I'm Not Selling Him

"He only just came of age, and he already has one power mark! You should be offering at least twenty white beast crystals!"

Avery heard herself saying it, her voice sharp with frustration.

"One mark, yes, but look how scrawny he is. And a snake, at that. How much meat would I have to waste feeding him before he was any use?"

The woman's scornful voice grated against her ears. Then her vision cleared.

This was not her tidy office, with its cheerful collection of potted plants.

She looked stiffly around her. Rough lengths of timber divided the ground into makeshift stalls. People stood about in animal hides. A middle-aged woman faced her, gripping a handful of ropes.

Behind the woman, a dozen or so painfully thin people huddled on a scattering of straw. The ropes ended at their necks. A foul, acrid smell mingled with the strong green scent of vegetation.

Their heads were bowed. Beneath the dirt on their backs, every bone stood out.

Avery looked down.

She was holding a rope just like those.

She froze.

"Fifteen white crystals. No higher. That's more than I'd pay for the whole lot behind me put together."

Mistaking Avery's silence for dissatisfaction, the trader cast a shrewd glance at the boy standing behind her. Her gaze lingered on the single clear mark on his cheek.

He was frighteningly thin. The cold season was almost upon them, yet he wore only a ragged hide around his waist. It looked pieced together from rat pelts, some large, some small. Instead of the fluffy fur of a freshly made hide skirt, the hairs lay flat in dry, matted clumps.

His exposed skin was pale enough to show the delicate veins underneath. His ribs were clearly visible, and there were injuries all over him.

Still, his talent was undeniable. Few males developed a power mark as soon as they reached maturity. His face was good, too, and long, dark green hair hung loose around him. Plenty of females liked unusual hair colors.

It would be a waste to sell this one as hunting labor. Someone in Thousandbeast City would surely want him.

Besides, males with this sort of potential rarely came up for sale.

Feed him properly for a few days, the trader thought, and she could easily get fifty white crystals for him.

Her booming voice jolted Avery out of her daze.

"Oh, fine. You're young, and things must be hard if you're selling your own brother. I'll add one more. Sixteen, and that really is my final offer. That's as much as anyone pays for a male who's only just come of age. Ask around. You won't find a better deal."

She tucked her handful of ropes into the hide belt at her waist, took out a small pouch, and began counting. Then she pushed a fistful of milky white crystals into Avery's hand.

Their edges dug into her palm. Avery flexed her fingers around them, and the small sting reached her brain with awful clarity.

This was not a dream.

She had crossed into another world. A world of beastfolk.

And apparently, she had arrived in the middle of trafficking her own brother.

The thought turned her stomach. She had never personally known anyone whose child had been abducted, but that did nothing to lessen her disgust for people who bought and sold human lives.

She looked from the woman to the rope in her hand, then followed it behind her.

A boy stood there with despair written across his face.

Thick, dark green hair framed striking features. His eyes were lowered, their long lashes casting shadows beneath them. Pale, cracked lips pressed together. With his head bowed, a grass rope around his neck, and his arms hanging limply at his sides, he looked as though every last hope had drained out of him.

"Go on, say goodbye to your brother. Nobody comes here to sell family because life is treating them kindly."

The trader assumed the girl's earlier indifference had been a bargaining tactic. Now that she had the crystals, perhaps she wanted a moment to part from him.

She seized the rope from Avery's hand and gave it a hard yank.

The boy stumbled forward. Before he could fall, Avery caught him.

Silas stiffened at the touch of her supporting hand.

He tried to pull his mouth into something like a smile. If selling him had earned her enough money to spare him this tiny kindness, perhaps that was worth something.

"Now, now. He's mine. Keep your hands off him," the trader said, frowning.

"Yours? I'm not selling him."

Memories belonging to the body's original owner were beginning to surface.

In this world, females held power and males occupied the lower ranks. A male could have only one female mate in his lifetime. Mating placed a special bond mark on him: if his female died, he would die as well. If she abandoned him, he would live in unending pain.

Males consequently tended to be guarded and devoted to a single partner. Those who were sold might be worked to death on endless hunts, or bought by females who treated them as possessions for their own gratification.

This was not quite like the beastfolk stories Avery had read, in which males hunted while females bore children.

Here, females maintained their beast traits more consistently. Their sharper vision and keener sense of smell put them in command of hunting parties. Males ordinarily looked human; how powerful their beast forms were, and how long they could sustain them, depended on their rank. They generally shifted only to hunt.

Outside their beast forms, males were weaker than females. That difference had helped shape a society in which males were expected to stay home except for communal hunts. Going out too freely could bring accusations of improper behavior.

Being sold meant more than losing one's home. It stripped away dignity, security, and any control over what came next.

According to these memories, the boy was her stepbrother rather than her blood brother.

That changed nothing. She was not selling him.

Silas went rigid. Then he lifted his head and stared at the girl who had intended to sell him.

His expression was blank, his eyes hollow. The moment the rope changed hands, he had believed his life no longer belonged to him.

"What's that supposed to mean? You've already taken my crystals!" the trader protested.

"Then take them back. Give him back to me."

Avery was usually easygoing. She had never been one to cause trouble or pick fights, but that did not mean she had no backbone. When she frowned at the trader, she looked every bit the young female accustomed to having the final say in her household.

She pressed the crystals back into the woman's hand and reclaimed the rope.

"You—look at what you're wearing! The cold season is nearly here, and you haven't even got a decent thick hide. Sell him to me, and at least I might keep him alive. Refuse, and the pair of you could freeze to death. Plenty of beastfolk do, every winter."

The trader stared down at the returned crystals.

Beast crystals had to be taken from the bodies of direbeasts. Bringing down even a beast with a white crystal required at least twenty ordinary beastfolk working together.

A single white crystal could buy ten good-quality hides.