Novel - Fantasy Romance

The Demon’s Bride

Synopsis

*Slow Burn Historical Fantasy Novel*

Elise had about to change into the dress that was lying on the corner of her bed when she heard a knock lightly calling from her door. Curious, she turned the door knob only to have a tall man towering in front of her.

“Master Ian!” She called.

Ian smiled with the usual mischievous smirk that he always used. His crimson eyes trailing a little over her room and spotted the black dress over her bed and shifted his eyes over to the woman in front of him. He stepped forward and spoke. “Where did you acquire that dress?”

“Mr. Harland gave it to me.” Elise replied and strained her neck to see Ian’s brows knitted in its elegance.

“Do you know why a man would love to give a woman a dress?” He gave the riddle that she always had to think twice before replying. But this time, she found no answer and instead shook her head. “I don’t know.”

His grin grew bewitching as though something had stirred deep inside the scarlet eyes that he had. He slowly slid his hand over the collar of her dress, sending a cold shiver that startled her for a moment due to its freezing temperature. After unbuttoning the first two buttons on her collar, he tilted his head down, whispering to her ears. “Because they want to be the one to undress the cloth.”

He paused and kissed her neck, turning the pale skin to red before retracting his move to fix his eyes on her and leisurely replied. “Unfortunately, you can’t wear the dress over there with this.” He chuckled and passed a box over to her hand. “And the fortunate news is I prepared a dress for you.”

Elise was a cursed little girl who could see ghosts. Her family hated her and threw her from one adoptive family to another. However, misfortune didn't act alone. When she was brought up by her aunt, she was sold as a slave. When she had thought she would become nothing but a sacrifice to the sorcerer, she was saved by a man whose identity was far different than a normal mythical being.

***

This book is ORIGINAL and it is not Translation

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Tags9 tags

# ROMANCE# MAGIC# MYSTERY# DARK# VAMPIRE# WEREWOLF# DEVIL# POSSESSIVE# HISTORICAL

Chapter 1

Scarlet Hair And Blue Eyes As a Slave-I

The year 1832.

Mythical beings have co-existed with humans for more than a thousand and a half years. They were viewed conflictingly from one eye to another. Some agreed to co-exist with them but some want to have nothing with them. And in a small village in Runalia where only humans lived, the night came around again.

Breeze wind playfully blew over the trees and the golden Moon shone upon the dark bringing the shadow to the people and her surroundings into a terrifying figure in the little girl's eyes. The moon was wide, she could never understand why it only appeared when the sky turned dark or why it always followed her even though it didn't move.

Today, the night felt even frightening than usual, perhaps it was because of the fact that her aunt brought her out in the middle of the night. A young girl like her, couldn't understand the reason but she was more sensitive to the hampering future. She shifted her gaze from the moon, looking at the run down carriage with a separate container at the back that was covered with a white tent made out of a sack.

Three men stood in front of the carriage chatting something in a rage that was muted from the young girl's side. She glanced around in bewilderment and fear, playing her bare little toes on the cold ground in agitation.

Suddenly she heard a sound of laughter from over her shoulder but felt afraid to look at the source and faced up to her aunt who was wearing a tattered brown dress. As her aunt was taller than her and because of the scarce light, she couldn't clearly see the expression her aunt was wearing. But from the shouting of the men and her aunt, she was sure it was certainly not a good expression for her to stare at.

The girl looked down back at her small feet before glancing over her back to see her aunt's house. Since she could remember, her eyes had always glued down to the floor, never looking up to the sky nor the faces of the people who talked to her. Her mother told her that she was cursed since her birth. Her father ran away and in the end, her mother also left her to live with her aunt.

It wasn't her first time living with her aunt. This was the fifth time, some of them were blood-related and some weren't. The one who adopted her now was her second aunt from her father's side or in another word, her real blood-related aunt. She had been working well in the previous households, making sure to not make a single mistake that could end up with her being thrown aside again. But hard work wasn't enough, at least to her aunts' and uncles' eyes.

