Chapter 104 – Are You Happy, Princess? (11)
Day Five: Little Lambs
(Olivia)
The mask smelled faintly of someone else's perfume.
A servant pressed it into her hands the moment they crossed the threshold. Gold-painted plaster, shaped to cover the upper half of her face. Stylized, anonymous. A small sun motif at the corner, for irony.
She stared at it like she'd forgotten what objects were.
Her hands felt wrong. Too light, too clean, considering what she'd just seen in the square.
"Here," Erynd said quietly.
He took the mask from her, lifted it. For a moment she thought she might flinch, but her body was moving on habit, not thought. She let him tie the ribbon behind her head. His fingers brushed her hair, her neck.
The world narrowed.
The mask cut the room into framed pieces: edges, angles, slices of movement. His face disappeared behind his own mask a second later. Black, simple, no decoration. Of course.
He took her hand and guided her onward.
The air inside was colder.
Not as cold as her chambers at home, with their discreet enchantments and gentle, carefully crafted chill, but colder than Meltèn's streets. Thick walls. Shuttered windows. Magic, faint but present.
It felt, horribly, like home.
Not the part with laughter and warmth and stolen sweets in the kitchens. The other part. Marble corridors, quiet guards, nobles moving like knives in silk. Banquets where people smiled and traded deaths in soft words.
They entered a hall.
Chairs in tiers, rising from a central floor. No grand decorations, just wealth disguised as restraint: quality wood, reinforced beams, good lanterns burning steady along the walls.
People already sat in the seats, spaced just enough not to brush shoulders. Every face masked. Feathers here, metal filigree there, jeweled monstrosities that tried too hard to say I am important.
Erynd picked a spot near the back, where the light from the lanterns didn't quite reach. Nobody nearby. A pocket of shadow in a room of controlled cruelty.
They sat.
Her body folded automatically into the chair. Her mind felt like it was still back in the square, watching rope tighten.
"Here," Erynd said softly, "is a place full of little lambs."
The word scraped.
"Lambs are not…" she started, then stopped. Her voice sounded wrong in this room.
He didn't look at her when he answered.
He leaned back, eyes tracking the central floor, mask hiding most of his expression. His mouth barely moved.
"Here," he said, "lambs are slaves."
The word hit her like a slap she hadn't earned.
Slaves.
Here. Under Helios banners. Under the same sun that had watched the execution.
She stared at the empty central floor, at the wooden platform she now realized was a stage, at the rail that separated it from the seats.
Everything clicked into place.
The code phrase at the door. Selectable lambs. The masks. The cold. The way sound seemed to be swallowed by the walls.
"I want out," she said.
She tried to stand.
His hand closed around her wrist.
He didn't squeeze hard enough to hurt. He didn't need to. The pressure was a reminder: not yet.
"Olivia," he said quietly.
She almost didn't recognize her own name under the alias.
She pulled.
He let her, just enough that she stumbled instead of actually leaving.
Her knees bumped his.
He shifted, almost casually, and the next thing she knew, his hands were at her waist, lifting.
She was smaller than him. In this context, it felt more obvious than usual.
He drew her onto his lap.
Not sideways like a child. Forward-facing, back to his chest, his legs bracketing hers. The chair was deep enough that it worked, somehow, without toppling.
Suddenly her head was level with his.
Mask to mask.
"Erynd," she hissed. "I am not—"
"You are shaking," he murmured. "You can go later. For now, you will watch. You wanted to see the world past your tapestries, remember?"
She was shaking.
She hadn't noticed until he said it. The tremor ran from her thighs up into her ribs. She forced her muscles to lock and only made it worse.
"Ofira," he reminded her softly, using the fake name he'd given at the door. "Here, you are Ofira. And Ofira sits. For now."
His hands stayed at her waist. Not stroking. Not wandering. Just steady, anchoring, as the hall shifted around them.
A bell rang once.
A side door on the lower level opened.
The first "lamb" stepped out.
***
The boy looked like he might snap if someone breathed on him too hard.
Thin. Shoulders too narrow for his height. Dark hair cut hastily. A collar around his neck, plain metal. His eyes had the stunned-flat look of someone who had run out of tears some time ago.
