*The House of Thorns*
The house sat crooked on a hill swallowed by mist, as if the earth itself wanted to spit it out. It wasn't a home—it was a prison disguised in rotting wood, sagging rooftops, and walls lined with strange, blood-tinted runes. No birds ever perched on its gutters. No wind dared whistle past its windows. Only silence—and the distant sound of weeping—lingered in the air.
It was here, in this *house of shadows*, that three children were raised—not with love, but with hatred.
*She starved them.* Days turned into weeks where their ribs pressed like fingers through their skin, and their mouths grew dry from licking stone for moisture.
*She beat them.* With iron rods heated by fire. With her bare hands glowing with divine wrath. She didn't care if bones cracked or blood stained the walls.
*She branded them.* With ancient sigils that burned into their flesh, meant to mark them as cursed—half-bloods, abominations of both Heaven and Hell.
*She humiliated them.* Forced them to crawl, to beg, to thank her for every scrap. She made them wear chains like jewelry, and clothes sewn from rags soaked in ash.
She whispered curses as lullabies, ancient hexes meant to rot their minds as they slept. Every night, they fell into dreams wrapped in screams, their bodies trembling from wounds that refused to heal.
The siblings—one boy, *Kael, and two girls, **Adelina* and *Myra*—were not just children. They were born of gods and demons. Power slept within them like fire beneath ice. But it was too early. Too buried beneath pain.
Their grandmother, a twisted witch of divine blood, hated them for what they were. Hated them for reminding her of her daughter—their mother—who had dared to fall in love with a demon and pay the price with her life. These children were the last sin of a union the world never forgave.
But she would regret what she had done.
Deep beneath the torment, something stirred. Something waited. Their eyes—once wide with fear—began to narrow with rage. And on one moonless night, as the witch dragged them through the dirt, their whispers echoed beneath the floorboards like thunder.
*"She will regret what she did to us."*