The merchant's shadow fell across me like a shroud. His thin lips peeled back, revealing teeth stained yellow from whatever vile substances traders consumed in the outer rim. He clapped once—a sharp crack that echoed through the throne room.
The great doors groaned open. Four men entered, muscles straining beneath worn leather as they hauled a chest between them. It hit the marble with a resonant thud that vibrated through my knees. The lid popped open on impact, and golden credits spilled across the floor like blood from a wound.
"There." The merchant's skeletal finger pointed at the fortune. "Triple the standard rate, as promised. House Ashworth's debts to the Golden Tribe are cleared, with enough left over for your... renovations."
Mirana's eyes glittered with avarice. She descended from my mother's throne, silk skirts whispering across the credits scattered at her feet. Her fingers dipped into the chest, letting coins cascade through them like water.
"Excellent." She didn't even look at me. I was already forgotten, already nothing. "Take her."
The merchant snapped his fingers. Two of his men stepped forward, producing iron shackles that gleamed dull in the filtered light. The metal was cold—so cold it burned where it touched my wrists. The lock clicked with terrible finality.
"Stand." The merchant's command brooked no argument.
Viktor released my hair. My scalp screamed as blood rushed back. I rose on trembling legs, the torn servant's dress hanging in tatters around me. One of the merchant's men threw a rough cloak over my shoulders. Not out of kindness—damaged goods fetched lower prices.
"Wait." Father's voice drifted from behind a pillar. He'd been there the whole time. Watching. "Lyra, I—"
"You what?" The words ripped from my throat, raw and bleeding. "You're sorry? You had no choice?"
He stepped into view, and I saw it then—the weakness in his eyes, the coward's shame. He clutched a wine goblet, knuckles white against the crystal. My mother would have fought armies for me. He couldn't even face me sober.
"Your mother would understand," he whispered.
The laugh that escaped me was broken glass. "My mother would have burned this palace to ash before letting you sell her daughter."
The merchant tugged the chain attached to my shackles. "We leave now. The Golden Prince doesn't like delays."
As they dragged me toward the doors, Mirana called out, honeyed poison in every word: "Do give the Crown Prince our regards, won't you, dear? Tell him House Ashworth is grateful for his... generosity."
The cobblestones of my own courtyard scraped against my bare feet as they dragged me forward. Each step took me further from everything I'd ever known. The autumn wind cut through the threadbare cloak, but it was the sight of home—my towers, my gardens, my mother's rose window—that stole the breath from my lungs.
A small spacecraft squatted on the landing pad like a diseased toad, its hull pocked with rust and carbon scoring. Nothing like the elegant vessels that once brought dignitaries to court. The back door yawned open, revealing darkness that reeked of fear and unwashed bodies.
The merchant's men didn't bother with courtesy. Rough hands seized my arms and hurled me inside. My knees cracked against metal grating as I landed hard in a cage barely tall enough to sit upright. The bars were cold iron, thick as my wrist, designed for cargo far more dangerous than one broken princess.
The lock engaged with a pneumatic hiss. Through the bars, I watched the merchant inspect his new acquisition with the same dispassion he'd show examining produce. His boots clicked against the deck plating as he circled my prison.
"Why me?" The question scraped past my pride. "Why does the Crown Prince need me?"
He paused mid-step, that yellow smile spreading across his face like an infection. A laugh wheezed from his chest—the sound of credits being counted.
"Need you?" His fingers drummed against the cage bars. "Oh, little princess. The Crown Prince doesn't need anything. He wants a new maid for his personal chambers, someone pretty enough to look at while he dresses."
He leaned closer, breath fouling the air between us. "You look acceptable enough—that red hair is exotic on Aurelia Prime. I'll earn triple what I paid for you, maybe more if you clean up well."
The truth hit harder than Marcus's fist. Not even worth ransoming. Not valuable as a political prisoner. Just another body to scrub floors and empty chamber pots. A maid. The daughter of Crimson Vale's greatest queen reduced to changing sheets for the Golden Prince.
The merchant turned away, already dismissing me from his thoughts. "Get comfortable, princess. It's a long jump to Aurelia Prime, and His Highness expects his purchases delivered in working condition."
The engines roared to life beneath us, vibrations rattling through the cage bars and into my bones.
The floor tilted beneath me as the spacecraft lurched skyward. Through a grimy porthole, I watched Crimson Vale shrink away—first the palace, then the capital, then the whole scarlet continent swallowed by clouds. My mother's world, my world, reduced to a rust-coloured marble hanging in the void. Then even that was gone.
The merchant's pilot was either drunk or incompetent. We pitched and rolled through the atmosphere, each jolt slamming me against the cage bars. My stomach heaved, but there was nothing left to bring up. I'd learned that lesson already—never eat before a summons from Mirana.
Through the forward viewport, a shadow blotted out the stars. The merchant's carrier loomed ahead, a bloated whale of a ship with a hull like diseased flesh. Docking lights blinked along its belly, guiding us toward a maw that could swallow a dozen craft our size. The magnetic locks engaged with a shriek of tortured metal.
Gravity shifted as we passed through the atmospheric barrier. My cage tilted forty-five degrees before crashing back level. Blood trickled from where my lip split against the bars.
"Move the cargo." The merchant's voice carried from the cockpit. "Bay seven. Keep this one separate from the others until I decide her placement."
Heavy boots approached. One of the merchant's men—the one with the scar bisecting his left eye—grabbed the cage's handle and hauled it off the deck like it weighed nothing. I bit back a cry as my shoulder slammed into the bars. Show no weakness. My mother's voice, clear as crystal in my memory. They feed on weakness.
The carrier's interior was worse than its exterior suggested. Corroded pipes wept condensation that reeked of recycled air and desperation. Emergency lighting cast everything in a sick orange glow. We passed through corridors so narrow the cage scraped both walls, leaving rust-coloured streaks on the metal.
Bay seven's door groaned open on hinges that hadn't seen oil in years. The stench hit me first—unwashed bodies, human waste, and something else. Fear. It had a smell, I discovered. Acrid and sharp, like metal on the tongue.
Cages lined both walls, stacked three high and stretching back into shadows. Some held single occupants; others were crammed with bodies pressed together like cattle. A hundred pairs of eyes tracked our movement—some dead with resignation, others wild with fresh panic. These weren't all recent captures. Some had been here long enough for their clothes to rot away.
The scarred man dropped my cage with a clang that echoed through the bay. A child whimpered somewhere in the darkness. Another voice hushed it quickly—drawing attention here meant pain.
"Well, well." A woman's voice, cracked from disuse, drifted from the cage beside mine. "They brought themselves a princess."
I turned to find eyes that might once have been blue, now milky with cataracts. The woman's fingers, skeletal and filthy, wrapped around her bars. She wore rags that might have been a merchant's uniform, decades ago.
"How did you—"
"The way you hold yourself, even beaten down." She coughed, a wet sound that spoke of internal damage. "I transported enough nobility to know. Before I got caught skimming profits and ended up here myself."
The door sealed behind the scarred man with a pneumatic hiss. Emergency lights dimmed further, leaving us in near darkness. Somewhere, water dripped steadily. Someone sobbed. Another prayed in a language I didn't recognise.
I pressed my face against the cold bars, trying to see further into the hold. How many souls were trapped here? How many had been princes and princesses of their own worlds before the merchants came?
The old woman laughed—a sound like grinding glass. "Welcome to the cargo deck, princess."