He was young.
Too young.
"From a noble line," the announcer said. The voice echoed, magically amplified, from some hidden point. Male, bored, professional. "House devoured by debt and disgrace. Bloodline still valued for breeding, obedience, and basic education."
Olivia's stomach turned.
She recognized the house sigil on the boy's ragged shirt, even half-torn. She'd seen it once on a banner at a ball. They'd been at her father's table. Laughed. Toasted. Danced.
Apparently, somewhere between then and now, they had run out of money and value. The price for failure here was being bound and sold.
"Starting bid: fifty silver," the announcer said.
A hand went up across the room. A sleeve too rich for this place. "Fifty."
"Fifty," the announcer echoed. "Do I hear sixty?"
"Seventy," another voice called.
"Eighty."
"One hundred," someone else, almost idly.
The numbers climbed.
"One hundred and forty silver," a woman's voice finally. Her mask had golden feathers. Her laugh was low and amused.
The boy stood there while people talked over his worth. He didn't flinch. He didn't straighten. He just existed, a problem to be priced.
"Do I hear five gold?" the announcer said. Expectant.
Silence.
Then Erynd's voice.
"Five gold," he said.
Olivia's head jerked toward him.
He didn't raise his hand dramatically. He just lifted two fingers, casual.
"And one copper," he added.
The room rippled.
Not shock. Something more irritated. As if he'd belched at a piano recital.
"Five gold," the announcer repeated, then hesitated. "And… one copper. Any higher?"
"Ten gold," the feathered-mask woman said, voice sharp.
She turned her head toward Erynd's shadowed corner, looking for him. She couldn't see his face, but Olivia could feel the weight of her annoyance.
"Ten gold," the announcer said, relieved. "Ten gold offered. Any advance?"
"Ten gold," Erynd said lazily. "And one copper."
Someone snorted. Not in this section. Across the room.
The announcer faltered again. "Ten gold and… one copper. Do I—"
"Fifteen," another voice snapped, male, clipped, offended. "Coin only."
"Fifteen," the announcer seized on. "Fifteen gold—"
"Fifteen," Erynd said. "And one copper."
The room went very quiet.
Somewhere to the left, someone muttered, "…child."
Not about the boy.
About Erynd.
He ignored it.
"How tiresome," the feathered-mask woman said under her breath. "Somebody throw this provincial out."
"Do I hear twenty?" the announcer managed.
Silence.
Erynd lifted his fingers again, as if this was all some idle game.
"Sold," the announcer said finally. "To Harbard. Fifteen gold and… one copper."
A few people tittered. Most didn't. Wealth liked to pretend it wasn't that petty, even when it was.
Olivia's stomach twisted.
She'd seen auctions before. Horses. Art. Rare spell components.
Not people.
Her mouth had gone dry.
Erynd's hand stroked, once, through the fabric at her waist. Not comfort. Reminder.
"Harbard has odd tastes," someone in front murmured. "He pays overprice."
"Perhaps he's compensating for something," another replied, light laughter barely covering discomfort.
The boy was led away through the opposite door. His expression didn't change.
The next slave came out.
A girl this time.
Maybe a year older than Olivia. Maybe two. Pretty in that pressed, polished way that screamed breeding. Even in the simple shift they'd put her in, you could see how she'd been shaped to attract.
"Fourth daughter of a minor line," the announcer said. "Educated in music, dancing, basic etiquette. Proven fertile. No known illnesses. Starting at forty silver."
Olivia's mind tried to run away.
She did not want to imagine what "proven fertile" meant in this context.
The bidding started again.
Forty. Sixty. Ninety.
Two gold. Three.
She heard the feathered-mask woman laugh, high and delighted, when someone miscounted and overbid.
Erynd didn't join in.
"Five gold," he said when the price slowed.
"And one copper."
It went on like that.
Slave after slave.
Different ages. Different backgrounds. Some with noble blood thinly spread through their veins. Some obviously from much humbler origins. All collared. All reduced to flesh that could be priced.
