Chương 13: The Wrong Kind Of Freedom (3)

A broad-faced, heavyset woman beside the redhead noticed her lack of interest in the food.

"If ya think you're too good for it, I'll take it." The red-haired girl didn't even look at her.

"Go on." The woman blinked, then snatched the bread from the plate. After a quick glance at the redhead, she pulled the entire plate toward herself and began eating hurriedly from both meals. The red-haired girl snorted.

"Hope you choke on it," she muttered, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. The fat woman glared at her.

"What did ya say, bitch?" The red-haired girl finally turned her head.

"You heard me well enough." The woman shoved to her feet, the plates falling from her lap. She was much heavier than the redhead, with a broad, solid build and arms strengthened by years of hard labor. The red-haired girl rose too without any sign of fear or caution. If anything, she looked as though this was an inconvenience she had been expecting. A guard started toward them.

"Sit down! Both of ya." The broad woman pointed at her.

"She said she hoped I'd choke!"

"I just wished her luck with the food she stole," the red-haired girl said with a lazy shrug. Teren stared. Her confidence looked nothing like the rage he had seen from Dagan, his own anger, or the desperate terror of people who fought because they could not bear another moment of helplessness. The red-haired girl was acting less like someone trapped in a life of slavery than someone waiting for something. But what would a newly arrived slave be waiting for?

The door of the examination hall opened and Master Edras stepped out, rolling one shoulder as if it had grown stiff. Teren went still. The old archmage wore the same dark coat, his thinning white hair bright in the midday sun. Two younger assistants followed him, both carrying scrolls and rolls of parchment. Edras said something to one of them, then turned toward the yard. From the unhurried way he walked, he was probably taking a break for the midday meal before returning to the examination room.

His gaze passed over the laborers, the guards, and Teren before stopping on the red-haired girl. For the first time in any loop, Teren saw Edras looking startled before the old mage hid it. It lasted less than a breath, but Teren noticed. The mage's brows had lifted, and his mouth fell open in unmistakable surprise. Then he settled his expression. Edras walked toward the women. The nearby guards straightened. The red-haired girl watched him approach without any sign of surprise.

Her posture remained proud and relaxed.

"You," Edras said. The broad-faced woman who had taken the bread lowered her head quickly, perhaps thinking he meant her. Edras glanced at the other guards again as he walked, then stopped in front of the red-haired girl.

"Stand up. You're coming with me." The redhead got up immediately. A guard hurried over.

"Master Edras?"

"This one is under my custody." The guard looked at the red-haired girl, then toward the clerk's table.

"She was sent to labor, sir. She showed no assay response."

"I gathered as much from where she was placed." He gestured to the redhead to follow him.

"Let's go." The guard sputtered.

"But... But she's not listed as a mage candidate!" Edras turned his head to look at him. The guard's mouth closed.

"I can sense enough mana in her to justify a separate test," Edras said after a moment. His voice was not loud, but it carried.

"Are you questioning my decision?"

"Not at all, sir! Only—Uh... papers will be needed for her release."

"They will be sent to the captain before dusk." The guard hesitated one moment longer. Edras simply waited without raising his voice or saying anything more. The guard stepped back.

"Yes, sir."

"Have a covered carriage brought around," Edras said.

"Four guards. No unnecessary attention." The order sounded familiar enough that Teren's skin prickled: a covered carriage, guards, and perhaps wards once they left, though Edras did not say that aloud. The same order as Teren's route, but the girl had not produced purple light from the assay at all. She had not produced any light... The red-haired girl brushed dust from her sleeve as if being removed from a slave line by an old mage was only mildly inconvenient. The other women stared at her.

The broad-faced woman still held the stolen bread in one hand. Edras glanced at the girl's wrist.

"Has the mark been placed?"

"Not yet," the guard said.

"They were sent to eat first. The marking rod needed a fresh crystal anyway."

"Good," the mage muttered.

"It's easier this way." The words were quiet, but Teren heard them anyway. Why would avoiding the slave mark make things easier? Why was it good...? You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. For a moment, he wondered whether the girl was being taken somewhere against her will, but nothing in her reaction suggested that she felt frightened or threatened. She didn't seem like someone being kidnapped under duress.

She looked as though this was exactly what she had been waiting for. The redhead glanced at the plate she had abandoned and smirked at the broad-faced woman.

"Keep it. Not that you need it." The woman only shrugged. She bent to retrieve the bread that had fallen into the dirt and resumed eating. Edras led the red-haired girl away from the seated slaves. His assistants followed, both carefully not looking too curious. Teren leaned on the broom and watched until a guard snapped his fingers at him.

"Ya plannin' to work, or do I need to remind ya what the broom's for?" Teren lowered his gaze to avoid any chance of a beating and put the broom back to work. But his thoughts had already caught on the contradiction. The girl had failed the mana assay. Edras had taken her with him anyway. He had said he could sense mana in her. The girl had not looked surprised when he said it. She had not looked surprised by Edras at all. Which meant she had known. She had known she had mana.

She had known the assay would not show it. Teren's hand tightened around the broom handle. Did she also know how to hold it back? Like he had recently discovered? For one absurd second, he wondered if she had also woken in the wagon more than once. He dismissed the thought almost immediately. There was no reason to believe anyone else was trapped in the same impossible time loop. Whatever she was hiding, it had to be something else—something Edras knew well enough to recognize at a single glance.

