One hour ago.
The trader was a leopard.
Built like someone who had never lost a negotiation in his life, sitting behind his stall with both arms crossed and eyes that moved to Neve the moment they walked up and didn't move back.
Neve stepped behind Cael.
He had been doing that since they arrived. Every stall, every path, every open space... eyes found him and stayed there. He couldn't smell what they were smelling. Whatever his scent was doing to the people around him, he couldn't perceive it himself. He just had to take everyone's word for it that it was apparently a problem.
"I have a boar," Cael said, dropping the animal on the trader's counter. "Fresh."
"I can see that," the trader said, still looking at Neve.
"Stop looking at my mate," Cael said. "Give me clean leather."
The trader finally looked at the boar. Tapped it twice. "Leather." He made a face. "I have something better than leather." He looked at Neve again. "Reserved for royalty only, normally."
Cael straightened. "Let me see it."
"Too bad, I sold the last one this morning." He shrugged. "Finest quality. Would have suited your mate perfectly."
Neve was only half listening. He was thinking about fabric. About what better materials might exist in a world like this. Linen, maybe. Something with actual structure. Animal skin was fine for people who had grown up wearing it but he had not and the smell was still a daily struggle.
'If the system gave a reward for textile knowledge,' he thought, drifting slightly. 'Or if there was a plant here that could be processed into something wearable. It would need to be soaked first, then dried, then...'
He turned to ask Cael something.
Cael wasn't beside him.
He turned the other way.
The trader's stall wasn't behind him either.
He had walked while thinking. He didn't know how long. The city moved around him in every direction and nothing looked like the path he had come from.
He folded his arms. "Where is Cael?" He looked around. "Where am I?"
He turned in a full circle trying to retrace his steps.
Three figures blocked him from the front.
He stopped and raised one hand slowly. "Sorry, I just need to—"
He turned to go around them.
Three more on the other side. Mixed tails and ears. Tiger and fox tribes, from what he could see.
"Are you lost?" Neve asked, because he was going to act like he wasn't the one who was lost for as long as possible.
"Is it a male or female?" one of them asked, looking at him the way someone looked at something they were already planning to take.
"He smells like a female," another said. "Take him."
"Take who—"
Hands grabbed him from behind. Something struck the side of his neck, sharp and precise, and his eyes went sideways and the city tilted and then there was nothing.
.
.
He came back slowly when he felt the movement.
His cheek against someone's shoulder. His hands were behind his back, tied tight enough to feel. He blinked and the world came into focus and he was being carried through a narrow passage and around him other people were being moved the same way. Women, mostly. All of them with the stunned, silent look of people who didn't know what had just happened to them.
"Is that the next one?" a voice said above him.
"Yes," the one carrying him said.
"What tribe? It's not female but smells like one."
"Doesn't matter. It'll get a high price for sure."
'High price?' Neve thought slowly. His head was still fuzzy.
'They're going to sell me.'
A curtain of woven plants parted and he was set down on a raised platform, legs folded under him, and the room opened up in front of him. Faces everywhere. Dozens of them, all looking up at the platform with the particular excited attention of people who had come here specifically for this.
Neve looked down.
He was wearing linen. Fine, white, clean linen that had appeared on him at some point while he was unconscious. He didn't know where it had come from.
He looked at the faces looking at him and felt his throat tighten.
He was not going to cry.
He was absolutely not going to cry in front of this many people.
He looked at the floor and breathed through his nose.
"We'll open with this one," the host called out. "Unusual specimen. Male form, female scent. Ten crystals to start!"
"Ten!"
"Fifteen!"
"Thirty!"
"Fifty!"
The numbers climbed fast. Neve kept his head down and his jaw tight and thought about Cael, who was probably still at that stall having a very normal conversation about leather and had no idea any of this was happening.
'I should have stayed close to him,' he thought. 'He literally told me to stay close and I didn't even last an hour.'
"One thousand crystals."
The room went quiet and Neve looked up.
Someone in the darker section of the room had their hand raised. Standing rather than sitting. Face not visible from the platform.
The host blinked and recovered from the shock. "One thousand crystals! Anyone going higher?"
Silence.
"Sold!"
The room erupted in noise immediately. People leaning toward each other, whispering, trying to see who had made the bid. The figure stood and moved through the crowd toward the platform, stepping into the light as he came.
Tall with dark hair. He had calm eyes that swept the room without any urgency.
The host stepped forward with a wide smile and then stopped.
The smile stayed but something behind it changed.
"Payment before handover, sir," the host said carefully. "One thousand crystals."
"Ah. The thousand crystals." The man looked at the host pleasantly. "I don't have that."
"...What?" the host said.
"What?" Neve said.
"I'm not here to buy anyone," the man said. His voice didn't change. Still completely calm. "I'm here to arrest everyone in this room."
He stepped fully into the light.
The host made a sound like something had knocked the air out of him and sat down hard. "P... Prince Kael?"
"Prince?" Neve said.
Kael clapped once.
Every entrance was filled with guards simultaneously. Armed, positioned, already moving into the room before the sound of the clap had finished.
"All of you," Kael said to the room, "are under arrest. By order of the royal family."
The room erupted. Guards moved through the chaos with the efficiency of people who had done this before. The host was on the floor. The bidders were being separated. The other people on the platform were being untied and moved aside.
Kael walked to the platform, stepped up and crouched in front of Neve.
Neve looked at him with his pale eyes.
"Thank you," Neve said, exhaling in relief. "I need to find..."
"It's a little early to thank me," Kael said. "I'll be taking you with me."
Neve opened his mouth and looked up.
{Kael — 25%}
The favourability meter was sitting right above Kael's head, glowing, like it had been waiting for this moment.
Neve stared at it.
"Fuck," he said quietly.