Sometimes someone tried to outbid him. Sometimes they succeeded.
Most of the time, by the end, he had the last word.
Always the same pattern.
Base price, escalating outrage, then his unbothered, "…and one copper."
By the fourth purchase, people stopped laughing.
By the seventh, someone muttered loud enough to carry, "This Harbard is a nuisance."
"Perhaps we should not invite him again," another agreed.
"As if we ever invited him at all," feathered-mask said. "Who even brought him in?"
Olivia sat on his lap and watched slaves be sold to him, one after another.
Her body slowly stopped shaking.
Not because she was calm.
Because numbness was an easier setting.
Her thoughts tried to find reasons. Tried to fit this into something that made sense.
It didn't.
Finally, when the last of the "lots" had been led away, the announcer cleared his throat.
"That concludes today's selection," he said. "We remind our patrons that discretion is—"
"Guaranteed, yes, yes," someone cut in. There was scattered laughter from the more drunk sections of the hall.
The nobles began to rise.
Masks turned. Voices drifted.
"We'll need to speak to the procurer. These prices—"
"Helios' light, making us compete with some masked idiot—"
"If he brings them all north, perhaps we'll see them again in other… circumstances."
The woman with the feathered mask glanced their way again, eyes narrowed.
"Harbard," she called. "Do you plan to do anything interesting with your herd, or simply keep them in a glass case?"
Erynd's hands on Olivia's waist tightened just slightly.
"For now," he said, voice smooth, "I plan to pay."
He did not answer the real question.
He did not have to.
***
They left the hall through a side passage.
Servants dipped their heads, respectful but distant. To them, he was just another monster with enough coin to make their jobs necessary.
Once the last mask was out of sight, Olivia found her voice again.
"My lovely Ofira," Erynd said lightly, as if they were stepping out of a theatre. "Do you know why I bought slaves today?"
"For Yggdrasil," she said automatically. Her brain grabbed the nearest explanation. "To use them as assets. Servants. Tools. You wanted… bodies."
He made a quiet sound.
"Partly," he said. "Some are from broken lines. Some have skills too useful to be left to the people in that room."
He turned down another corridor. This one sloped, subtly, downward.
"But?" she pressed.
"But I always give them a choice," he said.
She almost tripped.
"A choice," she echoed. "They are slaves."
"Not once they reach us," he replied.
He stopped walking.
They stood in a pocket of dim light, stone close around them, the muffled sound of Meltèn somewhere far above.
"Listen," he said.
She did.
"When we buy them and bring them in," he went on, "they are offered options. One: join Yggdrasil's service. Food. Training. Dangerous work, yes. But agency. Compensation. Community. Two: have their memories of the slave market wiped clean. Of us wiped clean. Then be relocated. New name. New city. A chance at a different life."
He watched her through the mask.
"It is not perfect," he said. "But it is more than the people in that hall ever offered them."
Her throat worked.
"But it is still you choosing their choices," she said. "You still put them in that position."
"Yes," he said simply. "Because someone will. It might as well be someone who wants to offer an exit."
He started walking again.
She followed, because what else could she do?
"Do you think slaves have a choice now?" he asked. "In that hall?"
She remembered the boy's flat eyes. The girl's polished posture. The way the Demonkin in the square had stared at the sky.
"No," she said.
They turned another corner.
Torches here were different. Not Helios-bright. Steady. Efficient. Yggdrasil's handiwork, if she had to guess.
He pointed with his chin toward a branching corridor.
"Do you see that woman?" he asked.
Olivia looked.
A figure in a fine dress, mask still on, walked between two servants. Her gait was annoyed rather than tired. Even underground, you could feel the stink of power.
"That one," Erynd said softly. "She likes to buy slaves and throw them into pits. Makes them fight each other. Sometimes to the death. Sometimes just until they break enough that she gets bored and sends them to her friends."
Olivia's skin crawled.
"She is a noble in the capital as well," he added. "You have probably smiled at her across a ballroom."
Her stomach flipped.
"Why show me her?" she whispered.
"Because this is what your world does when the curtain is down," he said. "It buys people and breaks them for sport. And then it smiles and gives donations to Vastriel's temples in the morning."
