The Sanctuary

CHAPTER ONE

The world, as I knew it, existed underground in a large maze of rooms and dungeons. The sun peaked through holes in the ground above us but most of our light came from torches. We had everything we needed to survive underground and more.

We called it, oh so eloquently, the Sanctuary. 

The outside world was a mysterious place, only heard about through drawings and stories. For the unlucky few, we also had our memories. Our home was the Farsay Kingdom, but our people wanted nothing to do with our kind. They would rather us dead - preferably, to never have even existed. It was a place I couldn’t wait to go back to; if nothing more than for retribution.

The Farsay Kingdom, the King and his soldiers; they knew of our existence, feared it even. We had survived their persecution and were now living just beyond their reach, in the seemingly impenetrable Briarwood Forest. We lived and we grew, right underneath their noses. It was a strange sort of victory, even though we had been forced into hiding. We rallied ourselves around the promise that one day, we would get our home back. One day, we would get our revenge.

 Living in the Sanctuary was like living in a parallel world. There were no parents; we had to learn how to protect ourselves. Called Forbiddens by others, Saiyarans by our own, we were a unit, a team of warriors. We were a family all on our own. 

My beginnings at the Sanctuary were not a unique story by any means.  I had been about seven or so when I was found. They called it the Forbidden Arrests. The soldiers had thrown me surreptitiously into the wagon, chaining me at the ankles and at the wrists, a strip of cloth around my mouth. They dragged my father out of my sight after beating him within an inch of his life. I had no idea where my father was or if he was even alive. 

What I did know, with ice-cold clarity, was that I was about to die.

The tears eventually dried out after hours in that wagon, bouncing painfully on the dirt road as the King’s soldiers took me closer and closer to my impending death. I had resigned myself to my fate, torturously reliving the memory of my father’s bloodied face, still looking at me with desperation, still concerned for me even as they beat him. It was enough to make me accept whatever they wanted to do to me, whatever punishment I deserved for living a life I did not ask permission for

It had happened so suddenly that I had barely any time to think. Hands clamped around my mouth and eyes. The chains slipped away from me and I was being pulled out into the open air, dragged away from the wagon. I had fought back, hard. The only thought in my mind was that finally, the moment had come where they were going to kill me. This was my last fight to take one of them down with me. 

I wanted to hurt the people who had hurt the only person I loved most in the world.

Yet instead, when the hand that blocked my vision was removed, all I saw was the small burning of a campfire. I opened my mouth to scream, but the sight was too curious for me to do so. There were at least fifteen people standing guard around the fire. Both men and women, they were dressed strangely in black clothing, making rather imposing figures as the shadows of the flames flickered across their impassive faces. An old woman sat next to the fire, stoking it with a long stick. Her grey hair stood out against the black night, reflecting like shiny rays of moonlight by the cinders shooting from the fire. 

The old woman motioned for me to sit down, and I did, quietly. I knew the moment I saw her; I had heard of this woman. My father had been searching for her ever since I was born. My father spoke to my mother about this woman, the one they refer to as Madame Widow, ever since I could remember. Madame Widow was an enigma; hunted by the fiercest warriors of the King’s Army, yet as elusive as a shadow. She could help, my father would say to my mother. She could give Alaya a safe place to live.

My mother would snort in response. A waste of time, she would say. You’re wasting your time with that pathetic thing. 

But here she was, in the living flesh. The famed woman my father had spent his entire life trying to find. A safe place, he had said. I hardly knew what safe meant anymore.   

Madame Widow had gazed at me critically and asked me sharply if I knew why I had been taken. I had said nothing, feeling overwhelmed. I did not know what to say. I could hardly explain it myself. 

Madame Widow nodded at the silence. It seemed as if no words were needed. 

From there, my life began in the Sanctuary. A sanctuary for people like me. A place where every single individual was only alive due to this one woman.

Madame Widow, our saviour.