Chapter 1: Living Commodity
Splash!
A liquid cold as ice slammed into my face, sweeping away the last remnants of nightmare and dragging me forcibly into a reality far more cruel. The water was salty, mixed with filth.
"Wake up, you rubbish! Wake up, or you'll be fish bait!"
The voice was like stone in a mill. I opened my eyes, though they felt heavy. My vision, which seemed to perceive strange ripples at the edge of my sight, moved like undulating air—fast—and caught the silhouette of a burly, muscular man with a wooden bucket in his hand.
He smirked cynically.
I could see the beads of sweat on his temples, the fine red threads in his eyes. I squinted, trying to calm the vision I was seeing. My head began to throb dully.
The stench of cheap alcohol and his foul sweat assaulted my nostrils. The morning chill ambushed me. My hands were bound tightly behind my back by coarse rope, linking my wrists to dozens of other children, forming a hopeless human chain.
"Still alive?"
Another man's voice sounded, one of his colleagues not far from us.
"A pity, it seems he is," the man said with a contemptuous smile. The laughter of his companions echoed beside him.
We were herded like livestock. Small, wounded feet stumbled on the rocky path, passing through dark forests and climbing steep slopes. Until finally, we arrived at the edge of a cliff.
I tried to cast my gaze around. Down there, hidden behind a blanket of sea mist, was Nidhogg's Bay. The free port city of Blackwater. Its fortress loomed darkly. I could count the stones that composed it, see the crack in the third tower, the moss on the northern side. But my eyes felt as if they were burning, and my head throbbed harder.
Yank!
The rope binding my hands was pulled taut. Snapping me out of my reverie.
"Stay on the path! Rubbish!" someone shouted, pulling me back into line.
We were led down and washed haphazardly in a small, turbid stream. The cold water once again made the fresh wounds on my feet sting. Its only purpose: to make us look 'sellable', not too rotten to the nose before being auctioned off.
Screeeech...
The shriek of rusty hinges deafened the ears, as the city's great wooden gate swung open. A sight I had grown accustomed to since first setting foot in this land. The residents' cynical, indifferent, disgusted stares, and the occasional spit—all felt familiar.
But today, I saw something else in their eyes. Something I had missed before, not merely hatred or disgust. But a strange glint there—something that made my stomach churn.
They were enjoying it.
Every faltering step we took, every falling tear, every whip that landed on the children's backs—it was all a spectacle that brightened their day. An old woman smiled, revealing her toothless gums, as she watched the boy in front of me nearly fall. That smile held no warmth. That smile looked hungry.
Crack!
"Argh!"
A skinny, tousle-haired boy beside me arched his body. His thin back had just been kissed by a leather whip. The perpetrator was the man with the split nose, the same one who had doused me earlier.
"Don't slow down, you maggot!" he barked.
The boy stayed silent, but I saw his gaze, filled with hatred. As if he wanted to smash the man's head in.
Blackwater Docks was indeed a human market. Hundreds of people, including children like me, along with some adult women and men, were being traded here. Their faces truly looked despairing.
The other children began to cry, but held back for fear of the whip; I could see their shoulders shaking.
I observed my surroundings. Most of the children to be sold here seemed around my age, between ten and fifteen, I guessed. A few faces I might have seen in villages I'd passed through, but I couldn't recall their names.
Remembering names was a dangerous luxury for me. A name was like a bond, and that bond felt like a noose.
My attention then turned to the child tied directly behind me. His hair was blond, but dull and dirty. His face was too smooth, too pretty for a boy. And from the start, he was like an overflowing vessel. His sobs were constant, monotonous, and deafening. Though perhaps only I heard them clearly—because he was right behind me.
"Shhh, Leon, be quiet," whispered the brown-haired boy in front of me, his voice trembling. "They'll hear," the boy whispered.
'Leon? Hmm... So they know each other? Good. Maybe they can comfort each other in the dark corridors of fate that await.'
Both boys had been brought on the same day, a day after the smugglers had taken me, and the skinny, tousle-haired boy did seem to pay attention to the blond one.
Toooot!!
A metal horn sounded loudly. Several warships bearing the golden lion emblem of the Kingdom of Veridia docked. Knights disembarked in their gleaming armour. Behind them came nobles, their clothes adorned with fur and silk. However, I also saw another sight. A group of Priests, from the Thymolt Conclave. I recognised them by the golden, thorned rose pin that once adorned the necks of their holy executioners when I was very young—when they had come to my group.
"Sob... sob..."
I heard soft sobbing; this time the boy named Leon was crying, though still restrained. His shoulders shook violently.
"Leon! Quiet!" hissed the skinny boy in front of me, panicked.
Crack!
The whip landed near the feet of a crying child some distance from us.
"Silence that, or I'll use your tongue for fish bait!" the split-nosed man growled. Their leader, the Bearded One, was also visible, negotiating with some who had disembarked from the ships. And moments later, the buyers began to circle.
A noble gripped a little girl's chin, opening her mouth to check her teeth. A captain from among the knights pinched a boy's arm muscle as if appraising a horse. And now, a priest with a face like a pig was observing Leon with a gaze that made me nauseous.
Leon's desperately held-back tears finally burst, becoming a pitiful, hysterical scream. The skinny boy in front of me tried to reach for him, causing the coarse rope binding us to rub incessantly. My already chafed wrists bled again. Something inside me couldn't stand it any longer; I had to curse him.
"Shut up, you bastard!" I snapped, my voice a choked rasp. "Or do you want them to cut your vocal cords and sell you as a mute slave?"
The skinny boy stared at me, his eyes seeming to blaze, his tears and anger directed at me.
"You little devil! He's terrified!"
