Mother sat me down after the man had departed.
For a long while, she said nothing.
She merely watched me, her fingers folded in her lap, as though she were searching for the right words in a language she had long ago forgotten how to speak.
"Have you ever wondered why we live so far from the capital?" she finally asked. "Why we hide beyond the reach of the Colossals' eyes? Why I have never spoken of your father?"
I nodded.
"It is because of you, my son."
Her voice trembled ever so slightly.
"Because the moment you were born, the world decided you were something it could not accept."
I lowered my gaze.
I had always known I was different. I had known it in my heart that I wasn't similar to the colossals I had met, but I just didn't want to believe it.
I had never understood that the world had been hiding from me just as much as I had been hiding from it.
I was different from the moment I drew my first breath.
Smaller than even the weakest Colossal newborn, my existence was an affront to everything my people believed about themselves. In a civilization where strength was worshipped as divine law, where size commanded respect and power determined a creature's worth, there was no place for someone...something like me.
Something that barely resembled the race into which he had been born.
Something that should not have existed.
Even my lack of a name was a reminder of my rejection.
Among the Colossals, it was the father's right to name his child at birth. A name was more than a word. It was an acknowledgment of blood, an inheritance, a declaration to the world that the child belonged.
My own father had given me none.
He had looked upon me and found nothing worth naming.
A freak.
Not a true Colossal, not a creature they could understand. Just a fraction of something greater, a mistake born into a bloodline that stood above all others.
Mother reached for my hand.
"It's all right to be different," she whispered. "Different doesn't mean wrong."
She offered me a gentle smile, the kind she always wore when she wanted me to believe that everything would somehow be all right.
I knew she meant well.
I knew she was trying to make the world seem less cruel than it was. She wanted me to understand that there was nothing shameful about being myself, that my worth was not determined by the size of my body or the strength of my blood.
But somehow, her words only made the ache inside my chest grow heavier.
Because I didn't want to be told that it was all right to be different.
I wanted to know why being different had to hurt so much.
Why I had to feel like an outsider in a world where everyone else seemed to belong without even trying.
Why the simple act of existing could make them look at me as though I had committed some unforgivable sin.
I wanted to believe her.
God, I really did.
Once you've convinced yourself that you're the problem, no amount of kindness can undo the verdict your mind has already reached.
So I smiled.
I forced the corners of my mouth upward and pretended her words had reached somewhere deep inside me, somewhere untouched by the cruelty of the world.
I did not want Mother to see how much I hurt.
She had already given up so much for me.
I could not bear to make her carry that, too.
My father was no ordinary man.
He was Titus, Emperor of the Colossals, the greatest warrior of his age.
His name had been carved into the annals of history, immortalized in the very books I had grown up reading. Songs had been sung in his honor. Tales of his victories had passed from one generation to the next, growing grander with every telling.
To the world, he was a legend.
To me, he had been a hero.
I had spent countless nights beneath the roof of our little home, listening to Mother read stories of the mighty Emperor Titus. I had imagined the sound of his voice, the weight of his footsteps, the splendour of his palace. I had imagined what it would feel like to stand before him, to look up at the man whose blood ran through my veins.
Perhaps he would smile at me.
Perhaps he would place a hand upon my head and tell me that I had nothing to fear.
Perhaps he would look at me and see his son.
Never once had I imagined that the man I admired was the same man who had abandoned me.
And yet, even after learning the truth, I could not bring myself to hate him.
Perhaps that was the cruelty of being a child. No matter how much someone hurt you, some foolish part of your heart continued to wait for them to love you.
Now, after all these years, he had summoned us to his palace.
Perhaps guilt had finally taken root in his heart.
Perhaps the mighty Emperor had finally remembered that somewhere beyond his golden walls, he had left behind a son.
Or perhaps I was simply desperate enough to believe that even a man worshipped as a god might possess the heart of a father.
I would soon discover how little I understood the man behind the legend.
The days slipped away, and before we knew it, autumn had descended upon the woods.
Gold and crimson leaves drifted from the trees, carried upon the breath of a cold northern wind. The branches that had sheltered me since birth swayed beneath the fading sunlight, their familiar silhouettes stretching across the forest floor.
