I take the token. I don't cause trouble.
The lodging is a narrow room with a straw mattress and a basin of cold water. I wash my face, my hands, the back of my neck. I eat the meal they bring: stew, bread, a cup of something bitter that isn't tea. I sit on the mattress and look at the wall and don't think about anything.
I sleep. I don't dream. When I wake my hands are curled into fists and my jaw aches from clenching.
Midday. The market plaza is on the lowest tier, open to the sky, surrounded by stalls and vendor tents and a raised stone platform at the center. The platform is old. Older than the town around it. The stone is dark and smooth, worn by centuries of feet.
There are other women. A dozen of us waiting in the staging area behind the platform. Some of them are nervous. Fidgeting, picking at their clothes, whispering to each other. A few are crying. One is staring at the far wall with an expression I recognize. Flat. Resigned. Going through the motions of a decision already made.
I don't talk to any of them. I'm not here to make friends.
I'm here to be sold.
My name is called. I walk up the steps to the platform.
Road clothes. His boots. My hair pulled back in a rough knot because I don't have a comb anymore. I gave it back.
The plaza is full. Creatures of every kind. Jötunn standing at the back where the sightlines are best. Smaller beings I don't have names for, clustered near the vendor stalls. Humans scattered through the crowd, watching with expressions that range from curiosity to disgust.
The auctioneer reads my registration. “Eseld. Human territories, southern regions. Skills: demolitions, structural assessment, field engineering.” He pauses on the skills the way the clerk paused. “Bidding is open.”
The bidding starts low. A few creatures test the waters. A pair of insectoid beings confer with each other, their voices a clicking hiss I can't understand. A broad-shouldered figure in a hooded cloak raises a hand, then drops it when the price climbs. A Jötunn woman at the back watches but doesn't bid.
Then a creature of stone steps forward.
Tall. Not Jötunn-tall, but tall, with dark skin that catches the light like polished obsidian and eyes the color of flint. He moves with a stillness that suggests everything is deliberate. No wasted motion. No heat in his expression. He looks at me the way I look at a structure: assessing function. What it can bear and what it’s worth.
He bids. The number is high enough to thin the crowd. The insectoid pair clicks and withdraws. The hooded figure turns away.
Stone.
Stable. No cracks in the facade. No hunger, no need, no desperation. He wants a tool. Someone with useful skills, demolitions training, an understanding of structures. He would house me and feed me and put me to work and never once look at me the way Thyran looked at me when I braided my hair bythe fire. He would never learn my tea preferences. Never leave anything on my pillow. Never shake when he touched me.
He would leave my soul alone.
That is what I came here for. Someone safe. Someone who would use me without wanting me.
I'm turning the word over in my mind. Safe. Thinking about what it means to choose a life where no one looks at me the way he did, where no one warms the walls just by wanting me near, where no one follows me across the Wastes because they can't bear the silence I leave behind.
The crowd shifts.
I feel him before I see him.
The temperature in the plaza changes. A warmth pressing through the cold air, reaching me on the platform from twenty feet away. People nearest the south gate are moving aside, pressing back against the stalls, clearing a path they didn't plan to clear.
Eight feet. Gray skin, dark as wet stone. White hair catching the light.
Thyran.
He’s drawing stares from every direction. Sweat on his forehead, his furnace running high. He’s moving through the crowd like it isn't there, and people are getting out of his way without being asked. He looks like he hasn't slept.
He looks terrified. And he is walking straight toward the platform.
His eyes find mine across the plaza.
My chest opens up. I feel it happen. Something structural giving way inside me, a load-bearing wall that’s been holding the whole building together suddenly cracking. I'm standing on a platform in a city full of strangers and the man I ran from followed me here.
The creature of stone turns his head. Looks at Thyran. Looks back at me. His expression doesn't change.
