I woke up to screaming.
Not just one voice—dozens. High, broken, ragged. Screams that didn't stop until they cracked into sobs, then started again when the iron hissed.
The smell hit me next. Burned flesh. Piss. Blood.
I pushed myself up and saw her.
A girl I knew. Alyssa. From my math class.
She was naked on a stone slab, arms chained, legs spread wide while a handler pressed a glowing brander into the soft skin just above her cunt. The sound was wet, like fat hitting a pan. She thrashed, piss spraying across her thighs, pooling under her ass.
The handler didn't blink. He spat on the brand to cool it, then jammed it in again. The collar on her neck flared red, forcing her body to lock still while she screamed.
"Shut it, bitch. Speak the language of the kingdom."
Her words—begging, sobbing—came out like nonsense. Gibberish. They didn't understand her. None of them ever would even if they gained the opportunity.
We could understand them. Every order. Every insult. Every slur. But when we tried to answer, it came out like gibberish.
Another handler walked past my cage, dragging Derek by the hair. His face was swollen, one eye shut, cock hanging limp while blood leaked down his thighs. A group of women in fine dresses followed behind, laughing.
"Another rutting dog. Pathetic Lesser Blood."
They shoved him into a pen with three more boys I recognized from the reunion. All naked. All collared. One of the women yanked a boy's dick through the bars and stroked it hard while he cried, She slapped his face when he tried to speak.
"Gibberish again. Speak the kingdom tongue, dog."
The cages were full. All of them.
Everywhere I looked—my classmates.
The girl who sat behind me in chemistry, gagging on a guard's cock while he branded her ass. The kid from gym class, forced on his knees, used by laughing civilians. The girl who used to sneak out from class during lunch, chained with her face in the dirt while two handlers debated if she was "worth breeding" or just "good for use."
The branding pit never stopped. Red irons in a pile, glowing bright. One handler worked, pressing them into wombs, leaving the guild's mark in seared flesh. Every time the brand touched skin, a collar flared red, binding another classmate as property. Girls pissed themselves from the pain. Boys screamed until their voices cracked.
"Whore."
"Slut."
"Crying bitch."
"Fucking animals can't even speak right."
The words echoed over and over.
Meals came in troughs of slop. We were forced to crawl and lap it up like dogs. Piss and shit ran in trenches between the cages. The handlers joked about it, said the Lesser Blood were "watering the floors."
At night, the soldiers came. They walked the rows with coins in their hands, picking whichever girl or boy they wanted. Some came back after. Some didn't. The ones that did were broken.
I sat in my cage, wrists chained, the insect sigil glowing faint on my hand.