THE BLOCK
Annora's POV
The blood-collar knowswhen I'm afraid.
It pulses against my throat like a second heartbeat, hot metal biting into skin already worn raw. I learned in the first hour not to fight it. Fighting makes it tighten. Fighting makes it burn.
So I don't fight.
I go small. I go quiet. I count my breaths and search for exits that don't exist.
The handler—a woman with cold hands and colder eyes—drags me through the underbelly of the Red Amphitheater. Stone corridors slope downward into torch-lit darkness, the air thick with sweat and terror that isn't only mine. My wrists are bound in front of me with coarse rope that's already left marks.
Not that it matters. I'm already marked.
The brand on my shoulder throbs with each step, still fresh enough to weep.
Witch.
They burned it into me three days ago in the village square while the crowd cheered. The same neighbors who used tosmile when I sold them healing herbs. The same people whose children I'd drawn fevers from, whose bones I'd mended, whose ailments I'd eased with poultices and tinctures and care.
Funny how fast a healer becomes a monster when the crops fail and someone needs to bleed for it.
"Strip."
The word cuts through my thoughts. We've stopped in a low-ceilinged room that reeks of lye soap and fear-sweat. There's a wooden tub in the corner, steam rising from water that's been used before. Recently. Two other handlers wait by the far wall, their faces blank as plastered stone.
I don't move fast enough.
The first handler grabs the neck of my shift andtears. The fabric gives with a sound like something dying, and I gasp—can't help it—and the collar flares hot enough to steal my breath.
Don't react. Don't give them anything.
Rough hands shove me toward the tub. The water scalds, but I've learned this too: silence costs less than sound. They scrub me with brushes that might as well be weapons, scouring away three days of filth and blood and the last pathetic shreds of my dignity.
When they haul me out, I'm shaking. Cold, probably. Or fear. I've stopped being able to tell the difference.
The dress they give me isn't really a dress. It's ceremonial linen, thin as a broken promise and just as reliable. It clings to my damp skin, translucent enough to display what it pretends to cover.
That's the point, I realize.
Display the merchandise.
"Listen carefully." The first handler grips my chin, nails digging crescents into my jaw as she forces me to meet her eyes. "You don't speak unless spoken to. You don't fight the collar.And you don't look defiant." She leans closer, her breath sour. "Defiance raises the bid. Understand?"
I nod. My throat's too tight for words anyway.
She smiles, and it's worse than the scowl. "Good girl. Maybe you'll survive this after all."
I don't believe her.
I don't think she believes herself.
The roar hits me first.
They shove me toward a doorway, and suddenly I'm stumbling onto the auction block, blinking against lanternlight that floods the arena like a second sun. The Red Amphitheater rises up around me in tiers of stone and screaming faces—hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all baying for blood or gold or entertainment.
All here to watch me be sold.
