One of my first, most vivid memories is of the slave market. To this day, I do not know whether my master made me forget all that came before—the land of my human birth, my human family—in the way that our kind can make humans forget, or if I forgot them under my own power, whether naturally or by some force of will. It would certainly be in his nature to shape my first thoughts around this place.

I understand everything, now, that went on during my first day and night—for I might as well have not existed before then—but still this does not make the sweats and stomach-flutters I felt then any less powerful.

I stood on a platform, erected specially for the selling of slaves, that was located off on one side of a busy intersection. A few other young boys surrounded me, their brown, slightly ragged tunics ending just above the knees, as mine did. Our feet were bone-white with chalk; our status as freshly-caught objects, pure and ignorant of servitude, shone out from them like the light of ghosts. Wooden signs hung around our necks on leather cords, describing our ages, where we had come from, whether we had tried to run away, whether we were sick. I did not know, then, that the law decreed that any man who wished to sell his slave must provide this information to a prospective buyer, so that he could not cheat him. I only knew that I did not know where I was, and that there were many things going on at once.

The market surrounding us was well into a day of selling and haggling. Roman markets are impressive mixtures of organization and chaos that I have rarely seen since leaving this city—this city that, despite everything I suffered here, I cannot think of as anything else but my home. Rows of wooden vendor's stalls draped with cloth lined the buildings surrounding us. Free-born citizens, freedmen, and the occasional, presumably-widowed woman hawked their wares: richly-woven cloth, fresh fruit, pottery, wine, spices from the East... Many, more permanent shops, located on the ground floor of each apartment building towering behind the stalls, would be revealed to me throughout my human life, along with many more goods: newly-baked bread, silkworms, braziers, tables, whips...

I did not know much of whips, then. I only remember seeing—and feeling—their use after this day. Perhaps my mind was already removing memories it considered too terrible for it to store away. Perhaps my master wished me to remember the burn of his lashes only.

But those times do not belong in this memory. I will strive to remain in the marketplace. My master's identity was unknown to me for much of this day; it is therefore slightly less horrible than many I had seen since.

Fountains and—occasionally broken—statues caught my eye here and there among the buildings; their still, painted forms seemed out-of-place in the throng of breathing, living people.

A man led a horse slowly through the crowd; I gawped at the creature's white neck, perhaps once proud but now sagged and scarred with age and misuse, and felt a trickle of some unnameable emotion descend my spine like drops of cold water.

A small crowd of men, with a few women interspersed among them, stood on the ground before our platform. They had been calling out instructions to Aemilius, our squat slave dealer:

"Turn her around! Why do you keep hiding her ass?"

"Look at that one; he'd be a perfect replacement for that litter carrier that gave out. See, he's the right height, and he's got blond hair like the others, and everything!"

"Why is that one castrated? I swear, it's impossible to find a youth who can get a really satisfying erection these days. It's not as though my husband visits my bed often enough to—"

"That one's way too thin! I can see his ribs from here!"

This comment concerned an extremely skeletal man on the far end of the platform. The captive smiled, almost as though he were pleased that he was not wanted, and I was not the only one biting back a scream: when his lips stretched back from his teeth, a skull with gleaming eyes appeared to be grinning at all of us.

Aemilius smacked the back of his head, which did not rise from its respectfully lowered position until the man was sold to a gradual, painful death in the mines. I was glad to see him go.

My first clear memory of a Roman soldier, too, lies within the space of this day; his presence also bettered an otherwise anxious time.

A tall, well-built man wearing a leather cuirass over a red tunic ascended the short ladder leaning against the platform at the slaver's nod. His scarlet cloak rippled slightly behind him as he walked up to a woman standing to the right of the boy next to me; the hilt of his blade winked in the sunlight. His dark eyes traced her curved figure; his cheek bulged out as though his tongue might be poking at it while he thought.

She stared through his shoulder, eyes dull with defeat.

"What do you think?" This eager question—which came from Aemilius, who stood a few respectful feet away from his latest customer—was one of the few I completely understood at that time. I acquired my first language in spare bits and pieces, most of them cruelly spitted from my master's mouth, others learned from the soldiers who had sold us to Aemilius, months before we reached the Capital. But in the market, with those resources removed from me, I could only try to memorize the arrangement of consonants and vowels, to be made sense of much later.

