Just as my father finished the story, describing how he’d strengthened the tigers he’d found, servants approached to taunt the tigers with bits of meat to show the crowd their raw power—how my father had taken them from docile beasts to trained monsters. But one of the servants got too close. Claws raked across his thigh. He went down, and there was nothing anyone could do to save him before the tiger pulled him closer and sunk its teeth into the man’s neck with a sickening crunch, staining its fur a shade of red that didn’t exist even when the setting sun hit the sand waves.

I had swallowed down a cry as my father laughed, spreading his arms wide and crying out for everyone to witness the power he controlled.

I hadn’t seen the tigers since that day. But I could still hear the scream of the servant as it gurgled to a stop.

That sound rushed through my ears as my footsteps clicked in hollow echoes, taking me closer and closer to the beasts and my waiting father. The weight of the ceiling pressed down around me. Dim hallways flickered with the weak light cast from torches situated at even intervals. But they were too far apart. Stretches of darkness waited between them. As a child, I’d always thought tigers were hiding in those shadows.

I paused at the door that led to the cage.

The last time I’d been down here was just after my mother had been killed nearly ten years ago. I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t keep the memory from surfacing.

I’d trembled back then as I’d walked behind my father’s large form. I wanted to reach for his hand, but I held back.

Claw marks ran down the long chamber housing the tigers. Each beast had a chain around its neck and was kept just far enough from the other that it couldn’t swipe it with its claws. That didn’t stop them from trying.

The moist room had reeked of feces and wet hair. I could barely stand it.

When the tigers saw my father and my small form walk in all those years ago, they threw themselves at the bars separating their chamber from the narrow walkway in front. Claws screeched down metal. Whiskers were thrown back to release hisses toward us. Sharp teeth longer than my bony fingers gleamed.

Their orange hue was muted with only the light of two torches illuminating them, but it made their eyes come alive. Deep oranges and reds burned when they stalked back and forth just behind the bars. But instead of a reflection of the flames, it appeared their pupils contained fire coming from inside—a rage that burned for anyone who dared keep them caged.

The shadows they cast seemed to grow higher and higher along the wall behind them until I thought they would slip through the bars and drag me closer to them.

I’d plastered myself against the wall. To get my mind off the tigers, to remind myself that my father did control them, I ran my finger along the small keyhole in the wall, to which my father had the only key. Not only did it open the cage, it activated a mechanism that pulled back the chains secured around the tigers’ necks, allowing the handlers to go in and collect them for the arena.