Sold

2.1: Cage

The Genren prods me to a cage at the end of the room, occupied by two shackled figures. It's the emptiest cell in the room. The Genren unlocks the door and shoves me inside, forcing me to stumble.

As I tumble inside, a girl grabs my arm and tries to hold me up. She's frail and almost collapses trying to help me, but it's enough that I'm able to regain my balance as the door slams closed behind me.

"You're the clanmaster's daughter." Her voice is a chalky whisper, and I can't discern whether it's tinged with awe or sadness.

I squint, trying to recognize her, but I'm unable. Most of the members of my clan are weighty, and she has no meat or muscle on her body. Where many of my people have long hair, hers is cut short, and her customary Vyenn hair beads are missing.

"You're from my clan?" My eyes weave sadly toward the floor. I hate admitting I honestly don't recognize her, but nothing about her seems familiar. The kidnappings don't happen super frequently around my village, which makes me wonder how long she's been trapped inside this cage.

"Lyda. I was the herbalist's middle daughter." The girl slumps into a sitting position. I assume the last bit of energy in her body was exhausted when she caught me.

I tilt my head and lift my eyes toward the ceiling as I think about which herbalist and daughter she's referring to. There are two herbalists in my clan, but one is too old to have children and the other is reclusive and snappy. I wasn't aware the latter had any daughters.

"You're Vinda's daughter?" Her gaze dips toward the floor and she nods. I stoop to sit beside her but my shoe scuffs across a thick layer of grey slime and I rethink my decision. "How long have you been here?"

"Too long, but Aruun has been here longer." Her eyebrows pinch as she turns solemnly toward the cage's other occupant.

I stare past her at the boy. Curled up against the back of the cell, he looks eerily like a corpse. Dark circles sink around his half-shut yellowed eyes and the jagged bones of his rib cage peek from beneath his rags.

He doesn't look familiar, but he's also clearly from my tribe. He should look something like Meben but this boy's golden skin is a dull brown, darkened with bruises and grime. Instead of looking prepared to hunt for the tribe, he looks as if each shaky breath will be his last.

His half-open eyes stare blankly in my direction. Lyda kneels beside him, brushing his sweat-matted bangs off his forehead. She struggles to tuck his bangs back behind his drooping ears. I reach up and feel the furry tufts of my own ears, wondering if they will also lose their pointiness after an eternity trapped here.

"Who is he?" I step closer, still trying to recognize him. A crash and unintelligible gurgle reverberates down the hall. My chest tenses and I glance around, but Lyda appears unconcerned.

"Aruun's son." Her brown eyes bore into mine. Flecks of yellow tinge the corners. She is starving. She is dying. Soon she will probably also be like the boy.

My teeth snap together and my lips pull closed. Aruun was the name of Meben's father. This skeleton was his brother? They said he was killed in a hunting accident many suns ago. 

How many other kidnappings were passed off to our tribe as natural deaths? Being taken by slave traders was no honorable fate, especially for our males; it made sense the tribe wouldn't want him remembered that way.

It was easier and more honorable for them to be dead.

My face clenches. Will my father pronounce me dead, too? Surely so. No tribe leader's heiress daughter could fall into the hands of the Genren. It'd be an embarrassment. Even if I found my way back to my tribe, I would be a stranger.

"I was to tie my knot to his brother." I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

"Meben? That oaf. Is he well?" The boy croaks. If I thought he looked like death, he sounds far worse. His yellowed eyes remain half-shut and his expression stays distant.

"He's to be the next Ulai." I hush my voice to a whisper. Even with my tribe far away, I still respect the clanmaster's title.

The boy's eyes flutter closed. His lips part and his chest no longer rises.

Lyda lurches forward, placing her lips on his and pumping breaths into his body. I step back as she beats on his chest.

The boy chokes and sputters back to life.

"He has the ierul?" My abdomen constricts as stress and nausea weave through my system. In our village, the healers prescribed occha root to soothe worries but in these cells, my emotions grow without restriction. My eyes squint as they follow Lyda's hand; still tenderly brushing the boy's hair as his forehead sinks into her touch. "You...him..."

"Yes." Lyda ends my struggle to find the proper words. She has something I could never have - genuine love - only to be cursed to lose it.

The ierul was our tribe's killer, sparked to life by uncleanliness and poor health. No remedies or herbal treatments could stop its progression; yellow eyes were its mark of death.

I don't want to be the one to tell Lyda she has it, also. Perhaps she already knows.

"Does anyone still ask of us? My mother...?" Lyda's dry lips part and her hollow eyes sink into mine. I hesitate. "Oh, of course not. You would have known of us if they did. No one is looking for us, are they?"

"The clan knows about the kidnappings. Surely they will come for us." My eyes trace the cuts and bruises peeking from her grimy arms as the lie slips through my clenched teeth. Even if they came for us, Lyda and the boy had reached the end of their life journeys.

"You're right. They may not have for us, but you're the Ulai's daughter. They will send out search groups for you." Her shoulders relax. "There is a cure in our village for the ierul now, too, isn't there?"

Her glistening eyes look so hopeful.

"Yes, there is," I whisper my second lie. After all, she doesn't have to know the truth - not when there's no true chance that any of us will make it out of here.