"I think I've never bought from you before," the soldier answered slowly, "and I also think this sign you've hung around her neck is lying to me."

Aemilius exchanged a quick glance with Albanus, his assistant, from where the thin man stood on the ground between the crowd and the platform, ready to prevent someone from rushing up onto the platform and saving himself up to thousands of denarii for an educated slave by stealing one of us. "Aemilius assures you, sir, that he would never provide false information to a member of the Empire's finest—"

"Anyone can see that this woman is older than you claim." The man reached up to wipe away a trace of some sort of concealing makeup from the skin at the corner of her eye; the smallest hint of wrinkles could now be detected in the bared place.

I noticed then that she was the only slave among us who did not have unnaturally pale feet. Clearly women past a certain age, whatever that age might be, took longer to sell.

Aemilius pursed his lips before straightening his spine. "Do not forget, my friend—" the soldier's nostrils flared at the presumption "—that age equals experience. This woman has been taught the arts of pleasure."

A humming noise of consideration rumbled in the back of the legionnaire's—he must have been a foot soldier, for he wore no riding trousers—throat as he thought over the dealer's statement. "Have her take off her clothes. I want to see what other faults you're hiding from me."

Aemilius's smile seemed more of a gritting of the teeth as inclining his head. "But of course. Aemilius will be happy to demonstrate his goods for you." He turned to the woman, the edge in his voice more prominent as he ordered, "Do as the gentleman says."

Slowly she removed her sign and her longer women's tunic, which reached nearly to her feet, sweeping her dark hair back over her shoulder and out of the way of her breasts without being asked.

I could not help staring, for I had never seen a naked woman before. Naked men, certainly—I vaguely remember our slaves' cart being positioned closely enough to a stream that a few soldiers could be seen bathing—but no member of the other sex until this day.

Still, my interest in her was purely academic. I have never seen the attraction a woman's body is said to hold. There are too many round places. Their shoulders are not broad enough. They do not walk as a man does, instead allowing their hips to sway back and forth, without the rigidity of discipline that a man's stride possesses even in the graceful act of running. They do not possess a man's throat, thick with ropy tendons and the slight bulge in the front. They cannot grow hair on their faces, particularly the short bristles that rasp against my cheek as I feed. Their bodies do not appear to be as easily able to give pleasure to oneself as a man's body is.

But I must not think about that. My master forbid it. I must always give pleasure only to other men, and never take it for myself.

The soldier looked inside the slave woman's mouth, testing her teeth and gums with his fingers for signs of infection, and smelled her breath. He ran those same fingers through her hair, weighing its thickness in his palm. He felt her breasts, her hips, between her thighs. Everywhere he stretched the skin, watching carefully as it bounced back into place with varying appearances of elasticity.

Aemilius began to deliver what I had learned to be his customary sales pitch as the client made his inspection. "She is completely healthy, as you will see. Docile, too; gives everything you ask and more."

"Have you had her?" The soldier's aversion toward the idea of the dealer coupling with her was plain in his voice.

Aemilius held up his hands, palm-outward, in a gesture of peace; even he must know his kind are despised as much as they are deemed necessary to the functioning of our world. "Sir, Aemilius speaks only as a witness. Three hundred denarii and she's yours." It was clear the discussion was closed.

The soldier turned to face the slaver fully as he proposed a reduction in price, "Two-fifty."

"Two-seventy."

"Two-sixty-five."

Aemilius pursed his lips. "Done." They shook hands. A deposit of silver coins were exchanged; more were promised to come later. The soldier allowed the woman to dress before leading her away by the elbow.

I watched his back until I could see it no more.

Dusk was falling and merchants were packing up their wares for the night when Albanus approached Aemilius with a question. He was sweating even more than usual—the Capital was hot, but not hot enough to produce as much sweat as was on that man—and he persisted in casting quick glances over his shoulder as though he expected someone to appear behind him from thin air. "A man wishes to see you about purchasing one of the boys as a personal slave."