"Then, we will be taking the child with us ." Suddenly, one of the rough-looking men spoke before tugging the collar to her dress.

The pulling the back of the ragged dress near her collarbone, her small neck caught in between harshly, making her gasp for air while struggling to break free from the man's hand. Tears hovered on her blue eyes as she choked. Her aunty pulled her hand to stop the man. "Wait!"

The young girl drew out a small breath in relief as the man stopped. It seemed that her aunt hasn't discarded her yet and still had a small corner in her heart for her. But her hope was completely shattered as soon as she heard her aunt's next words.

"I have signed the contract. Give me the money first and you could take the girl for good." Her aunt, Angelica spread out her palm in demand.

"Tch." One of the men clicked his tongue. "Woman, how come you are so demanding? Can't you use your fucking ears? I told you that when this girl had been auction then we will pay you back."

"And how could I believe your words?" Angelica crossed her arm to hump.

"If you can't believe our words then, would you try to die first?!" The man threatening voice thundered next to the girl's ears, making it rang loudly to the point that she became dizzy.

Angelica saw the dagger that the man unsheathed and humphed to let go of the young girl's hand. "You better make sure to follow your words."

The light in the young girl's eyes disappeared. Even though a moment ago she had just thought her aunt would protect her, she destroyed her last hope heartlessly into millions of pieces. Once again she was thrown away, the young girl's eyelashes flickered downward.

The man ignored Angelica's words and dragged the girl once again by the collar off to the carriage. Before she fully entered, the man took her wrist in one hand and clicked a heavy steel collar and handcuff to her neck and wrists.

The icy coldness of the steel sent a shiver through her back, making the hairs on her neck stood up. She glanced back at her aunt who was smiling to her heart content back to her house and bit her lips.

The girl was frightened to the core for being dragged to an unknown place. She has no one to protect her and could only pray that the place where she would be going to wouldn't be as bad as her aunty's house.

The man checked the locked chains with a yawn as the girl was thrown inside with a loud thud before another man brightened the inside of the carriage by the lantern on his left hand. Sharp light brought the man's face even clearer, he was certainly not good to look to and he reminded her of the frightening fractured statue near the church.

"... Seven... and eight." He stepped back and turned around to the other two men and exclaimed. "All eight are rounded here!"

"Let's go." The other one said before riding the front of the carriage. He reached out a leathered whip and slapped it to the horse buttock that was replied with a loud neigh by the horses, starting their journey to the slavery trading.

The bumpy road shook the container of the carriage like a tornado. The young girl had never ridden one and the shakes hurt her hips. She looked around and although the container was shut off completely by the tent, the girl spotted a small hole to see the horizon transitioned from blue to orange, giving morning to the night as they exited the village where she lived.

Being a curious little girl she was, her eyes peeked around the carriage. Even though most of the young girls inside the tent were older than her, they all looked like a doll with lifeless eyes that held no single intention to either greet or converse with her. Like her, they were also leashed by a collar and handcuffs.

As she was about to start a conversation with the girl beside her, she heard the slave traffickers outside their carriage bustling aloud.

"What about the young child? We can't possibly send her the way she is without any learning as a slave, can't we?" The man held a whip for the horses in one hand and a glass of beer, on the other hand, his breath stank of alcohol that the person who he spoke to beside him couldn't help but pinch his nose in nausea.

"I don't get the foggiest clue the nobles are thinking or the superior's mind. Well, there are enough bastards that would love to get their hands on virgin and child, so I guess she had her own job to do."

"What a low-life bastard." The other slave trafficker chided.

"Bringing young children to the hell on earth, what we are doing is also low-life, idiot!" The man whipped the horse once again.

The other replied with a shrug on his shoulder. "But I don't lay my hand on the child, so I'm pretty white."

The other sneered, "Pretty white, your ass! Well as long as they aren't buy by the sorcerer for sacrifice, being bought by the nasty old men are still count as lucky." The man beside him snorted, "There is hardly any luck from the options fool. Both are hell."