The woods seemed different now.
Quieter.
As though the trees themselves knew we were leaving.
As though the home that had hidden me from the world was preparing to surrender me to it.
It was time.
Titus's servants gathered our belongings and loaded them onto a magnificent carriage.
I had never seen anything so extravagant.
Its body was sheathed in brilliant gold leaf that caught the midday sun and scattered its radiance across the surrounding woodland. Atop its roof rested a massive, intricately sculpted sovereign crown, flanked by flowing gilded banners bearing the insignia of the Empire.
Every beam, every panel, every wheel spoke was adorned with elaborate Neo-Renaissance carvings of twisting vines.
The driver's box was draped in rich crimson velvet, its edges trimmed with heavy golden fringe. The towering sunburst wheels gleamed as though they had been fashioned from the rays of the sun itself.
It did not look like a carriage.
It looked like a fragment of the Imperial Palace had been torn from its foundations and brought to our humble doorstep.
And before it stood its steeds.
Two magnificent Pegasi, their powerful bodies gleaming beneath coats as pale as moonlight upon silver waters. Bronze straps and golden buckles adorned their harnesses, while enormous feathered wings rested against their flanks, each feather shimmering with an ethereal radiance.
I stared at them, unable to speak.
I had seen a horse before, of course.
But never creatures like these.
Their eyes shone with an intelligence that seemed almost human, and their great wings stirred the fallen leaves whenever they shifted their weight.
They looked less like animals and more like messengers sent from the heavens.
"Are they really going to carry us?" I asked.
One of the servants smiled faintly.
"They shall carry you wherever His Majesty commands, young master."
Young master.
The words sounded strange.
I looked at him, wondering how much he knew about me. Whether he understood that the child standing before him was the very one the Empire had spent years pretending did not exist.
Before I could ask anything more, the servants took their positions.
At a sharp command, the Pegasi surged forward.
Their hooves struck the earth with thunderous force, scattering leaves and sending a tremor through the ground. The golden carriage rattled behind them as they gathered speed, their wings unfurling in a magnificent sweep.
Then the impossible happened.
The wheels left the earth.
My stomach lurched as the carriage rose into the sky.
For one terrifying instant, I grabbed the edge of my seat, convinced we were about to tumble back into the forest.
But the Pegasi beat their wings again.
Higher we climbed.
Higher still.
Below us, the forest began to shrink. The towering trees became golden specks scattered across an endless sea of crimson and amber. Rivers that had once seemed vast enough to divide the world dwindled into silver threads, winding through the land like veins beneath the skin of a sleeping giant.
The wind rushed against my face, carrying the scent of autumn leaves and the distant promise of a world I had never known.
Clouds drifted past the windows.
The sunlight spilled across the carriage, painting everything in shades of gold.
And for the first time in my life, the sky was no longer something I gazed upon from beneath the branches.
I was among the heavens.
"Mother!"
I scrambled toward the window, my eyes wide with disbelief.
"Mother, look!"
I pointed frantically at the clouds as though she might somehow have missed the miracle unfolding around us.
"We're flying! We're truly flying!"
Mother turned toward me.
And she smiled.
It was a small smile, gentle and warm, but for a moment, it seemed to soften the entire world.
She nodded, her eyes reflecting the pale sunlight spilling across the heavens.
Yet, as I marveled at the clouds drifting beneath our feet, I failed to notice the way her gaze lingered upon me.
She watched my face brighten with wonder.
Watched the wind play with my hair.
Watched me laugh as though the world had never given me a reason to cry.
Perhaps, in that moment, she was memorizing me.
Perhaps she knew that the days ahead would demand more of us than either of us could yet understand.
Or perhaps a mother's heart can sense the shape of a coming storm long before the first thunder rolls across the sky.
Her hand found mine.
Her fingers slipped between my own, warm and familiar against the cold autumn wind. Then she drew me closer, wrapping her arm around my shoulders as though no matter how high we soared, no matter how far we travelled from the only home I had ever known, she could still shield me from the cruelties of the world.