Aemilius looked up from counting the days earnings; his gaze traveled the street beyond his assistant, and his brow furrowed. "Where is he?"

"A friend of his gave me his message. He said he heard you would be in town today with a few boys, but he would be unable to come during the daytime," Albanus lowered his voice as he finished, "for personal reasons."

The color drained abruptly from Aemilius's visage; he was now as white as the chalk covering my feet. "Sons of Death," he cried, "no more of them!"

Whether he knew how aptly the curse described my kind, I still do not know.

The dealer rushed into action, thrusting silver and copper coins into Albanus's hands, sending him off to the shops for a few last-minute purchases. While Albanus was gone, Aemilius bustled around me and the other boys—we were the only ones left—straining to appear as though he were making up for the neglect he had long given us.

He stripped us and applied the resin of a terebinth tree to our torsos. "To relax the skin," he explained as he smeared the sticky, amber-colored sap on my belly, above the small palms crossed over my groin, "so you can eat and grow plump for our customer." He outlined our eyelids lightly with kohl and rubbed our cheeks to a rosy shine with hematite powder.

All the while, I resisted the urge to squirm. I have never understood the idea that caked-on powders and eye-irritating squid inks would make the body beautiful. They make even soldiers appear too womanly, and thankfully my sights of one wearing such bothersome materials have been rare.

Albanus returned with tunics rich in deep blue and gold thread—and a large basket heaping with food. I stared at it as he lowered it to the ground before us: tightly-coiled brown twigs piled with goat cheese, focaccia buns, hard-boiled eggs, olives, and figs.

Aemilius gestured for us to eat. I snatched up a fig, biting as deeply into the chewy flesh as my small teeth allowed, and was immediately scolded when the juice ran down my chin, spoiling my makeup. After my face was repainted, I took smaller bites and counted myself lucky: on any other evening my legs might have been thrashed with a willow branch—previously stripped of its twigs and leaves—but bruises would not encourage a prospective buyer.

There were few times since then that I ate so well.

By the time we had finished eating and Aemilius and Albanus had dressed us, night had fully come to the Capital. Aemilius paced, straightening our gilded tunics over and over. Albanus was sweating again.

I was sweating too. What sort of man came out to buy his slaves at night, instead of during the day, as it seemed most people did? Was he some sort of night-roaming beast, like the rebellious man of myth called Lycaon, who was turned into a wolf for daring to serve human flesh to a god? Would this latest client turn his shape and eat us as soon as we were paid for? Or, if he was merely human, would I ever feel the sunlight on my skin again if I were chosen to serve in his house?

But I did not have long to speculate, for suddenly he was there, stepping into the flickering light of Albanus's torch; I could not help but flinch as I stared up at him.

Every grown person is tall to a child, but this man rose head-and-shoulders over both of my captors. The tunic he wore was the ordinary light brown of a man who either could not afford richer garb, or chose not to wear fine clothes to appear humble (my master would prove to be the latter); it stood out against his skin, which was as light as the chalk on my feet. For an instant, because of his complexion, I wondered if he was frightened too, but tucked the assumption away to be reexamined after I had finished observing his other features.

His build was athletic; the feet beneath his sandals were thick with calluses, suggesting he frequently visited runner's tracks. His wavy hair was cut short and combed towards his brow, and was as black as the spaces between the stars. His deep blue eyes glittered with a hardness like ice.

No, he was not frightened.

Aemilius had jumped, too, but quickly he recovered himself, his teeth-gritting smile jerking upward into place. His voice was unnaturally high when he said, "Aemilius thanks you for coming."

I had never understood why our dealer chose to refer to himself as though he was speaking outside of his own body—and, if the lifting of his dark eyebrows was any indication, this man with the frigid eyes did not understand that either. I wished that I could shy away from those eyes; already I hoped that I would discover no more similarities between us than that one lack of comprehension.

"Servius accepts your thanks."

The ice in his voice hit me just as I was swallowing, so that I choked slightly on my own saliva—the feeling, as I remember it now, is still unpleasant—and my heart began to pound as I could not catch my breath. Albanus thumped me once on the back, stimulating a cough, and as I hacked I looked up and was instantly ensnared by the gaze of the stranger.

