Chapter IV - Slave Trade

Morning training was finished.

I'd learned something important about Kronos and Typhoon. They weren't the same. Not even close.

Training Kronos was like diving. You descended into deeper and deeper pressure, holding your breath, trying not to let the weight crush you. At ten seconds, my entire body felt like it was underwater, the pressure mounting, every fiber screaming. I'd have to surface gasping, even though I hadn't moved a muscle.

Typhoon was different. Reesay made it look easy because it was—or seemed to be. It was cycling. Pedal faster, go faster. The plasma consumption scaled with effort. You could control the output.

Kronos didn't work that way. It was all or nothing. Full manifestation. Full pressure. And if you ran dry on plasma before you released it, the book had warned about what happened. Backlash. Soul strain. Things that didn't have names because they were too rare to require them.

I still had a long way to go.

I walked through Wolkenburg's eastern district as the morning market bustled around me. Stalls were being arranged, vendors calling out their wares, the usual chaos of commerce. I ducked behind one to let a massive cart pass, loaded with grain for the baker's quarter.

That's when a hand landed on my shoulder.

"Hey, kid."

I looked up. A figure in a purple cloak, face completely masked. Just eyes visible through the cloth.

"Yeah?"

"You're Aldric's son, aren't you? The merchant?"

That old man can't keep his mouth shut.

Something in my chest tightened. I didn't like how he knew that.

"Yeah."

"I think I've got something that might interest your father." The figure leaned closer. "Something valuable."

"He mostly deals in antiques," I said carefully. "Old things."

"Oh, this is much better than old things." He paused. "It's fresh. Very rare to find these days."

He looked around, then whispered.

"Would a slave interest him?"

The world went very still.

"What?" I said.

"Keep your voice down." His grip on my shoulder tightened slightly. "We've got a rare one. Slaves are extremely valuable, kid. Your father could make serious profit if he sells to the right buyer. Very serious profit."

I pulled my shoulder away from his hand.

"Slaves are illegal here," I said.

"Are they?" The figure laughed, a sound like dry leaves. "Tell me, kid—if you follow every law the rich kings and bishops decide to pass, how do peasants like us survive? How do we feed our families?"

"By not selling people," I said.

His tone darkened. The casual friendliness evaporated.

"You're not interested then." It wasn't a question. "If you change your mind, or if you know anyone who might be, you know where to find people like me."

He leaned in close enough that I could smell sweat and something else. Something rotten.

"But you'd better not mention this conversation to anyone," he said quietly. "Not your father. Not the guards. Not your little maid. Not anybody."

How did he know all of us?

"Or what?" The words came out before I could stop them.

His eyes narrowed behind the mask.

"Or I'll know," he said simply. "And you'll wish you'd kept your mouth shut."

He released me and disappeared into the crowd before I could respond.

I stood there, breathing harder than I should have been. My hand was shaking slightly. Not from fear. From anger.

The market continued around me like nothing had happened. Vendors calling out prices. Children running between stalls. Normal people living normal lives, unaware that someone in their midst was buying and selling human beings.

I thought about what he'd said. About laws the rich made. About survival.

He was wrong. He was completely wrong.

But the fact that he could say it so casually, that he could approach a child in a market and make that offer like it was the most natural thing in the world, that meant something was deeply broken in this place.

I turned around to face where the cloaked figure had disappeared.

There was a wooden hut behind me. Abandoned. Boarded up completely. The windows sealed shut with thick planks, the door reinforced, the whole structure left to rot in the shadow of the market stalls.

I approached it.

The smell hit me first.

It wasn't the smell of old wood or decay. It was thick and heavy and wrong. Rotten meat left in the sun too long. My hands went to my nose, but it didn't help. The stench had weight. It coated everything.

I turned back to the nearest vendor. A jeweler, his stall glittering with cheap trinkets and rings.

"Excuse me," I called.

He looked up, squinting.

"Do you know why that house is boarded up?"

He stepped out of his stall and peered at it like he was seeing it for the first time, even though it had been there the whole time.

"A butcher lives there," he said finally. "He likes to keep people out while he works. Says he doesn't like being interrupted."

A butcher.

"A butcher boards up the windows and suffocates himself with the smell?" I asked.

The jeweler shrugged. "Some men are particular about their work. Why? Something wrong?"

"No," I said. "Just curious. Thank you."

I walked away, but the thought didn't leave.

A butcher who kept the windows sealed. Who worked in darkness and stench. Who needed privacy so complete that he boarded up his entire house.

The cloaked figure. The offer. The threat.

The boarded house.

My imagination didn't wander far. It went exactly where it needed to.

I ran.

Not fast enough to draw attention. Just urgent. Just moving with purpose back toward the main street, back toward where my father was likely doing business at the merchant's quarter. My mind was racing through possibilities, each one worse than the last.

A slave. A rare one.

A house nobody could see into. Nobody could hear from.

I didn't know for certain. Not yet. But the pieces fit together too perfectly, and I'd learned enough about this world to know that sometimes the worst possibilities were the most accurate ones.

I needed to tell my father.

I needed to tell someone who could actually do something about it.

