“Quality stock? What about that one?” I heard the other potential buyer snort, pointing toward the older woman. “She’s ancient.”
“I call it ‘experienced,’” the slaver said.
“An old hag like that? She would just be a liability,” the man countered. “You would’ve done yourself a favor dumping her on the journey here.”
Laughter rippled through the crowd, but the older woman kept her face blank, lifting her chin a little higher. With her bound hands, she tried to adjust her filthy tunic, holding on to whatever scrap of dignity she had left.
“The mines always take the leftovers.” The slaver shrugged before hawking up a glob of spit onto the ground.
“The mines?” I turned to him. “She won’t last a day in the mines.”
The slaver picked his teeth. “Not my problem.”
“I’ll take her.” The words escaped me as a gasp of air.
“You come back with that, and your master will flog you silly,” the other buyer warned me.
I ignored him as I growled at the slaver, “Do we have a deal or not?”
“O’ course, my dear, o’ course.” A smile slid across the slaver’s face, like oil across water. He then tipped out and pocketed a portion of the silver before handing a pouch back to me, its contents considerably lighter. “My pleasure doing business with you.”
I felt a dirtiness creep over my skin, sinking its way into my blood. It felt so horribly wrong, rewarding such a vile trade. But I knew there would be a far uglier stain on my soul if I turned away now and left this woman to her fate.
The slaver went into the pen to unclasp the woman’s chains. Once freed, he began binding a rope around her wrists.
“She doesn’t need that,” I snapped.
The slaver turned to me and shrugged before leading the old woman to my side. She looked stoic as she bowed, her olive skin blistered from sunburn. How long had she been made to stand out in pens like this one?
“What is your name?” I asked softly.
Her eyes, a lovely shade of pale green, shifted to mine. She seemed momentarily bemused by the question, as if no one had asked it for a long time.
“My name is Eurynome, mistress,” she said, voice raspy and thin with the hint of an accent too subtle to place.
I looked down at her bare feet, cut and bruised. “I’m afraid I walked here. Is that all right? Can you walk?”
She nodded. “I will manage, mistress.”
A scream ripped my attention back to the pen where the other buyer was cradling his hand, blood spurting from his fingers. Standing before him, the Thracian woman smiled, her teeth etched in crimson.
“What did you do?” the slaver seethed at her.
The Thracian simply smirked wider.
“You find this funny?”
The slaver struck her hard across the face, but the woman barely flinched. Instead, she simply stared at the slaver, her eyes glittering with a deadly, dark promise. The slaver had enough sense to shrink back.
Behind him, the buyer was wailing, clutching his fingers to his chest.
“That beast needs to be put down!” he screeched. “Do you see what it did to me? Do yousee?”
“It was a mistake,” the slaver babbled. “You caught her by surprise, and Thracians are easily spooked, you know—”
“A beast like that is not worthy ofanyhousehold,” the buyer declared.
“I will handle it,” the slaver insisted.
