Chapter 4 #2
Merchants in fine robes assessed, their eyes the discs of an ever-calculating abacus.
Men in armor, arms crossed, weighed my martial prowess.
Noble figures craned from the back as servants held parasols over their heads.
And women—several women with painted faces and ruby lips holding delicate fans—watched with interest I couldn’t quite grasp.
As I stepped onto the stage, its planks creaking beneath my weight, I could feel the bloodstain, still damp, still warm through the thin soles of my sandals.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I clasped them together, trying to hide it, but the trembling spread.
Sweat soaked the silk under my arms, at the small of my back.
My throat worked, but my mouth had gone dry.
Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit. Don’t—
“A rare offering!” the auctioneer announced. “Young, healthy, and look at those muscled arms and broad shoulders. This exotic beauty hails from the northern isles and is educated—well, as educated as barbarians may be.”
A tittering flitted through the crowd, and I watched as potential buyers whispered and cajoled.
“He is suitable for household service, labor requiring strength, or—” He paused meaningfully. “More pleasurable purposes.”
More pleasurable purposes?
My skin crawled.
“Opening bid—five ryō!”
A military man raised his hand immediately. “Five.”
“Seven,” another countered, also in military dress.
“Ten.”
“Twelve!”
The price climbed.
I stood there, frozen, as men bid for the right to own me, to use me however they saw fit.
I tried not to look at their faces, tried not to see the hunger in some eyes, the cold calculation in others, but I couldn’t help it.
My gaze caught on a merchant in the third row—a middle-aged, well-fed man whose smile felt like the oily bottom of a cooking pot.
He met my eyes and winked. I looked away so fast my neck popped.
The first military man shook his head, dropping out. The second smiled, clearly believing he’d won.
“Fifteen ryō,” he called triumphantly.
Silence.
The auctioneer raised his mallet. “Fifteen ryō, going once—”
Still nothing.
“Going twice.”
Wind fluttered nearby banners.
The soldier turned away.
The fat merchant licked his fat lips.
The auctioneer’s gavel began to fall.
“Twenty-five.”
The gavel froze as the auctioneer craned to find the speaker. The voice was female, clear and commanding, yet soft somehow. It was hard to name, like grasping wind.
The crowd gasped. Heads turned. The man eating his bun actually stopped chewing.
A woman strode forward, and even from the stage, I could see she was unlike anyone else in the square, possibly in the whole of the capital.
Her kimono was midnight blue embroidered with silver cranes, her hair black as night and styled with ornaments that captured the light.
Her lips were painted the deep red of blood, and her face—gods, her face was like something from a scroll painting, beautiful and terrible and utterly confident.
But it was her eyes that held me. Dark, assessing, missing nothing. She studied me the way a craftsman might examine a piece of wood—seeing not just what it was, but what it could become. She roamed my face, the contours of my jaw, then trailed down to my arms, to my chest, and beyond.
One perfectly shaped brow rose, then she raised a fan decorated with cherry blossoms, the gesture small but unmistakable.
The crowd murmured.
People stepped back, creating space around her.
Whispers started:
“Is that—”
“—twenty-five ryō, for a—”
“—can’t believe she—”
The military man blanched. He opened his mouth as if to counter-bid, then closed it. His companion touched his arm, shaking his head urgently.
“Twenty-five ryō,” the auctioneer called, and something in his voice had changed, lost its bravado, become deferential. “Going once . . . twice . . .” He brought the mallet down with a sharp crack. “Sold! To Yubi Momoko-sama.”
-sama? Was this woman a royal? A member of the Imperial household?
Momoko didn’t acknowledge the crowd’s reaction.
She didn’t wait for me to descend the stairs.
Perhaps most odd, she didn’t pay the auctioneer as I’d seen others do immediately following each sale.
She simply turned and strode away as if floating gracefully on a cloud, her servants scrambling to follow.
I stood there, trying to process what had just happened. Twenty-five ryō. The sum was staggering, a lifetime’s wages for a fisherman in Tooi. The way the military men backed down, the whispers that followed, the space people gave her as she passed, it all spoke of a regal contract.
A guard stepped forward and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the stairs.
My legs moved automatically, carrying me to ground level where two young women waited.
They were beautiful—impossibly so—dressed in simple but elegant kimonos, their faces painted white with delicate color on their lips and cheeks.
Their age was impossible to tell, though I guessed them no older than me, their movements graceful as dancers.
Both of them bowed.
To me.
A slave just sold.
Just purchased.
One of the women—the taller one with kind eyes—drew in a sharp breath when she straightened. She glanced at her companion, some silent message passing between them.
Twenty-five ryō, her expression said. The mistress paid twenty-five ryō.
I stared, confused and terrified.
“Kaneko-san,” the kind-eyed one said softly. “We are here to escort you.”
She knew my name. How did she—
“Where?” My voice came out strangled.
“Momoko-sama is waiting,” the other said. She smiled, but there was something sad in it, something knowing. “Please, follow us.”
They turned and began walking, clearly expecting me to follow. There were no guards, no male servants with weapons or knives or strong arms to compel me, only these women and their soft-spoken urgings.
I could’ve run, could’ve fought them, killed them, even. I’d trained for battle. Two women in dainty silks were no match for my skills.
And yet, somehow, they were enough.
I looked back at the auction block, at the stage still stained with blood despite the servants’ best efforts, at the crowd already focused on the next piece of merchandise being dragged forward—a girl who couldn’t have been more than thirteen, sobbing openly.
The auctioneer’s voice rose again: “Opening bid—one ryō! No? How about twenty mon?”
The painted women looked back at me, their expressions patient but urgent.
I had no choice, so I followed them into the streets of Bara, toward whatever fate awaited me.
My hands shook still. I looked down at them—at the fine silk covering my arms, at fingers that didn’t look like mine anymore—and couldn’t recognize them as part of me.
Behind us, the auctioneer’s voice faded into the clamor of the city.
And Bara swallowed me whole.