"Fear attracts attention!" I retorted. "And attention always attracts pain! Why do you want so badly to protect him? If he died now, he wouldn't feel any more pain," I said, turning my face away slightly.
The skinny boy stared at me, as if unable to believe what I had just said.
"Do you truly have no heart?" he shot back, as if holding something in.
"Heart? That thing never saved us from thirst or hunger. I'd rather sell your friend for a few loaves of bread to eat right now," I said cynically, making the skinny boy lunge at me in anger.
"You monster—!"
Crack!! Craack!
"Arrgghhh!"
We both screamed in pain. The whip caught us both, splitting the air and our skin. The split-nosed man stood there, breathing heavily.
"Argh!!"
The split-nosed man grabbed the skinny boy by the throat with one hand and lifted him up.
"Quiet! Or I'll cut both your tongues out!" His leather whip rose again, but before it could swing back down, he suddenly stopped, a hint of panic on his face as he looked to the side. In the distance, the Bearded One, his master, was staring sharply at him—forcing him to stop.
Thump!
"This is your last warning..." Before leaving, the man looked at me, or more precisely, into my eyes, gripping my chin hard.
"And you really are a dog's get—" he sneered at me as he walked away.
The sting of the whip was sharp, hot like embers biting into my thin back. Yet all that seemed not enough, for without us realising, the commotion had drawn attention. The knights and some nobles standing not far away glanced at us. Not with pity, but with cold, contemptuous appraisal.
Like... watching slave children fight over food.
Among those nobles was a boy; he seemed to be part of their entourage. He was staring very intently in our direction, or more precisely, at the blond boy behind me. His servant was also visible, speaking with the Bearded One.
Amidst the hazy sting of the whip marks, I turned to look at Leon, the blond. Something inside me wanted to burst out and destroy him, but I held it back with all my might. I stared at him with hatred.
The child looked utterly terrified; I could see it in his expression. He seemed to feel terribly guilty, and confused.
He uttered no words; he was silent now. Trying to appear as normal as possible, though I knew he was holding everything in; his shoulders still trembled. Even when the noble boy's servant approached him, and slowly inspected his body like the other children. His gaze turned blank, only his tears still flowing.
...
The day crept toward evening, the sky above turning grey like cast iron. One by one, the ropes binding us were cut. The skinny boy—Max, I heard his name when Leon called it softly before he was bought by one of the old knights from the kingdom and taken with the other boys. That child thrashed wildly as the soldiers dragged him onto the ship.
As for Leon himself, he was taken by the noble child who had been watching him. I saw that boy near him, seeming to talk to him, but Leon remained silent.
They led him away with gentle movements among the priests, but one thing made me pause... when his vacant, pale blue eyes glanced back and stared at me for a moment—before he disappeared behind those robes.
There was a strange feeling in my chest when he looked at me. A suffocating feeling. I knew my words earlier had been cruel, but in Blackwater, only cruelty kept me alive.
Yet, those who left had a destination. While I and a handful of others remained. Scrap goods. Maybe their fate was better, I thought with a bitterness that had long worn thin. At least they knew which hell they would inhabit.
"Tch!"
My throat felt parched and choked. I also saw the split-nosed man and his mates starting to gather coins and laugh loudly. They wouldn't even deign to look at me, let alone give water.
"Bastard! This one still won't sell!" growled one of the smugglers, pointing at me. "Even for a single copper piece, people stay away!"
"It's because of his eyes," another mate chimed in, his voice a hiss. "Devil's eyes. Clearly bring ill luck. Why not just dump him? Better we go home without carrying a curse."
Panic suddenly made my breath erratic and tight, as if gripping me from the inside.
Devil's Eyes. That's what people called them. The entire whites of my eyes were pitch black, my pupils a pale yellow like a wolf's. A cursed inheritance from the Vars blood that flowed within me.
"Let go! I can work!" I shouted as rough hands gripped my armpits.
"Enough! Off to the sea with you, you little demon! Hahaha!"
They dragged me to the edge of the dark dock, where black water echoed below. The shadows of ships loomed like sleeping giants.
"No! I—!" I saw the Bearded One in the distance; he remained silent as his underlings dragged me to the pier's edge.
"Enough, all of you." That heavy voice, unexpectedly, was the Bearded One's. It made his men stop their actions. But their focus now shifted to a man approaching. The man wore a brownish-black robe, simply cut yet foreign, standing a few paces away from us. His face was hidden beneath his hood.
The man seemed to reach into his robe's pocket, then extended his hand forward and dropped a small, slightly gleaming object.
A coin.
But not ordinary gold. Its colour was dark, like iron forged in darkness, with a strange symbol that glinted faintly in my eyes. The coin landed precisely in the Bearded One's palm. The old man examined it briefly and raised one eyebrow at the hooded man.
"One coin. For him," said the mysterious man, his voice soft yet cold.
"You truly intend to take him?" asked the Bearded One, his voice as heavy as usual, but this time he seemed to speak very carefully.
The man glanced at me briefly; I could see the sharp gleam of his grey eyes, then immediately turned back to the old man. "A deal remains an opportunity." The Bearded One asked no further questions; he just drew a heavy breath and signalled his men, making them exchange glances. One of them, with a swift and slightly trembling motion, cut my rope and pushed me until I fell to my knees.
"Heh. Off you go, devil-child! Seems there's a strange one who likes rubbish," muttered the smuggler, but his eyes weren't on me, rather on the dark, slightly gleaming coin between the Bearded One's fingers.
...
I remained sitting, breath still ragged, watching the black-robed man recede into the distance like an elongating shadow.
My body tensed; once again, something inside me seemed to rebel, wanting to struggle.
And I had just accepted the most bitter reality of my life: that I had just been bought for a single dark coin.