Heart's Desire

Chapter 24

"People of this empire!" Odessa yelled as she dragged my father behind her.

His wrists were bound together and she was dragging the end of a long rope.

"I ask you to leave your houses, drop what you are doing, and listen to my words."

Everyone was opening their doors and watching her drag my father towards the Colosseum.

"Follow me to the Colosseum if you want to know the truth behind your Caesar. The truth he has been keeping from you for a long time now! Come, follow me if you are truth seekers."

The entire empire was following behind her now. Heading towards the Colosseum. The stage was still there, but the wooden poles and metal cuffs and chains were removed. She climbed onto the stage and dropped the rope. My father got up, but Odessa pushed him down onto his knees.

"You will kneel before me. Kneel before your champion!"

My father let out a sigh as he nodded his head, "I-I kneel before you, champion."

Now that everyone was filing into the Colosseum, Odessa started to circle around my father, like how he did with her.

"Feel familiar?" Odessa asked, looking up into the crowd. "Now you're in my shoes."

"I will never be in your shoes," my father snarled.

"People of the empire!" Odessa addressed them.

"Your Caesar has been nothing but a liar and a fraud! A man who is so cowardly that he'd do anything to prevent someone from taking power over him. Not just power from the throne and controlling the empire, but in terms of his control over situations. He, a friend of my father, who was nothing but a man who was trying to get by, thought he could dictate his life.

"When I was born, you all know why I had to keep it hidden. If I was anywhere else, I might have been killed. But my parents, my father, did not. My family loved me!" she pointed at her chest, her heart.

"And I love my family for sheltering me. For teaching me things when I was growing up. For telling me that I wasn't a monster or a brute for being the way that I was. That I was a gift. But your Caesar, my father's best friend, tried to get me killed. Tried to kill me when I was an infant because of the way that I am. You might have agreed with him. To get rid of any impure beings here within the empire, but we are not pure beings. We fought, slaughtered, and drenched in blood to get to where we are. I should know. I have seen things before becoming a gladiator. And they still haunt me.

"But what's worse, is how he treated his own family. He turned his back on his own wife and treated his kin with such disrespect! However, I've told my bit."

Odessa stepped aside and allowed me to speak.

"My father, who once was a great man, has fallen from that once high pedestal. He thought he could coarse me into a marriage where my husband would dictate who I could see and who I could converse with. He limited my freedom once he knew I wanted to be with Odessa. And he withheld information from not only me, but to all of you about me and my mother.

"Just as Odessa said, he's a coward. Constantly running from his problems rather than facing them head on. He did not show love or kindness. All he cared about was the legacy of this empire and if I were to provide an heir. Which doesn't even matter now," I turned and faced him. "Because I do not share any of his blood."

The crowd gasped and my mother stepped up.

"My daughter, the Caesar's claimed daughter, is not his by blood, but by will. I was taken advantage of by a drunk guard and he was able to impregnate me with Y/N. After he had found that out, he had killed the guard. Not only did he kill a guard, but a father, too. A father of a son who is a gladiator. And a father to a daughter he has no idea of.

"Once Y/N was born, I was removed from the palace and I was left to fend for myself, even during the time I was bearing her and after. My husband, who swore to look after me, turned his back when I needed him most, stating that I was not his problem since Y/N was not his child. But sure enough, he took her from me after she was born and raised her like she was his."

"The people of our great empire, the people of Rome, is this a Caesar you want in power?" Odessa asked.

The crowd was silent, too shocked to say anything. Odessa grabbed her axe that was nearby and circled around my father once more.

"Abuse of power, infanticide, and turning your back against the family you tried so hard to have. Even if Y/N isn't yours by blood, you could have helped her mother. But you chose not to because she's not yours."

"She is mine!" my father hissed. "Mine to control just like everyone else! And you will marry a man, Y/N! A man who can and will take over the empire!"

"I am no longer yours. I decide what I do. I am the daughter of the Caesar after all. And whoever I marry," I placed my hand on Odessa's back as she stood beside me. "Will be our Caesar."

"No! I forbid it!"

"Shut your mouth," Odessa said. "You have no power here. The council sentenced you to death and I will be overseeing it."

"And you wanted to make it a spectacle?"

"You did the same for me," she said, raising her axe to rest on her shoulder. "I'm just returning the favor. Any last words, oh once great Caesar?"

"You are the stain of the empire!" my father turned towards me. "You and your children will all be nothing but a stain in our history, forever tainting it!"

"I think the stain was you," Odessa raised her axe and chopped off my father's head.

His body fell onto the ground and his head landed onto the stage with a loud thunk. Odessa reached down and grabbed my father's head by the hair, lifting it up.

"Long live the Caesar," she said, dropping his head.

I reached over and grabbed her wrist, raising her hand in the air.

"Long live the Caesar!" I yelled.