The Serpent on the Throne

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!