CHAPTER NINE
The next morning, Donya and I faced down the representative of the Sashan Guild of Slavers across a polished granite table.
He looked so ordinary. I couldn’t quite get past that.
I’d heard horror stories about the Guild of Slavers.
In fact, after Ysabel had been sold by our father, when we had no idea what had happened to her, I’d deliberately sought out every horror story from the pamphlets distributed by abolitionist activists in our country.
Like picking at a partly healed scab, I hadn’t been able to stop myself. The contents had given me nightmares.
This young man had light brown hair, a heart-shaped face, and green eyes. He smiled at me with a kind expression. He didn’t look like someone who’d ever beaten another person. He looked like he would have trouble lifting any sort of weapon with his frail arms.
Donya gestured. “This is Arrand, the spokesman for the Sashan Guild of Slavers.”
Even his name sounded ordinary. It only made me all the more tense, waiting for the other dragon claw to drop.
Arrand coughed. “We’ve changed our name to the Guild of Indentured Servitude after the outcome of the last World Games.
” He seemed completely relaxed, while Donya looked wan and strained.
He smiled at me. “My congratulations on your regency, Your Grace. I’m pleased that your plan went so well.
Now I’ve come to collect on our agreement. ”
He spoke as if he knew the Blood Duchess personally.
I’d never before had to deceive someone who’d known her well, except for Falael, who barely counted due to his political powerlessness.
Sweat dripped down the back of my neck. I tried to sound distant and aloof.
“There was never any doubt of my success.”
Her lips white and pursed, Donya said, “No agreement that the duchess made with you would ever hold up in Arahasnor’s courts without the permission of our queen.”
“Of course,” Arrand said mildly. “I’m confident we can come to an arrangement that will pay the late king’s debt and perhaps even benefit your kingdom as well.” I didn’t trust his gentle voice or equally gentle smile.
The door was flung open so hard it must have left a dent in the wall. A messenger page rushed in. His chubby cheeks were bright red and a lock of sweaty blond hair stuck to his nose. “Riot … at the back of the palace …” he gasped.
Donya shot to her feet. “I’m sorry, I have to handle this. Perhaps we can meet another time?”
“Her Grace and I can continue the discussion without you. Surely the royal regent doesn’t need a babysitter?” Arrand raised an eyebrow.
The tip of Donya’s nose turned crimson. “I … that’s a rude thing to say!”
Arrand chuckled. “My apologies. If the kingdom is in a great enough crisis to require the duchess’s attention, then of course we can reschedule. Is it a crisis of that magnitude or just a few peasants causing a stir?”
“It’s merely a minor incident.” Donya wasn’t a particularly good liar.
“I’m delighted to hear it.” Arrand beamed and took a sip from his teacup. “The duchess and I will excuse you to handle this no doubt minor matter.”
I locked eyes with Donya over his head. My gaze was frantic, hers concerned. She mouthed, “Just make small talk. Don’t promise him anything. Don’t let him trick you into agreeing to anything that sounds even remotely like a promise.”
What could I do but nod?
Casting one last worried look over her shoulder, Donya left. As soon as the door closed, I could hear her running down the hallway.
I gazed at Arrand, who calmly sipped his tea. “What do you think about the weather?” I asked weakly. “Will we get another snowstorm or is the season over? Personally, I’d welcome a sign of spring.”
Arrand set down his teacup. “Ah, yes, spring, when countless farmers in Sasha will need workers to replace the slaves freed by Dark Lord Kaine. Did he need all of them, I ask you? He didn’t just take the Conollians, who he claimed had been acquired via legally questionable raids.
He stripped us of slaves we’d had for generations! ”
“Um,” I said. Actually, I wanted to tell him how little sympathy a half-Conollian like me had for the plight of slavers, but that would make no sense coming from the Blood Duchess. I clamped my lips shut to prevent anything from escaping.
“I can’t tell you how delighted we are that Arahasnor’s debt provides us with a new source of workers. King Uctor promised us one thousand slaves.”
“Slavery has been rendered illegal around the globe by the last World Games. I couldn’t let you take our citizens if I wanted to,” I snapped.
