Chapter 39 A High Price
A High Price
Caramyn
As the ship docked, Caramyn’s bones shuddered as the ship groaned through the icy shallow water. With dread gripping her heart, she watched the prisoners as the crew forced them to their feet.
Her head whipped around, looking for Brenn, but she caught no sight of him. She clutched the withering Blood Briar petals ferociously, praying they still retained their potency.
Her heart pounded and twisted as a calloused crewman appeared at her side, undoing her shackles to offboard her with the rest of the captives.
When she resisted, the back of his hand met her face.
She managed to keep her footing against the blow, and pressed a hand against her bruised cheek as she looked up at the man through reddened, vengeful eyes.
Her breath shortened, and she pulled her hand from her face, ashamed of herself for showing him even an instance of weakness. And then she spat on him.
The man reached for her and raised his hand to strike her a second time, but a voice approaching made him pause.
“Wait! Stop!”
It was Brenn. He was panting as though he’d just finished dealing with something urgent. Rushing to the man’s side, he uttered his words between heaving breaths.
“She’s barely recovered! If you damage her, you’ll cost the captain,” he hissed. “Since I am her medic, I was instructed to see her to the bidding grounds. You are relieved of your duty here.” Brenn held an unwavering gaze on the man, who reluctantly turned away after an intense stare down.
As Brenn tended to Caramyn and pretended to chain her wrists together, he leaned forward so that she could hear the words he whispered under his breath.
“I got what you asked for.” And then he slipped a tiny vile of seawater into her hands.
She quickly added the petals and then snapped the plug back on.
He made it appear as though she was still bound, but really, he’d left her shackles unlocked as he led her up to the deck of the longboat.
The searing sunlight on the white snow-capped mountains almost blinded her after two days in the dark belly of the ship. But the sun’s warmth on her dry, frigid skin was a welcome sensation.
At the docks, where the black water froze into jagged panes along the shore, a small settlement awaited.
Towering above it, the mountains rose sheer and merciless, their snowy peaks vanishing into a sky perpetually choked with ash-colored cloud.
No road led in, and none led out. The only access point was the narrow throat of the fjord itself, hemmed by cliffs so steep and slick with ice that it would be impossible to escape from here even if she could run.
A scattering of tents huddled against the wind, their hides stiffened by frost and smoke.
Between them, a crude market sprawled across the frozen ground.
Splintered tables, bone-carved trinkets, slabs of salted meat traded in silence by figures wrapped head to toe in furs.
Caramyn found her body trembling uncontrollably, desperate for warmth, and could only imagine if it was already this brutally cold down here, what chance would she stand against the elements further up into the Spires?
At the center of it all lay the bidding ground—a ring of trampled snow and dirt, and a few charred fire stains.
Voices rose from around the ring, mostly of men naming their prices for the women who stood in the midst of it all.
Women stood rigid in the cold, eyes forward, as brooding, towering men examined them like livestock.
The crew began lining up the women they’d brought from the ship at the entrance of this bidding ring. And she was part of the inventory.
“Run as soon as you have a chance.” Brenn whispered, hardly moving his lips as they stepped off the pier.
Caramyn gave a subtle nod, but deep down, she didn’t have the faintest idea where she could even go.
She would die in this place without shelter and warmth.
But better to freeze to death than be caged as some man’s pet bird.
Then she saw her—a young girl, barely a teenager—standing amongst the group.
She was different, her skin the deep tan of the arid desert lands far across the sea and her hair like smooth raven’s feathers.
She might’ve been from Gahmea, a prominent kingdom of sand and sun.
Her terrified brown eyes met Caramyn’s for a moment, and like the girl’s on the ship, they haunted her.
She looked away, sickened at the thought of these young girls forced to this desolate, cruel place, and desperate to distract herself from this unfolding nightmare she could not stop.
“Have you ever been here before?” Caramyn asked Brenn, eyeing the meager tents and rune jewelry.
“Just once. Briefly.” Brenn didn’t turn around but slowed his pace as he lagged behind the rest of the group. Then he gave her a nudge. “Whenever you’re ready, run. Maybe if you can hide out long enough you can catch another ship that comes in and stowaway.”
Not a bad plan, Caramyn thought. She ripped her hands from the chains and ducked away, running for her life in the opposite direction towards another unknown fate, but hopefully better than this one.
She hadn't gotten far, when icy mist appeared around her ankles like lassos.
A rope of ice and snow coiled around her like a serpent, knocking her to the ground before dragging her back through the unbothered crowd to a hulking one-eyed man who stood back at the dock covered in thick furs and hides.
“I’d be careful if I were you. The sale isn’t kind to those who try to run.
” He spoke through the thick scarf across his mouth, looking down at her lying in the cold mud.
The look in his bright blue eye and the calm of his voice told Caramyn he must’ve done this a million times before.
And he was clearly a Silverean water witch—quite skilled with manipulating ice and snow.
“Best behave or you could end up with a buyer who is rather…cruel.”
The way he drew out the last word made Caramyn shiver.
For the first time since Asterious had found her in the Shadow Woods, she felt completely helpless.
Of course magic would be prominent here.
There was no authority to stop them. Strange and ancient magic had likely flourished here in these untouchable peaks while it suffered its grueling death in the rest of the kingdoms.
“All that power and you choose to use it for this,” she spat through desperate pants.
