Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 68525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
I lowered my eyes. Out of sheer relief that she had stopped the agony, I walked towards where in my limited field of vision I could see their feet—the baron’s in deep red leather shoes, the mistress’ in simple ones of the same sort of cloth her dress seemed made of, with synthetic rubber soles.
“I’m sorry I had to do that,” her voice said, once I had come within half a meter of the fence. “But it’s important we begin as we mean to go on. Now, what is your real name?”
I blinked. For a moment I thought I couldn’t have heard her correctly, since the question seemed to go against everything I had experienced of the Vionians so far.
“Wetquim,” the baron said. His voice was so deep, the deepest voice I thought I had ever heard. It couldn’t actually have shaken me through its rumbling vibration, but it felt to me like it did. “Answer your new mistress. What is your Kamnian name?”
“Ch—Chalondra,” I stammered.
“Chalondra, Master,” the mistress said. “Try again, please.”
My lips parted. My breath passed in and out in fearful pants. I could feel the eyes of the other concubines on me. Another one had joined us, from the block, right after the mistress had spoken my new name… which wasn’t my new name, because they had asked for my real name? Confusion pressed in from every direction. Why was I the only girl whose new owner had come to the corral?
What had the mistress said? Try again, please? Try what again? I had lost the thread completely.
“I’m waiting, Chalondra,” the baron said. He spoke the words as a simple, factual utterance, rather than with a threat, but I could tell he wouldn’t hesitate to tell the mistress to punish me if he found the answer unsatisfactory. Master. He wasn’t merely my owner. This man meant to be much more than that to me.
“Chalondra, Master,” I said. I felt a surge of perverse pride in having figured out what they required, and strange as it seemed, I found a spark of spirit rising in my chest. I felt as if I had started to understand the system that had bound me, and the man who through that system had acquired me as his possession.
“Good girl,” said the mistress. “As I think you’ve probably gathered, Chalondra, this is your new master, Baron Gravamir. I am Mistress Franla. You will call me mistress. Do you understand?”
I blew a breath through my nostrils. For a fraction of a second, I found myself considering whether to give the required answer or to show that I had recovered some of the defiance that had gotten me paddled so painfully in the basement of the village house, half a galaxy away. The feel of the metal cuffs around my wrist and the threat of the device in Mistress Franla’s hand made me think better of it.
“Yes, mistress,” I said.
“Good girl.” The baron had said it this time. In his deep voice it seemed to sound utterly different from the mistress’ casual use of the words, and from Agent Delvik’s mocking version. My brow furrowed as I felt a warmth arise in me, very different from the returning spark of resistance. “We’re going to take you home, now.”
Only in the automated wagon—Mistress Franla had called it a car when she had instructed me to get in and sit down—did I learn why they had come to get me before any other girl’s owner had shown up at the corral. They didn’t tell me directly, of course, but the baron’s first words provided an explanation.
“I’m glad to be gone from there, I must say,” the baron told the mistress as soon as they sat down opposite me. “I used to enjoy the auctions, simply as a spectator, but these days I find the ostentation simply depressing.”
I had my eyes on my knees, sitting awkwardly perched on the edge of the leather covered seat. The tension in my shoulders from having my wrists bound behind me had turned into an ache. I could feel their gazes on me even as they conversed, so I didn’t dare even try to shift so as to get a little relief.
“As you say, my lord,” the mistress replied. “As you can imagine, I’ve been to more of them than I can count, and recently I’ve definitely noticed more… posturing, shall we say, among the buyers?”
“It’s the war,” the baron said, “or so I believe, at any rate. Car, take us home, please.”
I felt my eyes go wide as the carriage started to move, accelerating so smoothly that I hardly felt it, though out of the corner of my eye I could see, through the window, that the things outside—huge stone buildings, metal poles, tall trees that must have grown there in the capital for hundreds of years—had begun to flash by.