The holding chamber smelled like perfume, enchantment powder, and the kind of silence that followed dignity being strip-mined.
Selene Vael sat on a low velvet bench alongside the other "lots."
Velvet.
Because soft furniture totally cancels out iron chains, right?
Across from her, a girl maybe fifteen stared at her own hands like they weren't hers anymore.
To Selene's right, a tall, expressionless man sat so still he could have been sleeping.
Or meditating.
Or dead.
She didn't ask.
The room buzzed faintly with magic—glamour spells adjusting skin tone, hiding bruises, whitening teeth.
A floating brush kept trying to curl Selene's hair.
She let it.
She wasn't here to resist cosmetics.
Not yet, anyway.
She stared at the velvet curtains ahead.
Beyond them, the main hall hummed with low chatter, the occasional laugh, the clink of expensive wine glasses.
The auction had already begun.
They were calling numbers now.
Lot Twenty-Eight. Lot Twenty-Nine.
A girl with ash-blond hair had just been led out, wobbling slightly in heels two sizes too big.
Someone behind the curtain announced her "cheerful disposition."
She didn't return.
Selene clasped her hands together and sat upright.
This is fine, she told herself.
This is all just temporary.
She didn't believe it.
But lies were better than despair, and they sounded prettier in her head.
She tried not to remember the Academy—but her memory had no mercy.
Marble halls. Spellwork so elegant it shimmered.
Long nights with ink-stained fingers, arcane glyphs dancing across paper like living things.
She'd had a future.
A real one.
Then Father had to go and sell blueprints to a rival kingdom, she thought bitterly.
Because nothing says "legacy" like treason and high-stakes espionage.
Now the name "Vael" was a stain.
Her father was ashes.
Her mother was missing.
Her family crest had been quietly incinerated in the noble records, as if it had been offensive graffiti.
And Selene?
She had become state property, just like the cursed swords and confiscated grimoires.
The floating brush tugged a little too hard.
She swatted it away.
The door opened.
The handler called,
"Lot Thirty-Five. You're up."
Selene stood.
Smoothed the gown they'd forced on her—champagne silk, expensive, subtle, entirely the wrong color for her skin tone.
They wanted her to look like a debutante, not a prisoner.
She stepped through the curtain.
Warm light hit her skin. It wasn't kind.
It was the calculated glow of auction crystals designed to flatter from a distance and expose everything up close.
The announcer began:
"Lot Thirty-Five.
Selene Vael.
Former noble.
Former Academy prodigy.
Unmarried.
...Untouched."
A polite chuckle swept the nobles.
Oh yes, laugh while you can.
I've memorized your faces.
The bids began.
"Four hundred !"
"Five-fifty!"
"Six hundred and an enchanted collar!"
Selene's lips twitched.
Touch me and that collar's going in your lungs.
She wasn't panicking.
She knew the laws.
The Companionship Clause was clear.
No sexual servitude. No forced pleasure work.
The kingdom wants slaves, not scandals.
They can chain her.
Parade her.
They couldn't touch her.
"Six hundred and I'll teach her manners myself," purred a man with too-white teeth and fingers covered in rings.
Selene stared at his gloves. They were velvet.
Who wears velvet gloves to a slave auction? she thought, then immediately answered herself:
People who collect souls in jars, probably.
"Seven hundred!" shouted a broad-shouldered woman in a dress lined with taxidermy feathers.
"She can live in the greenhouse with my lizards.
They get lonely."
The announcer hesitated.
"Ma'am, uh—human companionship clause doesn't extend to—"
"Eight hundred!" another voice cut in.
"And I'll throw in my husband!"
Heads turned.
The bidder was a woman in pearls, fanning herself dramatically.
"I've been meaning to get rid of him. He eats loudly.
This one's prettier."
Selene blinked.
Did I just get compared to a man named Gerald who slurps soup?
"Eight-fifty!" yelled someone else.
"She'll be my eighth wife. The others are... asleep."
"Define asleep," muttered someone in the back.
Selene shifted her weight and kept her chin high.
This isn't happening. I'm not here. I'm dreaming.
But she wasn't.
The room smelled like perfume and power.
And desperation.
And she stood in the middle of it—dressed like a party favor, while half the room tried to buy her like a cursed painting.
The next offer made her stomach twist:
"Nine hundred and I'll give her a tower to herself," said a hooded man, voice sticky with glee.
"With soundproofing.
For privacy."
The auctioneer was clearly sweating now.
"Moving on! Nine-fifty?"
Then—
"One thousand," a new voice said.
Not loud.
Not desperate.
Just… calm.
A quiet ripple spread through the crowd.
Selene turned toward the source.
He stood in the back.
No jewels. No glitter. No ridiculous pets.
Black coat. Gloves.
Eyes like a blade she couldn't quite look away from.
He didn't wave. He didn't smirk.
He simply stood still, like he already owned the room and had no reason to explain it.
Kael.
The announcer coughed.
"One thousand gold. From the gentleman in black."
"Eleven hundred!" screeched the woman with the lizards.
"And I'll let her name one of them!"
"Twelve!" someone barked. "And I'll tattoo her with my house crest!"
Selene's teeth clenched.
Touch me with a needle and I'll start a fire they'll feel in the afterlife.
"Thirteen," said the man in black.
Just that.
Selene's heart slowed strangely at the sound of it.
"Fourteen!" came another desperate yell.
"She can polish my collection of antique toenail clippings!"
What.
"Seventeen," said Kael.
A long pause.
Then—
The gavel hit the block.
"Sold."
Selene didn't move as the spell circle lit up faintly at her feet.
Her new binding.
But her eyes were locked on the man in black as he turned away from the crowd, already walking out without a word.
No drama. No bow. No praise.
Just silence, and presence.
Selene stood still in the light, her dignity scraped raw—but her spine still straight.
Whoever he is… he doesn't look like he came to gloat.
She exhaled once, steady and sharp.
Good.
I'd rather be owned by a storm than a circus.