Chương 80: 33-1.Bidding, Bumping the Price, and Bound Female Knight

Behind the glass, the hammer finally fell on the first lot. When the applause broke out, for some inexplicable reason, it sounded worse to me than a string of curses. The young woman was led away with the same steady steps as before — steady in the way of someone who hadn't been permitted to be truly alive for a single moment of the entire ordeal. The lights above the platform dimmed for half a breath.

The master of ceremonies accepted a new card from an attendant, glanced down, and that trained smile at the corner of his mouth seemed to lift by precisely one calculated degree. Not pleasure. More like the look of a man who had finally reached tonight's real moneymaker. Something in my chest sank without invitation — which usually meant the invitation was coming whether I wanted it or not.

Beside me, Vallejo had gone quiet as well, his attention drifting back to the stage beyond the glass with a patience so complete it bordered on offensive. The kind of patience that belongs to hunters who know the trap hasn't fully closed yet, so there's no need to rush the kill. A moment later, the curtains parted again. This time, it wasn't one person being brought onto the stage. It was an entire procession. Two attendants in deep-blue formal coats led the way, their steps synchronized with ceremonial precision.

Behind them came tonight's second lot. The first thing I registered was white. Not a dress. Not gauze. A white-and-silver attendant's uniform that had clearly been altered — stripped of whatever martial authority it had once possessed, yet still retaining enough of the original silhouette to make its origins unmistakable.

The armored plates had been removed almost entirely, leaving only a few decorative silver pieces at the shoulders, waist, and chest — just enough to preserve the ghost of "respectable lineage," just enough to drive the final price higher. Her blonde hair had been gathered simply at the nape of her neck, a few loose strands falling along her cheeks. Someone had arranged it — without care, without craft — just enough to make her presentable for the block.

Fine restraint rings locked around her wrists, the metal pressing against skin and disappearing beneath her sleeves. At her throat, a narrow band of silver-black — thin enough to pass for jewelry, deliberate enough to function as exactly what it was. But none of that was what made me frown. What made me frown was that after she stopped walking, her spine remained straight. Not the rigid posture of a slave trained to stand at attention. Something older than that.

Something carved into bone itself — the kind that doesn't disappear immediately even when a person has been ground face-first into the mud. In that exact instant, the space behind me went dead quiet. Not the anteroom. Matthews. I registered it almost immediately. He had been standing half a step behind me this entire time — breathing, weight distribution, field of awareness all as steady and immovable as weathered stone.

But the moment that woman stepped onto the stage and planted her feet, it was as if something had yanked him hard. Not a visible reaction; most people in the room would never have caught it. Just his hand, resting near his hip, suddenly clenching tight enough to blanch each knuckle in sequence, and his next breath landing half a beat too heavy. I didn't turn around. Just let my peripheral vision sweep backward for a fraction of a second. That was enough.

This was no longer simply the reaction of someone who disapproved of slave auctions. The master of ceremonies' voice rolled smoothly forward, slick as oil on marble.

"Honored guests, I believe this next lot requires very little introduction." He raised one hand with practiced flourish, his smile more polished than before.

"From the Northern Reaches of the Kingdom — surviving lineage of the Grey Oath Lancers. Direct heir of House Brandt." The air in the anteroom contracted like someone had squeezed it between two fingers. I felt it. Everyone felt it. And the man standing behind me felt it in a way that had nothing to do with general moral objection. I heard him draw a breath — incredibly shallow, barely even air moving. Yet somehow more unsettling than a shout. The woman on stage did not raise her head.

The master of ceremonies continued as though he were entirely blind to the room's subtle tremors, his smile undisturbed.

"Adeline von Brandt. Fully trained in traditional lance cavalry, banquet attendance, administrative record-keeping, and Capital court etiquette. Literate. Versed in Kingdom formal protocol. Capable of armed escort, banquet service, and extended travel accompaniment." With each qualification he listed, the silence in the hall grew one degree heavier. Because this was no longer simply a transaction involving flesh. This was an entire lineage being disassembled for parts.

An entire upbringing, an entire set of values that belonged beneath war banners and in great halls — taken apart piece by piece and given a price tag. The master of ceremonies knew exactly what he was selling. He paused, letting his gaze drift naturally across several private boxes, giving the room time to fill in its own imagination. Then he delivered the final cut.

