Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
You don't want to be a half-blood.
If you're reading this because you think you may be one, my advice would be: read fast. You may not have much time.
When your family tells you the story of where you came from, who your parents are, and who you are, and it seems too simple to be true? It usually is. People are complex. Emotions are complex. Families are complex.
But you already knew that.
Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Nine times out of ten, you’re killed for it. Sometimes monsters, sometimes people who think you’re the monster. Sometimes you, assuming that you’ll power through it until all you can see is red, and I’m not just talking about blood. Yes, we have them too. No, we aren’t ashamed of them.
If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, read on. Knowledge is useful for survival. Consider this a field manual in how to interact with Roman demigods without anybody ending up dead. Yes. Dead.
Just remember, when you encounter terms you don’t understand, that you aren’t stupid, just reading ahead.
But if you recognize yourself in these pages, if you feel something stirring inside, then read and run. Your instincts will show you where to go as long as you pay close attention to them. The roads of Rome will do the rest. We’ve been building with people like you in mind for longer than your country has been a country. Let the same senses that invade you without warning take you home. Let the routine of the road remind you who the roads were built to service. Leave your mask at the roadside. You won’t need it where you’re going.
The monsters are many and relentless. Trying to pretend to be normal is just carrying extra weight.
Eventually you will find yourself faced with the same choice, whether you run from your blood or take it for yourself at the Wolf House: Predator, or prey.
Conquer, or die. That is the Roman way.
Many do not survive the Wolf House. They show weakness or they show fear or they shun rules. If you are a Roman, though, you will find the Wolf House is the price you pay for a family the mortal world could never have offered you.
After all…
…making friends is hard for people like us.
If you’re anything like me, though, you think you can take it. You think yourself strong, or fast, or terribly clever. You think that as long as you follow all the rules, nothing will go wrong. You think as long as you keep everyone happy, they will like you. You think as long as you never try to break the mold, the mold will keep you safe. Wrong on all three counts, as I found out the hard way.
The monsters pursuing you have been hunting the best of your kind for a hundred generations. If you find a move they don’t have a way to counter, they will make one.
It’s not hopeless though. You have strengths you don’t see yet. You see the world as it really is. A complex network of ideas and variables constantly shifting in real time, and you are beginning to see past it. You didn’t come pre-installed with the social starter pack, because when you’re facing monsters, it’s just bloat. Monsters don’t care about being polite unless they are trying to lead you somewhere you won’t make noise.
In Roman terms: You aren’t broken, you’re just in the wrong branch. It isn’t your fault you were surrounded by people who sort the world into black and white and then complain that you are the one who can’t read between the lines.
The social script you were taught says people should introduce themselves. Let’s do that now.
My name is Jason Grace.
Rank: Legionnaire.
Cohort: Fifth.
Cursus Honorum: Probatio, one year. Legionnaire, seven years.
If none of that makes sense to you, don’t worry. You’ll be fluent in our little language soon enough.
Next step is background, so I’ll lead.
Am I a troubled kid?
Yes, you could say that.
My mother was an attention-obsessed movie star rotating between addictions to make lightning strike twice. Larger stunts, bigger shows, bigger risks.
At the age of two—my age, not hers—she abandoned me to die at the Wolf House, and I was taken in by wolves. Lupa gave me the choice: Predator or prey.
Predator seemed the less scary of the two options. It wasn’t. I watched friends old enough to be your peers fall into a short slumber only to be forced into an eternal one because they showed weakness—and there can be no weakness in the wolf pack.
Three years later, I enlisted in the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. I was not old enough to comprehend what enlistment meant. I spent my grade school years learning mathematica, scientia, historia, and Latinus. My extra-curricular activities included: Trench digging; sword fighting; attack formations; chain of command; distinguishing orders; wearing and maintaining proper bronze battle armor; survival training; religious rites.
If you are feeling inclined to run for the hills, proverbially speaking, I neither blame you nor believe that will work. Running solves nothing. Running leaves you vulnerable. Running leaves you weak.
The only difference between a fighter and a runner is one sees the monster on their doorstep and has trained hard and slow to kill it, the other has not and is instead torn to pieces.
The only way to thrive when you are a Roman demigod or legacy is by fighting. If you still insist on calling my bluff, though, then let me show you what happens when you try running instead.