Hearing their conversation, the young girl's heart sunk to cold ice. Her prayer couldn't reach God yet and it already been stamped all over in the mud.

The word hell on Earth was not a new term for her as she heard it from the priests before. Hell was the place which was filled with unending burning fire, sharp cliffs with piercing stones bellow that would tear your heart once you fell in, a frightening place for sinners.

But she had not made any sins that could lead her to hell. She couldn't understand, why would her aunt send her there?

Hours and hours on the carriage, the sky turned black twice before the carriage finally halted its place on the destination. On her whole way to the slave building, she couldn't form any conversation with the other older girls as they kept their mouth tightly pursed all the time, ignoring her.

Perhaps they were also scared, comforted the girl to herself.

After hearing the conversation of the slavery traffickers that her place would be worst than hell, the young girl had no other choice than imagining the worst outcome that would soon be her fate.

As she was drowning on her thoughts, the previous slave trafficker who threatened her aunt knocked on the roof of the tent.

"Wake up, damned beings! We are going down now!" He shouted before lowering the railing guards of the carriage tent for the girls to go down.

Being the first one to be pulled by the slave trafficker, the young girl had long accepted her series of misfortune with a gloom heart.

It hurt, her body hurt, her throat hurt, and her hips hurt. But she has no place to complain nor make a grunt from it.

"Walk! Walk! Use your legs to walk!" The other trafficker held a whip made out of thin-cut leather that would surely hurt if it was slapped on her skin, thought the girl as she obediently followed their instruction to enter the underground.

She looked around the place which was created like a jail for prisoners that the girl once heard from the villager's gossips. Inside each cell, women older than her by few ages looked terrifyingly ill and slender to the bones as though their life had been sucked out from the place they were living in.

The dimmed long corridor that seemed to have no edge, cold gust of wind that often came out of nowhere and the flickering lantern brought nothing but more dread to her.

As she was inspecting the whole place, a shrilling scream from an unknown woman made her small feet to stop in fear. Her hands trembled and her knees were about to give in when the girl in front of her had fallen first and shrieked from the pool of blood that stream down to the corridor from the other cell.

"What are you fucking doing?! Stand up!" The guardsman loudly screamed as he whipped the girl who fell with his leash. Following the hard slapping sound, fresh blood dripped down in a diagonal strike on the girl's skin, making her shuddered in fear.

I shouldn't fall no matter what, the girl thought to herself and further walked down the corridor to the cell that gradually grew dimmer. She couldn't see the end of the corridor as it was dark but the deeper she goes in, the frightening it became.

The long corridor for her small wounded legs tired her out. Not only the fear and uneasiness catching up to her, the tears that she tirelessly held back glossed out her blue eyes.

Not long after the direction her fellow carriage mate fell, the man stopped at a place and unlocked the cell that was made of iron bars and pushed her in harshly. As her body was smaller than the average girls at her age, she fell miserably to the floor making her knees bleed out.

The guards couldn't care less if any of them was wounded as he had too many other slaves and whammed the door with a clanking noise. Seeing him disappeared for a moment, she drew out a breath and stood up from her place trotting with uneven steps to the corner of the room. On the corner, the girl slumped down and hugged her knees to bury her head.

What did she do that her aunt would send her to the places that those men called hell on earth? She had behaved very well last time, abiding by all their heartless order and beatings, but that wasn't enough as in the end, they sell her away.

"A- Are you alright?" A woman spoke in a hushed tone, stammering her parched lips and crouched next to the little girl, appearing from the shadow beside her to sit nearer with her.

The girl looked up and nodded without a word, to be exact she didn't know what to say as her state at the moment was far from alright.

Chapter 2

Scarlet Hair And Blue Eyes As a Slave-II

The woman felt insensitive for asking such a question to the girl and continued. "Of course, you wouldn't be alright. Sorry, that was dense of me. However, it's better for you not to cry aloud, or else those evil men from before would come back with punishments."

The girl nodded her head vigorously and pursed her lips. Her last wish was to be whipped by those men's whip. Once her uncle once also beat her with a horsewhip and she would rather do anything than getting the same pain on her back.

