During the great floods and famine, my father, desperate for the coin needed to travel to the capital for the Royal Examinations, sold my mother and me to a fleshmonger. We were chattel, worth less than livestock. My mother, her belly just beginning to swell with a new life, fell to her knees in the mud. Her hands instinctively shielded her stomach as she begged her husband, "Please, I beg you. I will go willingly to the slaver's block, but Argenta... she is only twelve. She is still a child. I implore you, let her go." Author's Note: I post a new chapter almost every single day!
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