"Unmarried. No permanent ownership marks. Bloodline uncontaminated. For guests who prefer personal attendants who retain the discipline and refinement of the old knightly houses — this lot is, in every meaningful sense, exceptional." I had a very specific urge to sew his mouth shut with a rusty needle. Before I could entertain that thought any further, Olivia responded first. She was still holding my arm, still standing without a single crack in her composure.

But the hand resting against my sleeve pressed down — lightly. Once. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Not a restraint. A reminder. I glanced sideways at her. She wasn't looking at me.

She was looking at Adeline on the stage, her expression so level it bordered on cold — as though she had already processed the altered uniform, the restraint rings, the posture, the arranged hair, and every word from the master of ceremonies, and was now simply calculating the next move. Then, very briefly, her gaze flicked to the space behind me. One glance. A fraction of a second. But I knew she'd seen it. She had seen that Matthews was losing his grip.

She had probably already intuited that this wasn't simply an old soldier's moral objection — that it was the more dangerous kind of recognition that comes from personal knowledge. What unsettled me most was that she didn't ask. Her expression didn't change. She simply folded that observation away, like returning a blade to its sheath until the moment it was needed. My scalp prickled. Because the moment she had seen it too, this stopped being one more reprehensible spectacle on a distant stage.

It had started moving toward us.

"Sir." Matthews' voice came from directly behind me — not a call, barely even a whisper. More like air forced through clenched teeth. I kept my eyes forward, dropping my own voice to match.

"What is it?" A half-beat of silence. Like he'd swallowed something back whole. Then, just barely:"... That posture. It has no business being here." That was enough. More than enough. That one sentence told me he had recognized her — and not just recognized her, but recognized her in a way that went somewhere deep and dangerous. And he couldn't say more. That was the real problem. If Matthews were simply an old soldier, he could have leaned in and given me the full background in a quiet voice. But he wasn't.

He was an Imperial fugitive — a man whose past was a collection of doors that couldn't be opened without everything behind them spilling out. Every degree of composure he lost in this room was a potential entry point for someone else's questions. So he held it. I didn't need to turn around to imagine what his face looked like right now. Vallejo chose this moment to turn his head slowly toward us. He had clearly not missed the microscopic disturbances in our corner. Quite the opposite.

This bastard had been waiting from the beginning. Waiting to see what would catch our eye. Waiting to see who would flinch first. Waiting to see which line in the auctioneer's script would drag a reaction out of us that we couldn't fully suppress. He smiled — very slightly.

"It seems our guests have finally found something of interest this evening." I looked at him without answering immediately. On stage, Adeline was still standing. Her eyes weren't blank — not completely dead. More like she was using the absolute last remnant of whatever hadn't been ground out of her to keep from collapsing right there on the floor. Her right shoulder sat marginally lower than her left — visible only on close inspection, not habit but old injury.

Combined with the restraint rings at her wrists and the faint, barely-perceptible tremor in her fingertips from standing too long— She had been trained. She had been wounded. And she had been given something to keep her manageable. Good news, in a twisted way. At least she wouldn't be the kind of problem who immediately tried to draw a blade and cut through the entire room the second she was freed. Also terrible news. Because it meant she had been carefully processed before being put on display.

"House Brandt," Vallejo said, in the tone of someone making casual conversation about a wine's vintage.

"The name still carries a certain weight in the Northern Reaches. Seeing this caliber of lot at the White Wing Crown — one might almost call it a rarity."

"Your Syndicate's definition of rarity consistently makes me want to be sick," I said. Vallejo smiled faintly.

"Lord Cedric seems considerably less composed than before."

"Watching someone's family name get dug up and sold for parts tends to do that to people with functioning consciences."

"And yet you're still sitting here," he said. That sentence was a needle, driven with surgical precision directly between the ribs. I didn't move. Neither did he.

"The first lot — I understand your lack of interest." Vallejo's gaze drifted back to the stage, his voice taking on the quality of someone giving something one final polish.

"But this one is different. Cleaner lineage. More complete education. More presentable in formal company. For someone with intentions of traveling toward the Capital — one might even call her convenient." My eye twitched. He knew. Not necessarily the full picture. But he had at minimum concluded that our group wasn't simply a collection of travelers passing through Angel City for the night. Olivia finally spoke, her voice exactly as steady as always.