She swallowed hard.
"My lovely," he said, his voice dropping into something between mockery and fondness, "do not worry. We have molds."
She blinked.
"Molds," she repeated. "Like in the academy? The… artificial bodies?"
He inclined his head.
"Later tonight," he said, "all of this will crumble. This hall. This network. We will burn out its roots, replace its channels. We will be the ones people come to when they want to buy a slave." His eyes were very, very calm. "And we will be the ones who decide those 'slaves' are, in fact, Yggdrasil assets wearing temporary chains."
He brushed his fingertips through her hair, briefly, a strangely tender gesture in the narrow, hard corridor.
"We send molds into their houses," he went on. "We gather information. We tip over the worst of them when it is useful. We never sell a real person into a worse cage. We use the market like a knife in reverse."
Her head hurt.
"Why not… just destroy it," she said. The words came out rough. "All of it. The slave markets. The black tunnels. Make it… illegal. Punish everyone who comes here. Use your various screaming monsters to drag them back into the light."
Erynd's mouth twitched.
"Your empire already says 'no slaves allowed' in its nice, polished laws," he said. "How did that work?"
She thought of the hall.
Of the servants at the door. Of the code phrase.
"It didn't," she admitted.
"It made a black market," he said. "A deeper one. Harder to see. Harder to track. More profitable. More vicious."
He shrugged, a small movement of shoulders that somehow carried a whole manifesto.
"As long as there is demand," he said, "supply appears. You can ban something on paper. That doesn't stop the part of people that wants it. It just drives it into places where men like the one running that square can profit."
"So you want to be… the better slaver?" she said, the words tasting poisonous.
"I want to be the one holding the throat of the trade," he said bluntly. "We take it, we remake it, we starve the worst of it. We intercept the supply. We use it to plant moles. We get leverage on the kind of nobles who think collared throats make good decoration."
He tilted his head.
"Tell me, Olivia," he said. "Do you think that is worse than leaving it as it is?"
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
She wanted to say yes.
She wanted to say no.
What came out was a whisper.
"I think… I hate that those are the choices."
He smiled then, and it was not nice.
"Welcome," he said, "to grown-up politics."
She wanted to hit him again.
She didn't.
Because he wasn't wrong about the world. Only about how easily he said it.
Her eyes felt dry, paradoxically, like she had run out of tears somewhere between the square and the auction hall.
"Can you destroy it?" she asked quietly. "This hall. These tunnels. These people. Can you actually pull it off?"
"Yes," he said. No hesitation. "We've been mapping it for months. Today was… confirmation. And acquisition."
She remembered the slaves, led away.
"And them?" she asked.
"By night," he said, "they will not belong to this place."
***
He was right.
When night came, the hall above was no longer their concern.
Olivia did not see it fall.
She felt it.
Hums through the stone. Distant booms. The kind of muffled, contained violence that meant calculated destruction, not chaos. She imagined the auction platform collapsing, the secret tunnels caving in just enough to be unusable, documents going up in selective flame while people loyal to Yggdrasil walked out with the only copies that mattered.
She didn't see that.
What she saw was the aftermath.
The underground of Yggdrasil here was not like the main station. It felt… softer, somehow. More human. Less rails, more rooms. Doors with curtains instead of iron. Healers in simple clothes moving from bed to bed. Steam rising from a communal bath where someone was patiently helping a girl scrub auction-marks from her skin.
The "slaves" were here.
Not all in one place. That would have been too much. They were spread out. Some sitting at tables with food in front of them, eating with a desperation that made her throat tight. Some lying down, eyes closed, finally allowed to collapse. A few arguing, quietly, with Yggdrasil agents about what would happen next.
Olivia watched from a shadowed corner.
She saw a mage lay a hand gently on a young man's temple, murmuring. Memory magic, she guessed. Erasing the worst of the hall. Not to trap him. To free him from knowledge that would get him killed if he spoke out of turn in the wrong city.
Another girl, the polished one from earlier, sat with a woman in Yggdrasil grey, talking about options.