Because if I was right about what was happening in that boarded house, then the real work of building my kingdom wasn't something I could do with books and training. It was something I'd have to do with action.

And I wasn't sure I was ready for that yet.

But I was about to find out.

***

I stood in front of the boarded house with my father.

Two armored guards flanked us. The emblem of Hestia on their chests. Plate armor, helmets, swords at their belts. They were probably the only guards stationed in Wolkenburg at all. Two seemed like overkill for a village this small.

Or so I'd thought.

A crowd had gathered behind us. Curious. Afraid. Unsure what was about to happen.

"The smell is horrible," one of the guards said, covering his nose as he approached the door.

My father's jaw was tight. "Slavery is illegal here. Illegal in Hestia. I can't believe this is happening in our village."

The guard knocked. Hard.

"Law enforcement. Open the door. Now, or we break it down."

Silence.

He knocked again, harder. The wooden planks creaked.

Then a voice came from the side. From the tall grass behind the house.

A young man emerged. Short dark hair. Plain clothes. Nothing remarkable. Nothing that suggested what he was.

"I own this place," he said before the guard could ask.

"Why is it boarded up?"

"Butcher. I store meat. The smell—I don't want it affecting the market. So I sealed it."

The guard stepped forward.

"We've received reports of slavery activity in this area. We need to investigate."

"Sir, please." The man's voice shifted. Pleading now. "The inside is filthy. There are children watching. I'd prefer—"

"It's not a request. Open it, or we force entry."

The man went very still.

His eyes moved. Past the guards. Past my father.

Directly to me.

There was something in that look that made my skin go cold. Not madness exactly. Recognition. Anger. Intent.

My father moved instantly. Stepped between us, blocking the man's line of sight to me.

"Stop looking at my son!" Aldric's voice came out sharp as a blade. "Open the doors. Now."

The man's expression shifted. Something darker underneath.

"You're Aldric Heinberg," he said quietly.

"So what?"

"You were supposed to be our primary customer."

My father didn't move. Didn't answer.

"Playing dumb to protect your reputation?" The man's voice hardened. "I'm tired of this. Tired of all of you."

He moved.

Faster than a human should move. Impossibly fast. His hands came up with two knives pulled from behind his back, and he drove them forward with the force of something inhuman.

The guards didn't even have time to draw their swords.

The blades found the gaps in their armor. Found flesh. Both men went down, blood spreading across the stone faster than it should have.

"You damn traitor!" the man screamed at my father.

Then he rushed.

I couldn't process what was happening. There was no way a human body could move like that. No way someone could cross that distance that fast.

My father tried to react. Too slow. Too human.

The man's blade went in deep. Deep into my father's abdomen.

Aldric hit the ground hard. Very hard. The impact knocked the wind out of him.

Blood bloomed across his shirt. Pooled on the stone.

"Next time you learn what betrayal costs," the man said, standing over him.

Betrayal.

I didn't understand. Didn't process.

All I felt was rage.

Pure, white-hot, all-consuming rage.

My father was bleeding out in front of me. The guards were dead. This man was standing there like he'd just accomplished something noble, and my father was dying.

I clenched my teeth so hard they nearly cracked.

Plasma erupted from my body. A grey aura that made the air itself feel heavy. The ground beneath me started to crack from the sheer force of it.

Kronos manifested.

Not carefully. Not controlled. The massive figure tore free of me like something breaking chains, and I let it. Every ounce of my will, every bit of plasma I had, I poured into the aperture where his face should be.

Kronos's hand moved on it's own.

The punch connected with the man's chest before he even registered that Kronos existed.

The impact was absolute.

I felt his ribcage cave. Felt bones splinter. Felt the breath leave his body in a scream that cut off halfway through.

He flew backward like something thrown by a catapult. Backward through the wooden hut. Through the boarded walls. The entire structure exploded under the force of his body.

Wood and dust and debris scattered everywhere.

The crowd behind us scattered, screaming.

I didn't care.

I was breathing hard, my vision red at the edges, my entire body shaking with adrenaline and plasma burn. 

All I could think was: my father.

I released Kronos and dropped to my knees beside Aldric.

The wound was deep. Very deep. Too deep.

"Father," I said. "Stay with me. Stay with me."

His eyes were open. Fading.

"Rhys," he whispered. "Get help. Get—"

"Chronostatis!"

The world stopped.

Not froze. Died. The sky turned grey and black, that strange impossible color that only existed when time itself had stopped moving. Everything was suspended. The dust mid-air. The crowd's screams cut off halfway. My father's blood hanging in the space between his wound and the ground.

Ten seconds. Tick, tock.

I tore my shirt off and wrapped it tight around his abdomen, pressing hard against the bleeding. My hands were shaking. The pressure needed to hold, needed to slow the blood loss long enough for help to arrive.

Long enough for something.

The world exhaled back into motion.

My father gasped. His eyes focused on my face.

"Stay with me," I said. "Stay with me."

Behind us, the crowd was already moving. Someone was running toward the guard station. Someone else was screaming for water, for cloth, for help.

And I was holding my father's hand, watching his life drain into the stone beneath us, wondering if that witch's promise was real or just a dream from a dead man's fantasy.