If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that my master did not hypnotize me that night, at least not in the way of our kind. My thoughts remained my own. And yet, in that moment, the sensation of cold drops of water running slowly down my back had returned. I knew I could not go home with this man. I also knew I had already been enthralled by those ice-like eyes. (Nearly the same eyes that first attracted me to Eric, some part of my mind whispers now, and dimly I can feel my body shuddering in the earth with the implications of what I felt.)

Caught in the depths of those terrible eyes, I drew a deep, rattling breath—in my mind I heard dead lungs rattling with me—

And coughed, and suddenly could breathe a little easier.

"Which boy would you like me to show you first?" The slaver continued on as though I had merely cleared my throat, instead of nearly choking to death—how I almost wish I had!—and perhaps he had neglected to notice my plight, as he had done several times before.

"That one." The customer answered without hesitation, nodding to me, as I already somehow knew then that he would, though I did not know then exactly how I had attracted his favor.

Aemilius propelled me forward, his large palm on my back, presumably so that the client could not see his hand shake. "He is a Gaul, like the others." The name of the place meant nothing to me; still I have never dared to visit it for fear of attack by some terrible memory that might finally drive me to madness. "He is lately seven years old, a good age for serving, and perfectly healthy, although you can see a tooth that came in crooked here—" Aemilius briefly peeled back my lip to reveal my left outer incisor, one of the only permanent teeth I had at the time "—but I think it gives him a bit of charm, don't you?" The dealer was rambling now as he slipped my tunic over my head without prompting from his potential buyer; I dared not cover myself with my hands for fear of provoking them both into anger. "He will be a strong boy when he grows. Go on; feel his arm."

The man turned his awful gaze upon Aemilius, who wilted beneath it like a plant drained completely of its water. "Remove his makeup first. I came for a boy, not a painting."

Quickly and wordlessly the dealer rubbed away the powders on my cheeks and eyelids; he did so with his own palms, as though terrified his client would leave without purchasing any of us if he took the time to gather water and a cloth.

A corner of the man's mouth lifted as he saw my true face, and goosebumps sprouted along my skin; they became a shiver as his palm and fingers wrapped around my upper arm.

The feeling of his hand reflected the chill of his eyes.

I sensed, as he felt the rest of me, that he was only doing so to patronize the slaver: he had already made his choice.

"He is a little rebellious, but he has never left my sight." Aemilius was winding down now; the vigor that he had been caught up in during his extollment of my apparent virtues had left him. "He will be easily broken," he finished as his client stepped back, allowing him to dress me once more.

Afterward he hesitated, and then said something I had never before heard from him: "Name your price."

The man looked me over once again, this time with only his frozen eyes. "Five hundred denarii."

The dealer must have blinked at the same time I did, for I did not see him do it. I was worth much more than either of us would have thought.

"Done." Aemilius reluctantly shook the frigid hand of my master, releasing it quickly; their skin barely grazed when the man paid my full price in silver from the pouch at his waist.

Neither Aemilius nor Albanus said goodbye to me as I was led away by a tight hand on my shoulder (it was freezing even through the cloth). I had not been so close to the other boys as to warrant a word of farewell from them either. Yet I was not glad to leave them, for that meant being alone with my new master.

The reedy drone of a Greek aulos reached my ears as we rounded a corner—the marketplace disappearing from view—though we traversed several more blocks before its source became apparent, drowning the slap of my master's sandals and my bare feet on the road's stone paving.

A street performer stood on a corner of yet another intersection, the wooden pair of pipes extending outward from his lips in a small angle. My scalp prickled with the buzz of the reeds which disappeared into his mouth. The melody was familiar—though I still cannot recall where I heard it before this night—but I hid my smile, fearing the disapproval of those cold eyes.

The fingers on my shoulder constricted, and we passed the musician without pause.

By the time we reached the apartment building that was to be my new place of residence, I was thoroughly lost. I would find later that the streets of Rome were actually very well-organized, but this night I had become overwhelmed by the sheer number of them.