I leaned against her and rested my head upon her chest.
Her heartbeat was steady.
Familiar.
The forest was disappearing behind us.
But Mother was still here.
And to a child who had known no other home, that was enough.
For as long as her hand held mine, I believed there was nowhere in all the heavens or upon the earth where I could ever be truly lost.
I did not know then how fragile that belief was.
I did not know how quickly the world could turn a moment of happiness into a memory one would spend a lifetime trying to reclaim.
I knew only that I was flying.
That Mother was beside me.
And that somewhere beyond the clouds lay the home of the man I had spent my entire life dreaming of meeting.
The capital appeared upon the horizon.
At first, it was little more than a dark silhouette against the afternoon sun. Then the Pegasi carried us closer, and its true magnificence unfolded before my eyes.
Enormous walls encircled the city, their foundations carved from pale stone and their battlements rising so high they seemed capable of keeping out the heavens themselves.
Beyond them lay a civilization unlike anything I had ever imagined.
Colossals moved through the streets in endless streams, their enormous figures casting long shadows across the avenues. Their voices carried between buildings like distant thunder, while the ground trembled faintly beneath the weight of passing carts and marching soldiers.
Even the children playing in the streets were larger than I was.
From our height, they resembled busy ants crawling through a civilization built for gods.
I pressed my face against the glass.
Marble monuments towered above the streets, depicting ancient rulers, legendary warriors, and mythical beasts whose names had survived the rise and fall of kingdoms. Magnificent temples stood among gleaming palaces, their golden roofs catching the afternoon sunlight until the entire city seemed to burn with a divine radiance.
Colossal statues guarded the great avenues.
Their stone faces stared eternally toward the horizon, their weapons raised against enemies long since swallowed by history.
Everywhere I looked, there was evidence of power.
Everywhere I looked, there was evidence of greatness.
And then I saw it.
At first, I thought my eyes were deceiving me.
Beyond the city, suspended between the heavens and the earth, floated an enormous kingdom of marble and gold.
I forgot to breathe.
Its foundations rested upon nothing.
Countless towers rose from its magnificent terraces, piercing the clouds like spears thrust toward the domain of the gods. Golden domes crowned its highest spires, while enormous bridges stretched from its outer walls toward the surrounding mountain peaks.
Beneath it, colossal cliffs rose from the mountains, their jagged faces blanketed in emerald forests. Waterfalls spilled from their heights, cascading into the mist below like rivers descending from the heavens.
The palace cast an immense shadow across the landscape.
Its walls gleamed beneath the sun. Its towers seemed to stretch endlessly upward, each more magnificent than the last, until the highest spires vanished into the clouds.
It was a kingdom that belonged neither to the earth nor to the heavens.
It belonged somewhere in between.
A place where mortal ambition had dared to challenge the laws of nature.
A monument to a civilization that did not merely wish to rule the world.
It wished to stand above it.
I had read about the wonders of the Colossal Empire. I had heard stories of its rulers, its warriors, and its ancient conquests.
But no story had prepared me for this.
No words could have.
For the first time, I began to understand why the world bowed before the Colossals.
And for the first time, I wondered what sort of man could rule a kingdom such as this.
What sort of man could command a civilization capable of building a palace in the sky?
What sort of man could possess such power and still find no place in his heart for his own son?
The Pegasi beat their wings, banking toward the floating palace.
The city passed beneath us as we climbed toward the mountain heights. Mist curled around the bridges, and sunlight shimmered across the waterfalls. The palace grew larger with every passing moment until its outer walls seemed to stretch beyond the limits of my vision.
At last, the Pegasi began their descent.
Their wings beat once.
Twice.
The carriage sank through the cool mountain air before the great steeds folded their wings against their bodies.
Their hooves touched the ground.
The carriage wheels followed, rolling forward with a deep, resonant clatter before finally coming to a halt.
For a moment, I remained motionless.
I spent my entire life reading about all this in the pages of books.
Now, for the first time, I stood beneath it.
And somewhere beyond those golden doors, the man himself was waiting.
My father.
The hero I had loved before I knew he was the villain of my story.