“Let’s just say I make the most of my talents.” The man grinned and flexed his arm in a mocking way that made her want to claw out his remaining eye.
Brenn ran to her side, but the man shoved him back. “You couldn’t keep her contained. I don’t think your captain would approve of you taking her the rest of the way.”
“I’m sorry,” Brenn said, producing the shackles he’d removed from Caramyn. “It was an accident. It won’t happen again...I promise.”
The Silverean man watched Brenn with suspicion, then snatched the shackles from him and placed them on Caramyn’s wrists himself, securing them so that there was no chance of her getting out of them again.
“Try again.” He growled, pointing to the bidding grounds. “If you so much as step in the wrong direction, I’ll kill you both.”
Caramyn hoped the focused look on Brenn’s face meant he had a plan, because she was out of ideas now.
But as they walked, she sensed Brenn's nervousness as he guided her, noting the sweat starting to form on his forehead even in this frigid air.
She wondered if he could tell she was just as worried.
She could see up ahead. Smoke from nearby fires shrouded various men of status, draped in their fine furs and laden with axes and leather, laughing and drinking.
A breath caught in her throat when she realized they were discussing the price on a helpless young woman who stood displayed among others in the center of the ring.
“I can’t imagine why there’s a shortage of women in this charming place.” Caramyn shook her head. “Who wouldn’t want to stay here?”
“They tend to sire mostly sons. Daughters are rare, so I’ve heard, and more susceptible to the harsh climate.
Then there’s the matter of death in childbirth…
No doubt women are kept like broodmares in hopes of increasing the female population.
” Brenn murmured, his voice low. “Though I suppose they finally realized it was more effective to smuggle wives in.”
She swallowed, nausea tearing at her stomach. “I’ve fought off vile men before. A little ice won’t stop me from doing it again.” She said it under her breath, more for herself to hear than for Brenn. But within her insides were twisting in knots.
“Just be careful.” Brenn’s touched the top of her knuckles of the hand containing the vile, and his eyes flashed gold for a heartbeat.
“What did you do?” Caramyn asked, taking another reluctant step toward the bidding ring.
“I made the vial invisible. But it’s only a small enchantment and it will only last for a few hours. Keep it close. It’s all I know to do.”
Before Caramyn could ask him more, a solid, unforgiving grip yanked her away from Brenn. “Time to go!” It was captain Tharvold. “I’ll not risk you escaping again.”
“No!” She cried, twisting and tugging without success to escape his grasp.
Brenn chased after her two men from the crew were quick to restrain him.
Caramyn heard the captain reprimand him and order the men to take him back to the ship.
She watched the distance between them grow as Brenn, shouting and grunting in objection, was restrained and dragged away until she could no longer hear his voice.
She hadn’t even gotten to tell him thank you.
The captain yanked her along until he brought her to a man sitting alone on his own private platform. By this alone, it was easy to note his wealth.
His head was shaved to the skin, marked with pale scars and dark paint that traced his temples and brow, highlighting the grease and grime along his scalp.
A circlet of bone and beaten metal rested against his skull, more talisman than crown, a faint tang of blood and rot clinging to it.
He watched her with hard amber eyes sharp as ice under a winter sun.
Eyes that flickered with a simmering hint of cruelty.
Though at least middle-aged, his body was thick with muscle beneath layers of fur and hide, and when he stood, he towered over Caramyn as just as she imagined a Silverean clansmen would.
Broad, immovable, and forged by the cold, and radiating a predatory stench of a man who took things by force and did not care who he crushed along the way.
Tharvold spoke to the man in an unfamiliar tongue, likely the ancient Silverean language that she thought only the mountains knew.
He gestured to her as though she was an object he was presenting, no more alive than the shackles on her wrists.
After an exchange of gold coins, he left Caramyn in the presence of the man, still bound.
“That’s quite an unusual eye color. What kind of wielder are you?” The man surprised Caramyn as he spoke in the common tongue, his accent thick. She did not respond as the man eyed her up and down in a way that made her crave a long bath.
“It doesn’t matter to me if you answer me or not.
My house is warded to suppress your power, whatever it is.
I bought you for the only thing you’re good for.
And that’s not speaking.” He reached up and touched her swollen face.
She flinched and pulled back as much as her chains would allow.
He clicked his tongue. “Oh no, they didn’t tell me about that.
I couldn’t see the bruise from there. I paid a high price for you because of your rare beauty.
Too stunning to be ruined by senseless injuries like that.
” He paused, running his fingers down the curve of her neck.
“But you can prove you’re still worth the price tonight.
I don’t think I’ll have the patience for to wait for the binding ceremony. ”
Caramyn felt her head spin and thought she might vomit there on the spot, despite the fact that her stomach was empty.
Memories stirred up of the Inquisitors who had looked at her mother with the same filthy, vultures’ eyes.
He placed a thick fur pelt around her, and though she winced at his touch, she welcomed the much-needed protection against the cold.
She clenched the vial in her sweating palm.
Her last hope. Unless those Shadows had followed her across these frigid water as they had followed her to Asterious’ court.
Unless they would come to her aid now again as they did with the Cavren.
But she couldn’t take the chance in assuming they would show up.
And if she had somehow summoned them in her own power, she was clueless as to how to do it again.
She would survive with or without the Shadows’ help.
Whatever awaited her, she could only pray that when night came, and this horrid man tried to touch her, she would have quite the surprise for him instead.
But first she’d have to survive the trek up the mountain.