Pleasure Trader (Joyless Kingdom #3)

Chapter 1

One

Elaine

“Stay awake!” I commanded my brain. “Don’t fall asleep. Not now.”

Other than dozing off briefly when we’d stopped at the camp, I’d barely closed my eyes since they had snatched me from the hill with the portal almost four days ago.

I needed to keep track of where and how far they were taking me, which wasn’t an easy task in the desert at night while traveling in a cage strapped to the side of a camel.

I made sure not to miss a single sunset or sunrise and tracked the directions the best I could.

Judging by where the sun rose and sat, we’d been moving steadily east all the way from the temple.

If I ever got out of this cage, I was pretty sure I could find my way back to the Temple of the First Priestess by going west.

From there, it’d be tricky, however. I believed Teneris was located roughly south-east from the temple, but I wasn’t sure how far south or how far east. I also had no way of knowing what awaited me in Teneris, even if I ever actually made my way there one day.

Were humans still welcome in Prince Rha’s city? Could I still count on the prince to treat me the way his Joy Vessels were treated before our escape?

The last thing I remembered before a joy trader snatched me was Dawn running to me while I was looking for my stupid glasses. In the end, I didn’t find the glasses, and I lost my freedom too. I feared I’d lost Dawn as well.

Erik, a human man from our sarai and currently my fellow captive, said he saw Melanie falling through the portal.

He didn’t see Dawn jumping through with her, but he said she might’ve gone through before Melanie, because she was no longer on the hill at that point.

If so, then from the people I knew back home, only Ciana and I remained in the Alveari Kingdom now.

I’d been both excited and saddened to find Ciana in a cage with me back at the camp.

It was an incredible relief to see her alive, but she’d been captured, just like me.

And now that the traders had separated us, I’d lost her again.

We might reunite when the traders bring her to the same place where they were taking Erik, me, and four other humans, to the place they called Ashgate.

Only I feared that would not be a happy reunion because nothing I overheard about Ashgate was good.

My only hope was to run, and I waited for an opportunity to get out of this fucking cage.

“Do not fall asleep,” I repeated in my mind urgently.

It’d been hours since we’d left the camp and Ciana. We traveled the rest of the night, then through most of the day too—endless hours of heat and thirst, alleviated only by a few sips of stale, warm water that the traders would give us occasionally.

The monotonously steady pace of the camel rocked the cage like a cradle. My limbs felt heavy, and my mind was fuzzy from the overwhelming need to sleep. My head dropped and my brain blanked out for…how long?

I jerked awake.

“Do. Not. Fall. Asleep…”

I had to do something about it or risk losing my bearings in the desert. I tapped the shoulder of the man who was sharing the cage with me.

“Erik,” I said. “Can you keep an eye on where they’re taking us?”

He stared at me blankly. There was hardly any space for the two of us in the small, crammed cage. Erik’s bent legs had been pressed against mine for hours, but he looked at me like he’d just noticed I was in here with him.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded with the same vacant expression. Erik had slept a lot both at the camp and on the go and had to be well rested. He looked a bit weird—oddly detached, or stunned, or maybe just thirsty—but nowhere nearly as sleepy as I felt.

“Listen,” I leaned over our knees to him, “see those three bright stars over there?”

The triad were the largest stars in the sky. I could see them even without my glasses. For me, they blurred into a fuzzy, triangular blob of pale light in the dark sky, but if I could see them, everyone could.

Erik nodded.

“Can you watch them for me, please?” I asked.

“Watch?” Erik made a confused face, which was actually reassuring. The man still had some emotions left.

“Yes. Make sure they remain in the same position relevant to the caravan as we move. If we change direction, wake me up.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to keep track of where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?” he asked mechanically.

“I don’t know, Erik. But when we get there, I’d like to be able to find my way back.”

“And my watching these three stars will help you do that?” He tilted his head with a curious expression.

“That’s the plan.”

“You have a plan?” His voice would’ve sounded mocking if it weren’t so hopelessly empty, like Erik was too tired to summon the inflection to convey sarcasm.

“Can you just do it for me? Please? I really need to get some sleep.”

“Sure.” He jerked a shoulder, then listlessly leaned his head against the bars of the cage.

He looked like the camels could turn one-eighty or even take off in a flight, and he wouldn’t notice. Could I even trust him to be vigilant?