The building was very tall, its brick exterior covered in a thick layer of cream-colored plaster. We approached a small door between two shops that had been secured with boards for the night; the doorman, apparently recognizing my master, waved us through without a second glance. We passed thorough a dark hallway to a set of stairs at the back of the building, which in turn led up to a sturdy brick walkway that wound around the building, connecting the levels of second- and third-floor apartments. I craned my head back, tracing the similar, rickety-looking wooden walkways connecting the floors above with my eyes.

Without warning, a sharp cracking sound reached my ears; my cheek lit with flame a second later.

I stared up at my master, blinking, my eyes wet with unshed tears as he lowered his hand.

"Keep up, or that will happen again."

I hurried after him as he strode along the walkway; his pace seemed unnaturally swift, and I was running by the time he stopped in front of a pair of double doors on the third floor landing. He removed a key from his money-pouch, its ring appearing just large enough to fit around his first finger, and unlocked the doors to my prison.

They opened on the receiving room, which I would later find to be the largest room in an apartment that was relatively small for its cost. My master lit a few of the beeswax candles situated around the room after locking the doors to the outside world behind us—my hopes of escape had already fled—enabling me to better observe my surroundings.

The walls were frescoed in solid colors—orange, red—overlaid with paintings of simple scenes. A servant waiting on his dining master caught my eye, and I assumed that to be one of my chief duties.

How wrong I was.

The furniture was relatively sparse: a wooden table and chairs near the back, and on the right, a low, round table made of marble. On that table rested a bronze plate far too pretty for dining on, positioned in front of a somewhat chipped statue of a woman that appeared to have been carved from marble. White cloth was suggested in the carving, wrapping around her intimate parts. Her arms were open as if to welcome someone into them. She was smiling, and her eyes were very kind.

Because of the Lady, I would eventually develop a very dangerous belief that one day a woman would love me as her son, as Venus loved Cupid. But on this night, the compassion in her face merely captivated me.

A cool hand suddenly gripped my chin; I stared up into a piercing gaze. "The gods may be the masters of the people," said the man who had bought me, "but your most important bind is to me. You will call me Master, always."

"Yes, Master," I whispered, hoping the two words I had used were the correct ones, and something stirred in his face as another slap accompanied the release of my jaw.

Master turned to the table with the Lady on it, and I saw that a goblet had been placed next to the plate; the plate now held a handful of almonds. Had Master placed them there while I had been staring at the Lady's statue? Surely I would have seen him do so... unless he moved with even more unnatural speed than I had seen on the walkway. I thought of Lycaon again, and swallowed.

Master's tight hand led me to the altar. I stood motionless as he muttered what I would later learn to be ritual phrases: promises to view those around him with the eyes of the gods, requests for a blessing on himself and his work. He crushed the almonds in his fist, brushing their remains carefully onto the plate; I flinched at their crunching even as I stared at the display of his strength. Dipping two fingers into the goblet, he allowed the purplish liquid to drip from them onto the pile of nutty ashes.

Wiping his fingers on a towel when he had finished, he turned one of the chairs at the larger table around so that it faced the altar, and, perching on its edge, beckoned me forward. When I stood before him, he gripped the back of my neck with one hand. He opened his mouth, lips twitching back from his teeth—

And a pair of incredibly sharp fangs appeared where his outer incisors had been with a fleshy clicking sound.

I cried out, my spine burning at the neck with cold, flailing against him in my efforts to flee, but his hand held me fast.

Master sank those terrible implements into his own wrist, and, his gaze never leaving mine, held the bloody wound up to my face, rubbing it against my mouth. "You must drink from me," he said as I felt the blood seep past my lips. I choked on its bitterness, but I could not help but swallow. "Now I will feel what you feel, and thereby know what you know. Your location in this world will never be hidden from me, so do not think of running away."

His arm was lowered after many swallows. I coughed, struggling to keep the crimson fluid in me for fear of his hand.

His pointed smile was terrible.

"On your knees."

I stared, uncomprehending, and he pressed downward on my neck; my legs folded beneath me, dropping me to the floor. He pulled my tunic off over my head, tossing it onto the table, and loosened the belt on his own.

I began to contrive his final death that very night.