Page 13 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

My stomach turned to stone.

Ten women. Some stared at the ground. Some whimpered, the sound swallowed by the ditch.

Sold. The word landed differently now that I could see what it meant.

I studied ones doing the buying. They were not what I expected, not a uniform type, not soldiers or nobles or any single kind of man. An older one in fine cloth stood beside a younger one in a fisherman’s coat. One wore a mask of dark leather that covered everything above his mouth. Another had pulled his hood so far forward his face was lost.

There was even a woman among them, well-dressed, her expression as businesslike as any of the men beside her. Whatever I had imagined of the world outside the cavern, I had not imagined such cruelty came in every shape, every age, and some of them didn’t even bother to hide their identity.

“Go. We’re late.” Resse pushed me forward.

I wanted to shove her off the edge. Watch her fall into that ditch and see how she liked looking up at someone who had already decided her worth. But we were outnumbered, unarmed, and in a place I didn’t know with no exit I’d mapped.

Rage without a plan was useless.

I descended the uneven step into the ditch and stood next to a woman with grime against her pale skin. Up close she was petite, her shoulders barely the width of my forearm. Either she looked young for her age, or she was a child.

How old was she?

Resse stayed off to the side, watching with the mild interest of someone who had done this many times before. Brando hadn’t come down from the ship. Kit lingered at the top. His eyes found Jina before he turned to find his place.

“Can you demand we get sold together?” Jina murmured beside me, her hand trembling on my arm.

The thought hadn’t fully formed until she said it. I had assumed we would stay together. I’d not prepared for separation.

At the far end of the ditch, a middle-aged man positioned himself behind the first woman, one hand resting on her shoulder as if she belonged to him.

“Bid for this one,” the conductor said. “She’s from Thornwood Kingdom. Her skills are cooking, chopping wood, identifying herbs, and anything you please.”

Silence. Then—

“Five coins,” someone called from above.

The woman stared at her feet. She didn’t flinch. She had already gone somewhere else behind her eyes, somewhere the bidding couldn’t reach.

The conductor’s gaze swept the crowd above. “Anyone bid six?”

“Seven.”

“Seven. Do I hear eight?”

The first bidder hissed, “Eight.”

His opponent raised a hand. “Nine.”

“Nine.” The conductor’s eyes lit up with greed. “Going once—”

“Ten.”

A hush fell over the pit. The voice came from somewhere to the left. He stood apart from the others, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword—tall, broad through the shoulders, clad in a long dark coat that fell past his knees, gold buttons down the front, a hat on his head. His hair was pushed back from his face, shoulder-length and wind-tossed, giving way to hard lines and features that would have been worth a second look under different circumstances.

The conductor straightened. “Ten coins. Going once… Going twice.” A pause. “Sold.”

The conductor’s assistant pulled the woman from the line and escorted her up the slope without a word. She didn’t object. She simply obeyed. The assistant returned down the slope, coins exchanged, transaction complete.

I expected the man in the dark coat to leave. He didn’t. He intended to buy more. How many of us did he want?

He remained where he stood, one hand still loose on his sword hilt, eyes moving down the line with the same unhurried calm. His eyes were steady, assessing. They swept the pit and landed on me. Not on the woman they were bidding for, but on me.