"I'm Arian, what's your name girl?" The woman spoke gently, not wanting to frighten the girl who looked very fraul at rhe moment.

"I- My na-" The girl covered her chapped lips and coughed a few times in succession. Her throat felt dried up as though sands were stuck in between when she tried to speak.

After two days of riding the carriage, the merchants weren't any kinder than her aunt and gave her only a mouthful of water a day. She also didn't eat nothing for two days, making her head feel dizzy. She was used to being forbid from eating and drinking and told to only work but the last time she properly ate and drank, the little girl herself couldn't even remember.

"Are you alright?" Hearing how rouge she coughed that sounded as though blood could slip out from her lips made Arian to raise her hushed voice slightly.

The young girl rubbed her neck where she could feel it hurts. "My throat is very dry. It hurts."

"They must've been giving the same treatment for us to a young girl like you. " Arian said with a sloping sad frown.

"My name is Elise. Nice to meet you, Arian." Elise greeted lightly with the same whisper. She looked around at the other girls who had been laying low without greeting her unlike Arian a bit worried.

The person before in the corridor who had lost her blood to the floor still remained in her head. She had seen someone died out of losing blood and knew that losing blood wasn't a good thing. Although she knew she could have had the same fate as the woman before, she felt even more worried for them than herself.

Arian read between her expression and comforted. "You don't need to worry, they're not dead... yet." She said the last words faintly but Elise could hear it clear enough to make a startled expression.

"It isn't a good thing to be alive here too. Perhaps they're just meeting God a bit faster than us." Arian hoped that her words could do some encouragement a little.

"Where are we...?" Elise steered their conversation smoothly.

"You don't know where you are?" Arian replied with another question. Her first thought was the girl must've been either kidnapped or sold by her own relative that she didn't know she had been trafficked to become a slave.

"We are at the slavery trading building, the largest one in Ulriana."

"U- Ulriana?" Elise's blue eyes widened.

"Do you also don't know where Ulriana is?"

"No... I know..." Elise a long time ago, heard the scholars stopped by the village to discuss how large and far the Ulriana was. If her memory doesn't fail her small head, Ulriana was the closest town to the capital of the land.

Her home, the small village was very far from Ulriana and it took two days until she arrived at the slave cell. Wondering how she could ever go back home, Elise clasped her palms to pray.

"Then, do you know what a 'slave' mean?" Arian asked to see the girl shaking her head innocently.

"Slave is us, the person who would be sold until a buyer comes and become our master."

Unable to sentenced out the girl's life, Arian broke free from the girl's large eyes and drew out a few breaths. "If they become our master, we should forever obey them. If we don't, they would kill us in the worst case."

"K- Kill?" Her fidgeting hand fell nervously.

"Yes..." Arian replied. Although it was harsh for her to give out a dampening future to such a young girl, it was better than keeping her obliviousness until death. "How old are you, Elise?"

"Eight." Elise saw Arian sizing her small figure and commented.

"You are smaller for an eight years old. Anyway, there are rules here, if you want to come out alive. I suggest you follow their words and rules here or else they would punish you. Dead isn't a rare thing here, you got to watch your back before anything happens."

Elise childish eyes dulled out. She looked down to her knees which was still bleeding and wiped it with her dress only to make it look worse, smearing blood all over. Although everything was painful the clenching on her heart felt agonizing to her.

She couldn't understand how anyone could be so evil that they were able to take people's lives easily without any hesitation. Her aunt's house wasn't the best place, but at least on her mind, she wouldn't kill her.

However, her aunt was also the same person who threw her in the place where she could lose her little life.

Just what did she do to angered her aunt? Elise thought to herself and search for possible mistakes that rose her aunt's fury but found none that could lead to sending her to a hell hole.

Elise looked up across the ceiling of the cell that had green mossed in between the crack. She was a little worried that the underground basement where she was in could break down with a small wind.

"What are you doing? You sleep whenever you could, they would always give us some work at noon, you have to preserve your energy or else you would pass out." Arian warned the little girl before crouching back to sleep.