I had no choice. Exhaustion had already muffled my senses, stifling them like a thick, heavy blanket. If I didn’t let my mind rest, I feared it’d just shut down on its own soon.

“Thanks,” I said to Erik. “Wake me up if there's any change in direction.”

He hummed something unintelligible in reply.

I tipped to the side of the cage that was closer to the camel. The animal’s body radiated heat. Its long, black fur was thick but soft, not like any camels back on Earth.

The air had cooled off significantly through the night. Fortunately, I’d been holding on to my sweater ever since the shadow fae had taken us from Dawn’s basement. I snuggled into my sweater and leaned into the warmth of the camel. The moment I closed my eyes, my mind went blank.

It was a heavy sleep with no dreams, as if someone had flipped off a switch and then flipped it back on, yanking me back to reality.

“Where are we?” I muttered, trying to sit up.

How long had I slept?

My back and legs were stiff after staying in the same position for way too long. I wished I could stretch, but there was barely enough space for me to even spread out my fingers. I glanced at my hand and…couldn't see it.

Waves of black smoke flooded the cage. Its filaments curled around my hands, obscuring them from view.

I couldn’t see my legs either. The black fur of the camel merged with darkness that swallowed even the bars of the cage.

I couldn’t see a thing, and I had a feeling my glasses wouldn’t have helped even if I still had them.

“Erik?” I screamed into the darkness.

His legs still pressed against mine, but I couldn’t see him. Jamming a hand between the bar cages, I felt the warm side of the camel. The animal was still there. It just blended with the dark fog so thick, it seemed almost tangible.

Then…the smoke receded. The tide of darkness ebbed.

“What happened?” I twisted around as much as the cage would allow me. “What’s going on?”

The pitch-black fog rolled back into a wide churning circle behind us. Magic sparkled inside it with gold shimmer.

A portal.

“Close the shadow tunnel!” Piara yelled to someone.

“A shadow tunnel?” I stared back as the circle of black smoke and golden magic grew smaller and eventually disappeared into the night.

Why had it appeared in the first place?

Oh, no…

Had we just gone through it?

This couldn’t be a portal back to my old world. The glow inside it lacked the pink hue, which would’ve been the sign of the River of Mists connected to it. This one was just black, with the typical golden sparks of the shadow fae magic.

Were we still in the Alveari Kingdom then? Just in some different part of it?

The chilling thought washed over me with dread. If we had gone through a shadow tunnel to come here, I would never be able to get back to the temple on my own now.

“Your three stars are gone, Elaine,” Erik stated in a flat voice.

The night sky spread over us like a diamond-studded velvet. But my three guiding stars were no longer there. Their glow was gone, replaced by a myriad of new stars I could barely see and didn’t recognize.

“Where are we?” I exhaled in a whisper, my heart swamped by heavy hopelessness.

Piara sauntered out of the darkness.

“Welcome to Ashgate City,” she said. “The place where Joy Vessels are valued above all.”

The smirk on her face promised nothing good from being “valued” here.

Ihad no idea how long I’d slept. But what did it matter anyway whether it was an hour or five minutes?

The shadow tunnel could’ve taken us any distance in that time.

I knew that only Joy Guardians from the Temple of the First Priestess could create the portal connecting to the River of Mists using a spell.

But it appeared that a plain old shadow tunnel without a connection to the magical river could be created by any fae, even by the traders.

I had no way back now. I was stuck in this city.

Except that…it didn’t even look like a city.

I saw no hill, no wall, and no light. It was just the same endless black desert swallowed by an equally dark night. With the magical glow of the tunnel now extinguished, only the shimmering crests of the dunes and the twinkling stars above broke this infinite darkness.

Our caravan kept moving forward. I couldn’t see much and strained my hearing instead, expecting to hear crowds clamoring, people chatting, horses or camels trotting along the paved paths—all the usual noises of a shadow fae city that I’d often heard in Teneris.

None of it came. Instead, the sound that stretched over the sand dunes was a distant, measured hum that rose and ebbed in intensity. It seemed to spread under the night sky reaching everywhere at once.

“What is that noise?” I muttered under my breath.

No one answered, of course. The shadow fae led the camels forward. Erik gripped the bars of our cage, staring out into the darkness.

“Do you see anything?” I asked, hoping his eyesight was better than mine.