"Mr. Vallejo — are you driving up the price on the lot, or are you appraising us?" Vallejo's gaze shifted to her, his smile undisturbed.

"If I can accomplish both at once, wouldn't that be preferable?" He said it too smoothly. Smoothly enough that I genuinely wanted to hit him. The bidding had already started below. And it was moving faster than the first round. Because Adeline's value was no longer simply aesthetic. She was the wreckage of a noble house — the most sellable fragment of Kingdom respectability after everything else had been stripped away. For certain buyers, acquiring her wasn't just acquiring an attendant.

It was like placing a headstone pulled from an enemy's grave as a centerpiece on your dining table.

"Eighty."

"One hundred."

"One hundred and twenty." The numbers climbed in steady, vicious increments. Each time the master of ceremonies called a price, he gestured gracefully toward Adeline — the way you'd gesture toward an antique weapon on display. She stood straight. But she was no longer a sword. She was more like a scabbard with half a broken blade still rattling inside. I could feel Matthews going rigid behind me. Not the rigidity of someone about to move.

The rigidity of someone holding every breath so carefully that exhaling felt dangerous. Because he knew he couldn't show it. And because if he did — the question would no longer be whether one woman from House Brandt could be helped. It would be how many buried stories our group was carrying, and how far back they went. Olivia understood this too. She didn't look back at Matthews. Didn't give me any additional signals.

The hand on my arm simply stayed where it was — steady, unmoving — like the last intact thread holding something together that hadn't broken yet. Then Vallejo finally said the most unpleasant thing of the evening.

"I find myself curious," he said softly.

"When a man like Lord Cedric looks at a lot like this one — what is the very first thought that comes to mind?" He raised one hand. An attendant stepped forward and placed the black wooden bidding paddle on the tray in front of me once more.

"Revulsion?"

"Regret?"

"Or—" The thing that had been sitting beneath his courtesy this entire evening finally surfaced completely.

"An acknowledgment that some things, if they fall into the wrong hands, are better claimed by oneself first?" This time he wasn't even pretending to veil it. He wasn't testing whether I'd bid. He was forcing me to choose. Choose to remain a spectator. Choose to be a buyer. Choose to be the man who overturned the table. Or choose to be the kind of man who frowned the entire time — and then said take her, we'll sort it out later anyway. The anteroom held nothing but the distant calls of the auctioneer.

"One hundred and fifty."

"One hundred and seventy."

"Two hundred." I stared at the paddle on the tray. In another half-quarter-hour, the price would climb beyond the range where impulse could justify the expense. By then, the only options left would be considerably messier. And that was precisely what Vallejo wanted. Not just my decision. He wanted to see what reasoning I used. What expression I wore. What moment I chose to act. So that afterward, he'd know exactly where to apply pressure. I raised my hand slowly and picked up the paddle.

The edge of the silver tray gave a faint ring. Behind me, every breath in the room stopped for one beat. Vallejo didn't smile. But the look in his eyes — like a merchant watching the scales finally tip in his favor — was already more than irritating enough. I turned the paddle over in my hand. Felt the weight of it. Then I spoke, calmly.

"Vallejo."

"I'm listening."

"You asked me earlier whether I'd reach out in the end."

"I did." I looked through the glass at the stage. At the woman standing there — ground down to almost nothing, yet still holding her spine straight through sheer, bloody-minded refusal to collapse in front of these people. Then I raised the paddle.

"Two hundred and fifty." Beyond the glass, the master of ceremonies' voice caught for half a beat — then immediately soared.

"Two hundred and fifty from the VIP anteroom!" Several gazes swung toward us from the floor below. Even a few of the figures in the upper boxes who had been too comfortable to lean forward shifted slightly. I heard Jessi draw a short, quiet breath behind me. Matthews made no sound at all. But I knew his knuckles were probably drawing blood by now. Vallejo finally spoke, his voice very quiet.

"I see."

"You're wrong," I said. He looked at me. I held the paddle steady and said it one word at a time.

"I'm not driving up your prices."

"I'm telling you—" I turned and looked directly at him.

"This lot. Starting now. Does not go to anyone else." The pressure that had been sitting low and suppressed over the anteroom finally sank all the way to the bottom and stayed there.