While counting the mosses on the wall, Elise eyelids gradually weaken to a sleep.

Not long after their conversation, the frightening men who beat the girl in front of her came back once again. This time, his face was blank as he unlocked the iron doors and knocked the handle to his whip giving a cold clinking sound to wake Elise from her dream.

"Stand up! All of you!" 

Elise jumped back from her short nap. Her dream was warm, but it gave her a sense of solitude to see the place where she hoped to be a nightmare wasn't what she hoped to be but a reality.

Arian stood up the third after the other lady inside the cell, because of the dark she didn't notice the presence of the other girls, but there was quite a lot of older ones inside her cell.

"Come with us." Arian beckoned her with a palm.

Elise nodded to her whisper and took her hand to follow the rest of the slaves. Stepping out, she saw other girls forming a line to the corridor and screaming made by the slaves' guardsmen. Her blue eyes couldn't bear to see the rest of the view and glanced down at Arian's legs as a lead.

At the same time, the guardsmen outside the cell rounded up in front of the noble slave merchant, Turisk who had a round belly. Gold rings stacked on his meaty fingers with a long brown goatee that reached his chest. Seeing some clouds on his rings, Turisk blew them before wiping it again and turned to see his subordinate gathering up.

Tursik wasn't exactly a patient man and didn't bother to beat around the bush between his lowly servants to order without sparing them a single glance. "There would be a new and bigger auction to be held in Afgard tomorrow. How many learned slaves do we have now?"

A tall skinny man replied quickly. "About 30."

Tursik slammed his hand on the table as he stood up. "Only 30? For what sake did I pay you all?! That is barely enough. Many nobles, elites, and sorcerers would be coming in tomorrow!"

The subordinates couldn't give out a single reply as his order was too sudden to them.

"What about the fresh ones?" The fresh one Turisk mentioned was none other than the one the slave traffickers had just attained.

"40 including the one we got a day ago."

Tursik thud down to his wooden chair with a screeching creak and pointed his finger. "Round everyone, young and old even the newest one you just took in!"

The loud voice thundered around the whole tent, making the subordinates exit the tent while rubbing to their ringing ears.

The guards who came back after receiving Tursik's order to the cell saw his friend hanging his arm on his hips and shouted with a sigh. "Null! We got an order from the beer man."

Elise stole a glance to Null who had to pull down his hand from the whip and walk toward his friend. "What kind of order?"

"A slave auction will be held in Afgard. Forget about schooling them to a slave. He wants all of them to be clean for tomorrow."

"They haven't yet been taught into a loyal slave. If the nobles complain what about our necks?" Null ruffled his head from the sudden order.

"How would I know? It's his order and job. If they got to complain, they could do it with him."

The other guard looked across his side to one of the women and pulled the collar on her neck to chide. "I don't see the need to worry anything though. This thing here is made by the sorcerer, they couldn't run away even if they want to." He narrowed his eyes to the frightened woman. "If they do, your head would be blown to bits. I have seen them enough before."

Elise held her hand up to the collar the guards were talking and examined at the ancient writings carved in the metal in silence. She never heard anything about a sorcerer before, but her aunt always cursed them for stealing a normal person's job with their magics.

Seeing Elise drowned in her thoughts, Arian who had walked a few steps away once again cued her to fasten her pace to enter a small cloudy room with wells and buckets. Steams covered the whole room, but it wasn't the steam from warm water but rather a haze from cold water.

The guards scurry each girl inside the room by groups. It was an open bath for them to go inside, and after the group in front of them finished throwing water thrice, it was her group's turn to go inside.

The wardens didn't bother to hold back and stared at the view of naked women. If it wasn't because of the rule that came to not lay a hand on virgin, he wouldn't have bothered to restrain himself and bed them to cover his lust. Licking his lips in his mind the man was assaulting them as he like.

Elise looked around and followed the other's lead in grogginess to threw the cold water, sending prickling shivers to her bones. Arian often looked at the girl, checking her condition under her eyelids.