Surely that didn’t count as agreeing to anything—it was more the opposite—but I still feared Donya wouldn’t approve of me slipping out of character or starting a fight.
“Um, leaving that aside, when do you think hats will go out of fashion? They’re nice enough, but I’m ready for more creative hairstyles. ”
Arrand spoke over me. “Fortunately, my guild is nimble and prepared to change with the future. I present the new alternative to slavery: indentured servitude!” He beamed at me.
I shouldn’t ask. I had to ask. “Indentured servitude?”
“It’s a contract where the indentured servant agrees to work without pay for a fixed number of years in exchange for food, clothing, and shelter.
Contracts can still be bought and sold, so the time limit is the only real difference.
We’re advertising it to our clients as the new and improved slavery, where you still don’t have to pay your workers, but you also don’t even have to look after them once they get old.
You can simply cast them out on the streets with nothing if they get sick. ”
A pit formed in the center of my stomach. “This is legal?”
“We’ve investigated the new laws quite carefully and already have test cases in progress. I can assure you, no one will be dropping dead from broken life-oaths. How fast do you believe you can select the debtors? Within the week would be preferable.”
I felt control of this situation slipping through my fingers. “We’re not giving you a thousand of our citizens no matter what you’re calling it now.”
“Since the contracts expire in twenty years, we’d need four thousand servants.
Although, of course, sometimes contracts get lost or altered, and the workers end up being forced to stay until they become too old to work.
” Arrand winked at me. “Perhaps if you agree to deflect any inquiries concerning missing contracts over the next two decades, we can make it three thousand?”
“I’m not agreeing to that,” I said, desperate to emphasize that I was agreeing to nothing.
“No need for a pretense now that we’re alone. I already have the contract that we arranged back before you claimed your regency.” He removed a paper from his pocket.
I didn’t agree to this atrocity, Donya, I swear! I can’t be held responsible for what the original Blood Duchess did! Sweat dripped down my nose and dampened my armpits. What should I do? Deny everything? Pretend I knew what he was talking about? Babble some more about the weather?
“As per our agreement, the Guild of Indentured Servitude has sent you Gifted Knights to help you quell the current riots.”
I stared at him. “You planned those.” I had no evidence, but I knew it the way I could smell a rainstorm or tell when the crops back home were about to sprout.
“Don’t you mean we planned the riots?” Arrand chuckled.
“We both knew what would happen when you allowed me to buy up every bit of debt in this city. Your kingdom didn’t have legal slavery even before the last Games, so receiving papers of indentured servitude would come as a shock to the average citizen.
Of course they’d direct their rage at the palace, since the late king is the one who failed to pay those who worked on the stadium and necessitated them buying food on credit. ”
Now I understood what Donya’s political allies had been talking about during the meeting yesterday.
They’d said something about King Uctor going into debt to build the World Games stadium.
But I hadn’t been politically savvy enough to follow that to its logical conclusion: that there must be workers going hungry and going into debt because they’d never received their pay. I felt ill.
“There’s no need to look concerned.” Arrand’s smile became even more hateful, if that was possible.
“We took this into account, remember? The guild has hired mercenaries to supplement your own guards. Between the two of us, we have more than ample forces to control the city. If we massacre the first group of protesters, it will discourage a repeat.” It horrified me, how casually he spoke of it. “I’ll summon my forces.” He stood up.
“No,” I said.
Arrand frowned. “No?”
I’d promised Donya to do nothing. But I couldn’t let this happen. “No. The agreement is off!”
“Why the cold feet now? Did you find another buyer? No, our idea hasn’t spread far enough yet.
We’ve both already sworn, and I won’t agree to remove the spell binding you to our oath.
Surely this isn’t an attack of conscience?
” Arrand snorted. “The average citizen is better off in servitude. We feed them and clothe them. They sold themselves for money that allowed their families to survive. Without a buyer, they’d starve.
We’re providing a valuable role allowing the lower classes to be useful instead of burdens on society. They should be grateful to us.”