"You don't have to decide tonight," the woman said. "Sleep. Eat. We will talk again. Service is not a cage here. We are not the ones you were sold to."
"And if I say no?" the girl asked, voice thin.
"Then we will wipe names and faces from your mind," the agent said. "Give you enough coin to start somewhere else. Somewhere far. You can call yourselves whatever you like when you get there."
The girl stared at her hands.
"I don't know who I am if I'm not someone's daughter," she whispered.
"Then you get to decide," the woman said. "For the first time."
Olivia had to look away.
She found herself in another corridor.
Stone here was smoother. Lights dimmer. The air cooler.
Her feet carried her into a room before she had fully decided to enter it.
And there she was.
The noble woman from earlier. Feathered-mask gone. Dress gone too. Bare skin where silk had been. Her hair, once perfectly arranged, hung in tangled waves.
She was bound.
Not crudely. No open wounds. Wrists secured to the arms of a sturdy chair with leather. Ankles fastened to its legs. Magic circles inscribed on the floor under the chair, complex and ugly in a way that made Olivia's teeth hurt.
Erynd stood in front of her.
He had his sleeves rolled up.
In his hand was a small vial and a cloth.
Oil.
He poured a little onto the cloth. It glistened, catching the lamplight. The smell of herbs and something sharper filtered across the room.
Olivia's breath caught.
"What is that?" she asked.
He didn't look surprised to see her.
"Conduction oil," he said. "For spellwork. Enhances sensation. Lowers certain thresholds. Increases others."
The woman in the chair sneered.
"You think you can frighten me with parlor tricks?" she said. Her voice had the brittle edges of someone accustomed to getting her way. "Do you know who I am? My family—"
"Is very far away," Erynd said mildly. "And has no idea where you spend your vacations."
He moved behind the chair.
Olivia stayed where she was.
She could see the noble's shoulders tense when the cloth touched her skin. Erynd wasn't groping. He was methodical. Brushing oil along the nape of her neck. The upper spine. Pressure points at the base of the skull.
Preparation. Not pleasure.
"This will make the spells… hurt more," he said conversationally. "Without leaving much visible damage. You seem like the type who cares about appearances."
The woman spat a curse.
Olivia's stomach rolled.
"This is justice?" she asked quietly. "This?"
Erynd glanced at her finally.
"Justice?" he repeated. "No. This is information gathering. Justice is messier. It involves courts and witnesses and a system that does not exist for this kind of thing."
He wrung out the cloth, fingers slick with oil, and met Olivia's eyes over the noble's bowed head.
"Justice," he said, "would be dismantling the world that made her feel safe buying people in the first place, not just punishing her personally."
He laid his hand, now gloved in shimmering liquid, against one of the spell circles on the floor.
The runes flared.
The woman in the chair jerked.
A sound tore out of her throat, half-choked, not quite a scream, but heading there.
Olivia flinched.
"You can leave," Erynd said quietly, without looking away from his work. "You have seen enough of how we harvest rot for one day."
She didn't move.
Her legs felt rooted.
He shifted his hand. The light changed color. The woman's breathing hitched.
"You wanted truth," he reminded her. "No sugar coating. No pretty stories. This is the world under your father's maps, Olivia. Your church condones certain deaths. Your nobles buy flesh. Your empire bans slavery on paper and creates better hiding places for it in stone."
He lifted his hand. The glow dimmed. The woman gasped, dragging air into her lungs.
Erynd set the oily cloth aside.
"In here," he said, "we break that apart. Imperfectly. Ugly. With tools like this. With molds and trains and whispers."
He looked at her again.
"Are you happy, Princess?" he asked softly. Not mocking this time. Not quite.
She didn't answer.
Couldn't.
Her world was in pieces on the floor, and the worst part was knowing that some of the hands that had smashed it belonged to the man in front of her.
And some of them belonged to her.
She sank down into the chair placed quietly by the wall, the one he'd had them set there, she realized, so she could see this if she chose.
Her eyes felt as empty as the square had made them.
Erynd turned back to the noble.
The lamps flickered as the next spell circle lit.
Olivia watched.
Because now she couldn't pretend she hadn't.