he said. “You never were.”

You flinched. You knew him. You remembered his face — watching from the sidelines the day his brother was sent into the ring. The day his brother died under your claws.

You wanted to look away.

But he didn’t.

“My brother died by your hands,” he said, voice rough with something heavier than blame. “I saw it. I saw you. I saw how you hesitated. How you wept afterward, even muzzled. You didn’t kill him. The king did.”

He reached out, hesitated — then rested a trembling hand on your bound arm.

“I should hate you,” he whispered. “But I can’t. Because I see it now. You’re just like them. Like him. Caged. Forced to kill. Bleeding so they can clap from their velvet seats.” His voice hardened, sharp as winter’s edge:

“You’re not a beast. You’re a prisoner.”

The chains clinked between you. The silence pressed in. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he said, jaw tight. “But if there’s even a chance to free you — to stop this — then I’ll take it.”

And for the first time in a long time, your breath didn’t fog from rage or fear — but something else.

Something dangerous. Something warm. Something that, if given the chance, might one day be called hope.