Don't Look at Me
He was younger than any of them had expected, and still the women stirred. Most were already preparing to bid.
Whatever strangeness clung to the foreign boy, whatever promise of beauty lived in that lovely face, it overwhelmed his age. The untamed look in his eyes only drove his price higher.
While the auctioneer prattled on, the boy's gaze traveled the room and came to rest on Elona's bloodless face. He was the one in chains, and yet she could not move, as if she herself were bound. Don't look at me. The moment their eyes met, she wanted to hide. For no reason she could name she dragged her hood low and felt her face burn. When the auction ended they would be nothing to each other, but she could not bear his eyes on her.
They burned with hostility—the eyes of a wounded beast that could not conceal its will to strike. I'm not like the people here. I didn't come to buy. I didn't come to enjoy this. Don't hate me... She ached to climb the stage and explain herself. Only after a long while did she ease the hood back, trying to cool her flushed face.
His fierce gaze had not left her.
"Then we begin the bidding! Opening price—seven hundred thousand!"
The auctioneer roared out an outrageous figure. Nearly every woman's paddle rose at once. Would that child be sold like the others and made to suffer? Pity knotted Elona's hands in her lap, empty, fidgeting. Antonio glanced at her and looked incredulous.
"What. Don't tell me you want him. A kid, and already in heat."
"N-no! I just... I feel sorry for him."
"Hmph."
The bids ran wild, and Antonio's mood soured with them. What was so extraordinary about a man of Ashatra that they should carry on like this? Watching the women of the kingdom swoon over some foreign brat twisted his gut for no good reason.
"He's just an arrogant little wretch. Maybe I ought to buy him and beat some manners into him. A slave, and he dares to glare?"
"Don't, Brother. You already bought a slave, and you paid dearly for him..."
The calling price had already climbed past a million and a half. The auctioneer's eyes glittered with excitement. Only three bidders remained, and the numbers were leaping at a frenzied pace when—
"Two hundred!"
The bid, which had crept to somewhere around one million seven hundred thousand, shot upward all at once. Pale, Elona stared up at the paddle Antonio had raised.
"Brother, what are you doing?"
"Why? I'll buy whatever I please."
He turned a spiteful face toward the seats behind them. All he wanted was to spite the noblewomen still in the race. And because it was a sum he could actually pay if he chose, no one could even call it a false bid.
"T-two million! Do I hear any more?"
The auctioneer's cry was nearly a scream of rapture. At last one of the three women dropped out. The other two were measuring each other when—
Boom!
Something exploded, and the floor heaved. Elona caught the table and barely kept her seat. For a moment no one understood what had happened, and the crowd only murmured. Then the tent filled with the roar of collapse and with screaming.
"Aaaah!"
"F-fire!"
"What the—"
Elona turned where Antonio's startled eyes had gone. From the corner where the blast had sounded, black smoke boiled up and rolled inward in thick billows. The roof began to sag from the entrance, sealing the way out.
"Kyaaah!"
"Save me...!"
From the high ceiling, heavy beams and iron frames dropped one after another. At the doors the crowd packed tight, trampling and shoving, and the place became a hell of bodies.
"Damn it—we can't get out the back!"
Antonio lurched to his feet, his face gone white. He scanned the tent in a panic and found a corner along the side where light leaked through. Elona came to him on the verge of tears and caught his collar.
"Brother, where do we—"
"Hey—let go!"
"Aah!"
He shoved her off and sprinted for the gap in the canvas beside the stage. Elona stared blankly after her brother as he fled alone, then managed, somehow, to stand. The auctioneer, who had been on the platform only moments before, recognized Antonio's face and hurried after him to escort him out.
"Your Highness! This way!"
"Damn it all, what is this mess?"
"Someone set off explosives outside. Most likely they were after one of the nobles..."
"Let me catch whoever it was. I'll cut off his head and hang it up!"
Complaining all the way, Antonio followed the auctioneer out. Left behind, Elona shifted from foot to foot, frantic. I have to run too. She meant to go after her brother. But as she looked wildly for a way through, her eyes caught and held.
Up on the stage, where sunlight still fell, the boy was still inside the black iron cage.
"Run! Hurry!"
At her shout he turned his head. Both hands bound in chain manacles, he seized the bars and shook them hard. Elona saw the lock fastened on the outside of his cage, and the blood left her face. What do I do... if I leave him like that...
Embers and pieces of the structure kept raining from the ceiling. She could not bring herself to abandon him. She stamped in place, then ran up onto the auction platform. Seeing her come, the boy's red eyes flew wide.
"Ugh!"
In the instant she started toward the cage, a burning beam crashed down between them. She barely caught her startled breath and stumbled back. When she grabbed the auctioneer's lectern to steady herself, her hand closed on something.
Inside the lectern, in the compartment where the ledgers lay, there was a ring of keys. She snatched it up and threw it to the boy. By luck the bundle landed with a soft thud right beside his cage.
"Hurry! You have to hurry!"
The tent was on the verge of coming down entirely. Flames had begun to spread, and blinding black smoke filled the interior. She watched him pick up the keys and fit one into the lock. Once he was free, she meant to flee with him through the gap Antonio had used.
Then a crack sounded overhead, and a great wooden support plunged toward her.
"Aah!"
She scrambled backward, but she was a step too late. The heavy support slammed down inches from her face with a tremendous crash. Thrown to the floor, Elona came to herself and found the hem of her skirt pinned beneath it.
"No... no...!"
She hauled at it with everything she had, but the skirt crushed under that huge, heavy beam showed no sign of coming free. She tried to get the dress off. An outing gown, though, was a thing of buttons and knots, and stripping it alone in the middle of a collapsing hell was impossible.
"No... what do I do..."
Tears spilled as she struggled, terrified, to work herself free. Her hands shook. Sweat made her slower than she had ever been. She looked around, desperate for help. Aside from those already crushed to death beneath the falling debris, she was the only one who had not escaped the hall.
No. One other.
"Ah..."
Still tearing at buttons, Elona looked up and found the slave boy already out of the cage, standing five or six paces away. Fixtures were dropping from the ceiling all around at a terrifying speed, and his face did not so much as flicker. Her eyes caught on the chain cuffs and shackles still locked around his wrists and ankles, and she startled.
He was coming toward her.
"What are you doing? Run!"
She wanted him to live. He ran to her without hesitation. She looked up at him drawing near, her eyes wide with panic.
His hand shoved her roughly aside. She barely caught his shoulder, but her body went straight over backward.
Dazzling sunlight poured through the torn ceiling. For an instant her eyes met those burning red ones.
Iron crashed down, savage and loud, and Elona's world was swallowed in darkness.
For a time the terrible sounds went on—things collapsing, pouring down, breaking apart. Elona had fainted, and even after she came to she kept her eyes tight shut. The boy's breath against her face grew steadily rougher.