But the red-haired girl was not ordinary. That much was clear. Edras took her through the far gate in a covered carriage less than half an hour later. Teren watched from beside the stables, carrying a bucket of water he had forgotten to pour out. The carriage rolled away toward the inner part of the city. Once it was gone, the yard settled back into its usual noise of guards shouting, slaves working, and the pit crowd cheering in the distance. Teren went back to work with one more puzzle he could not answer.

The question stayed with him through the rest of the afternoon. Why had Edras taken her away if she had failed the assay? Teren carried water, swept dust, hauled food crates, and cleaned old straw from the horse stalls while that contradiction turned over and over in his mind. Every time he tried to set it aside, he found another reason it did not make sense. The red-haired girl had shown no surprise when the assay stayed dark, when Edras claimed he could sense mana in her, or when he ordered the covered carriage.

It increasingly seemed as though she had been waiting for him. Teren had no proof and no way to confirm it, nor could he follow her to find out more. All he had was the memory of her sitting with arms crossed while the other slave women ate around her, as if the dirt beneath her and the wooden plate in front of her were temporary inconveniences. A guard cuffed the back of his head lightly as he passed.

"Move faster." The old anger stirred at his treatment, but he pushed it down. The pit had taught him what happened when he let anger steer his actions. So he lowered his eyes and lifted the bucket again. By late afternoon, the intake yard had become more orderly. The marking rod had been used on the newest slaves before they were divided and sent to their assigned places. The assay had been covered again. The clerk's table had been moved back beneath the shade of the hall. Guards had changed shifts.

The sounds from the pit rose and fell in waves. Once, a man screamed for long enough that even the stable beasts lifted their heads. But no one stopped working. Teren was carrying an empty crate back from the kitchen when two guards dragged a gaunt slave across the yard by the arms. The man's feet scraped behind him. His face was bloody, one eye swollen shut. He was still conscious enough to moan in pain.

"What did he do?" Teren asked before he could stop himself. Salen, walking beside him with another crate, did not look toward the beaten man.

"Took an extra piece of bread."

"That's all?"

"That's enough for them. Food isn't wasted in Karthane—certainly not on slaves." The beaten man was dragged beneath the wooden awning outside the medical hall and dropped onto the plank floor. One guard kicked him in the ribs when he curled too slowly. The other called for someone to scrub away the blood before it dried into the wood. Teren's hands tightened on the crate. Salen glanced at him.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything!"

"Your shoulders did. Spare yourself the same fate." Teren forced himself to breathe. The guard who had shouted looked around, then pointed at him and Salen.

"You two. Cloth and water. Clean it." Teren set the crate down and brought a bucket and a rag to the awning. The beaten man lay only a few paces away, breathing through his mouth. No healer had come to him yet. Maybe they were busy elsewhere, or perhaps they just didn't want to waste mana on a slave. Blood ran from the man's nose and into the wood. He looked younger than Teren had first thought, perhaps eighteen or even younger. Teren knelt with a rough cloth and wiped the floor. The man's one good eye opened.

For a second, he looked at Teren without understanding. Then he whispered, "Hungry..." Teren stopped moving. The guard's boot struck the ground beside him.

"Keep moving." Teren cleaned. He did not look at the beaten man again. By the time the blood was gone, the sun had lowered behind the city wall in the west and the yard was full of long shadows. Teren's arms ached from carrying, his back hurt from bending, and his stomach cramped from too little food. Perhaps he should have been happy that he was still alive at the end of the day, but for some reason, that no longer felt like success. A bell clanged near the pit and the crowd gave one last roar.

A few moments later, the side gate opened and two guards came out. One waved toward the labor group.

"Four of you. Pit duty." Every slave nearby looked away. Teren did not understand quickly enough. The guard saw his face and snorted.

"You. Come on." Teren followed the guard because the alternative was being struck until he followed anyway. Salen muttered something under his breath but didn't volunteer to help. Three other laborers were called with him: a thin, older man, the goblin woman from the wagon, and a boy who looked barely old enough to shave. None of them spoke. They were handed ropes, rough cloth wraps, and a short cart with two wooden wheels. Teren looked at the cart, then at the pit gate. His stomach sank.

Inside, the fighting yard smelled worse than Teren remembered. Blood had soaked into the dirt in dark patches. Broken wood, scraps of cloth, and bits of something Teren did not want to identify had been kicked toward the edges. A handful of senior soldiers still lingered near the rails, finishing their drinks and arguing over wagers. Two younger men in mail shirts spoke in low voices beside a knight in a dark green cloak. Brakka was not there anymore, which was a mercy. But the bodies were—all four of them.

One man lay in the pit with his chest caved in on one side, his hand still stretched toward the ramp. Brakka's broken post rested several feet away, its ends dark with blood. A goblin was slumped over facing the lower wall, half sitting as if he had tried to crawl out before dying. The third man had no face Teren could recognize as human or beastfolk. Not anymore. Another man's arm was twisted behind him at an angle that made Teren's own remembered pain flare through him.

Only now did he realize why nobody wanted the pit duty. The boy beside Teren gagged. A guard cuffed him across the ear.

"Do it on your own shirt, not the yard." Teren swallowed. He had died in this same pit in another loop, under the same rails with the same sort of crowd cheering above him while Brakka broke his skull. The guard pointed.

"Load 'em." No one offered prayers or bothered asking the dead men's names. The four laborers climbed down as the guards talked.