Uncle made a disgusted sound. “You’ve lost your mind. The isolation, the altitude, his... influence. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking more clearly than I have in years.”
“Then think about this.” His tone changed. Harder now. The performance of concern falling away. “You’re my ward until you’re twenty-five. I have legal authority over your decisions. I could challenge this marriage. Claim you weren’t competent to choose.”
“You’d lose. The Bride Market’s authority supersedes guardian rights. I chose. It’s binding.”
His eyes narrowed. I’d surprised him. He hadn’t expected me to know the law.
“You’ve been doing research,” he said. “Good. Then you know I’m right about the 30-day clause. You can still walk away. Return the payment value and come home.”
“I don’t want to walk away.”
“What you want doesn’t matter!” The mask cracked completely. His face flushed red, spit flecking his lips. “You were supposed to marry Sorley. Clear my debts. Be useful for once in your miserable life. Instead you humiliated me. Made me look like a fool in front of everyone. And now Sorley wants his money.Do you understand? He wants what I owe him and I don’t HAVE it.”
So that was it. Not just greed. Fear. Someone was coming to collect.
“I’m not coming home,” I said.
“Then you’re choosing a monster over your own family.”
“You’re not my family.” The words came out flat. Final. “You’re my employer who stopped paying me. All those years of service and you tried to sell me to cover your gambling debts. That’s not family. That’s not even good business.”
Something shifted in his expression. The calculation returning. He’d tried guilt, fear, legal threats. None of it had worked. Which meant he was about to play his real card.
I felt it coming before he said it. The way his shoulders settled. The way his breathing evened out. The look of a man who’d found his leverage.
“Then I’ll find someone who does value family,” he said. “Your sister, perhaps.”
Elspeth. Fifteen years old. Ink-stained fingers and a quiet voice and absolute trust that I would always come back for her.
I’d left her behind.
“Elspeth turns sixteen in ten days.” Uncle’s voice was pleasant now. Almost conversational. “Old enough for the Temple. And if the Temple won’t take her, well. The Bride Market doesn’t require DNA matching. Just a willing seller.”
“She’s too young for the Market. The minimum age is sixteen.”
“Which she’ll be. In ten days.” He smiled. “The timing works out perfectly, actually. You have the rest of the 30 days to void this marriage and come home. She goes on the block five days after that.”
“You can’t.”
“I can. I’m her legal guardian. Just like I was yours.” He spread his hands again, but this time there was nothing conciliatory in the gesture. “Your sister or your monster, Wren.”
Tavrin made a sound. Low and terrible, more growl than anything human. I felt him coiling behind me, every muscle preparing to launch.
“Tavrin. No.”
Uncle looked at him with something like satisfaction. “Make your decision. Then your sister pays for your selfishness.”
He turned and walked back to the drake. The guard followed, moving fast, not looking back. They mounted. Lifted off. The wingbeats faded until there was nothing but silence and the wind.
I stood frozen.
I’d escaped and I’d left her behind. I’d been so relieved to be free that I hadn’t let myself think about what that meant. The cost.
“Wren.”
The word came out broken. More breath than sound. I turned.