My world went white.
Because I’d been a young child the day my sister Ysabel had been sold, my memories had become faded and confused.
I remembered her screaming as they’d dragged her into the cart.
I remembered Calum asking our father when Ysabel was coming back and the look on his face when he learned that she wasn’t.
And I remembered rocking my newest baby brother to sleep that night because my mother had been crying too hard to do it herself.
The weight of that one day had infected our entire family like rot in the roots of a tree.
My mother had blamed my youngest brother because Ysabel’s gift had been revealed when she’d healed him.
And probably because Mom was too much of a coward to blame my father.
She’d barely even looked at or touched her youngest child.
Benoni had only been three years old when he’d asked me if he was going to hell because he made his sister disappear.
For years, my other siblings and I had lived in terror, afraid our father would do the same to us when the money ran out.
We’d been unable to stand up against his verbal, and sometimes physical, abuse.
All of us except Calum, who would pick fights with our father as if he wanted to get beaten.
Calum had blamed himself more than anyone else could.
When Ysabel had resurfaced as the Church’s Holy Maiden, suddenly both my parents had acted like everything was all better.
But it wasn’t all better. The sister who returned to me wore a mask in public and had panic attacks in private.
Ysabel’s healing ability cost a day of her life every time she used it, and the Church was draining her dry.
She didn’t even fight it. She acted like she didn’t care.
I always wondered what the men who’d purchased her had done to her, to make her not even care if she lived or died.
I’d tried to talk to her about it, but it only made her angry.
She didn’t open up to anyone, even—especially—her family.
I didn’t know what to say to Ysabel. We were sisters, but after so many years apart, we were also strangers.
In a sense, a bit of our sisterhood had been stolen.
We might never be as close as we would have been if we’d spent our entire childhoods together.
My youngest brother didn’t even know Ysabel at all.
A part of my family had been taken away that we could never get back.
Then Calum had gone to the city to save Ysabel and come back in an urn.
Yet this smug, smiling man said that I should be grateful to him for providing my abusive father with the opportunity to sell my sister.
I snapped.
“Guards!” I shouted. Two Sherdan guards in black-and-white uniforms entered the room and saluted. I pointed with one of my brightly painted nails. “Arrest this man!”
In all honesty, even after I spoke the words, part of me didn’t think they’d actually do it. But without hesitation, the guards seized Arrand’s arms and dragged him down the hallway.
His face went crimson. “You can’t—this is an outrage!”
But I could. I remembered the day the Blood Duchess had casually ordered me murdered because Falael had kissed my hand. Now I was the one holding that power. It was terrifying and maybe a little exhilarating.
Arrand cried, “My Gifted Knights will—”
“We’ll take you hostage to stop them from attacking.” I was coming up with my plan as I went along. I didn’t even know what my next step would be. I only knew that I couldn’t let him start a massacre.
“We had a deal! You swore a life-oath!” Arrand stared at me as if expecting me to fall over dead on the spot.
Yet as the knights continued to force him down the hallway, nothing happened. I hadn’t known if life-oaths taken by the real duchess would affect me or not, and I hadn’t known about this life-oath at all.
No invisible chains tightened around my heart.
Apparently life-oaths affected the person who’d sworn them, not their body.
Wait, did this mean I wouldn’t be able to ditch my life-oath to Araceli by fleeing back to my own body?
That could be a problem. Um, this didn’t mean my real body had dropped dead, did it?
Probably not since the duchess hadn’t broken the oath, but I was treading on completely unfamiliar territory.
“The Conclave of Kings will hear about this!” Arrand shouted before being dragged around a corner.
That could be an even bigger problem. The Conclave of Kings prevented any members of their organization from attacking another member through strict life-oaths.
They’d want to know why I hadn’t fallen over dead after arresting a representative of the Guild of Indentured Servitude.
Then they’d be required to take action against me.
What had I done?
Araceli ran down the hallway, a sword and scabbard clashing with her maid’s uniform. “There you are! Donya sent me to take you out of the palace.” Her mouth flattened into a grim line. “The rioters are about to break in.”