Chapter Sixteen — The Market of Chains
They came for him at dawn.
Not with words—never with words—but with the clatter of iron and the sharp bark of orders in a language he couldn't understand. The guards opened the cell door and motioned for him to stand, their eyes cold and unbothered, as if they were collecting tools, not people.
Lucien didn't resist.
He rose on unsteady legs, bones aching from the straw bed, and walked into the sunlit corridor outside. There were others already gathered. Dozens. Hundreds, maybe. All wearing the same ragged, sweat-stained clothes. All bearing the same hollow stares.
Men who hadn't been lucky enough to die.
The soldiers worked quickly. Shackles were slapped onto wrists and ankles, thick iron loops bound tight with rusted bolts. The chains ran from man to man like a leashed centipede. Lucien was thrown into the line near the back, between a gray-bearded man with a dislocated shoulder and a wiry figure whose eyes never stopped twitching.
They moved as a unit, like cattle.
The sun beat down on them as they left the camp.
Lucien looked over his shoulder once—just once—at the fortress that had kept him caged for so long. The black stone walls, the jagged towers, the banners of some kingdom or clan flapping in the heat-heavy air.
He didn't feel relief leaving it.
Only emptiness.
The desert wind hit him like a slap, stirring sand into his eyes and open wounds. The chains jingled with every step, an endless metallic dirge that filled the silence between barked orders and occasional whimpers.
It didn't take long before he saw where they were going.
A caravan waited a few miles outside the camp—a massive, sprawling behemoth of tents, wagons, horses, and people. Easily two or three hundred individuals moved about the camp in organized chaos. Colorful cloths fluttered in the wind, but the wealth in the air wasn't comforting—it was sharpened, weaponized.
These people weren't merchants.
They were traffickers.
Slave traders.
Lucien could see it instantly. The way they looked at the incoming prisoners—not with hatred or pity, but with interest. With calculation. The way livestock might be measured before auction.
His stomach clenched.
The guards handed the chained line off to a different set of men, dressed in lighter clothes, heads wrapped in fabric to block the sun. They moved more casually than soldiers. Less rigid. But there was danger in their calm.
They were used to this.
Lucien and the others were marched through a rough corridor of wagons and tents. Children peered out from beneath canvas flaps. Women carried bowls of water past hobbled slaves already bought and branded. Some of those captives stared blankly. Others looked away.
Lucien didn't know which he preferred.
Eventually, they were forced into a large open area ringed by stakes and rope—some kind of holding pen. The guards shoved them inside with the butts of spears, and the chained line stumbled forward as one.
Inside the pen, it was worse.
The smell of sweat, blood, and filth clung to the air. Flies buzzed in clouds, and the ground was uneven, littered with sand and discarded bones. There was no shade. No water. Just the sun overhead, blistering skin and boiling the earth.
Lucien collapsed near the center and didn't bother trying to stand.
He was so tired of being pulled from one nightmare to the next like a pawn with no say in the game.
A whistle blew somewhere nearby.
Voices called out.
One by one, groups of prisoners were cut from the chain and led off to the line of tents beyond the holding pen. Lucien watched it happen, chest tightening. Each group gone was one step closer to his turn. One step closer to being sold like an object. A tool.
He didn't know what would come next.
And that terrified him more than anything.
He lay in the dirt, cheek pressed against the cracked earth, the chain across his chest rattling every time someone else shifted or whimpered.
He wanted to scream. To fight. To demand answers.
But he couldn't even ask the right questions. He didn't know this world. Its rules. Its language. For all he knew, this wasn't part of the Trial at all. Maybe he'd failed already. Maybe he was supposed to die and had simply slipped through the cracks, trapped in a place he was never meant to see.
Or maybe this was the Trial.
And survival was the test.
Not fighting monsters.
Not unlocking powers.
But enduring.
Eventually, a horn sounded.
A gruff voice barked something sharp.
Lucien's group was next.
He was yanked to his feet, the chain tugging against his bruised wrists. The guards moved quickly, cutting them free of the larger line, splitting them into groups of four. Lucien was pushed forward, heart hammering, legs barely responding.
He passed through the tent flaps into a dim interior heavy with heat and incense.
Men sat around a wide wooden table.
Tall, armored. Well-fed. Bound, probably—at least some of them. Lucien could feel it. The same pressure he'd felt in the military camp. They weren't soldiers, but they were dangerous. Survivors. Maybe from this world's own Trials.
One of them stood and walked toward him.
He was huge. Taller than Lucien's current body. A mane of silver-black hair tied in braids and a dozen tattoos marked across his arms and collarbone. His gaze swept over Lucien once.
Then again.
Longer this time.
He muttered something to one of the others and dropped a sack of coin onto the table.
Lucien didn't understand the words.
But he understood what had just happened.
He'd been bought.