It comes with a reason for her to be worried about such a small girl in the slave-trading with leering guards who took people's life. Lives here is hard but that never meant living with the buyers would be easy, it's plainly torture. Truly the name of Hell on Earth was something that suit the place the most.

Chapter 3

Scarlet Hair And Blue Eyes As a Slave-III

Elise took the old bucket, filling it with water and poured it atop her head. Splash, splash, splash, the water droplets dripped down from the ends of her sunset hair to the ground bellow.

Splashing water over herself thrice, Elise put aside the bucket she used and followed the other girls who haad begun to walk away. After the bath, they received new clothes which were also tattered down. However, now the mud and grim allover Elise's body were wiped clean, bringing back her adorable face to the light. Her red hair also glittered back to its original color. 

A few minutes after, they came back to their previous cell and everyone slumped back near the wall, most of them now leaned forward to the iron bars as it was warmer than the inner cells. 

The baths were very cold, commented Elise in her heart. With only a heavy dress with holes and nothing to protect her limbs, her body had been shuddering from the passing wind that blew from the outer corridors.

Arian saw the girl suffering from the chilling night in silence and called her with a wave. "Come here."

Elise nodded to crawl silently next to Arian who had wrapped her hand on her shoulder. "It's warmer if you get closer here. What do you say?"

"It is warmer here." certainly, on the other corner of the corridors, the wall was warmer. She didn't know whether it was because of Arian or the warm wall, but her heart felt slightly ease. 

"There had been no one for me to talk to for a long time. It has been lonely, but having you as my cellmate was a blessing in disguise, perhaps." Arian turned in a conversation. 

Elise grew silence, she wasn't the type to talk with and with Airan's sad expression, she didn't have anything to reply to comfort her. 

"Do you hear that tomorrow, we would be having an auction? "

"Yes."

"There would be many rules around the place, but if there is anything I have to warn you, it would be not to defy the person who would be buying you. " Arian said as she patted the young girl's head. 

Elise noted down Airan's warning with all her might, in the young girl's eyes, Arian was an angel in the hell where she was thrown in. She had no one to talk to and her behavior wasn't as friendly to new people. But, nevertheless, Arian helped her as she entered the slave cell, giving her warning and helped her so the wardens wouldn't punish her with the whip. 

"The buyer... are they scary?" Her fragile question lashed with very little hope.

"I wonder, I also don't know. It's different for each people, they have their own quirk and taste. I once heard they also like to use slaves as a sacrifice-"

"And also..." Arian trailed her words, looking to the side before completing it. "It's nothing, I just hope the person who would be taking you in is kinder than the gossips. You should go back to sleep, tomorrow wouldn't be a good day you should prepare yourself."

Elise's lips quivered as her head fell again to her hugged knees. 

Just once, if God was even there, she hoped the person who would be taking her in would be a kind person. A kind person that wouldn't kill her or punish her by using whips. 

When the morning came, Elise was once again woke up with the shout of the wardens. 

"Wake up! Work you butts women!" 

The young girl turned her head to the side where Arian was. She had also woken up, or perhaps she hasn't slept at all. Last night she heard the sound of thunder and woke up from her sleep to see Arian staring at the wall across them without a word. When she glanced around, she saw Elise woke up from her sleep and coax her with a pat on her head, bringing her dream across the girl. 

"You should go," Arian said. 

"What about you?" Elise asked as she stood up from her spot. 

Arian gave a warm giggle. "Your soul was very warm. I think this is why you could see me. Go on, my dear. Don't ever stop your steps. What Ever might happens outside the world, should never break your wings."

Elise couldn't understand what Arian was saying, but as she was about to speak, the warden screamed at her. "What are you doing, you mute? Are you fucking deaf? I said go!" 

Elise flinched from the shout, but she turned her head once again to where Arian was to found no one sitting there. 

In confusion, she pointed her hand to the spot where Arian was. "The lady disappear."

The guard could only think that the young girl must have lost her mind on the way after entering the slave building and sneered. "I thought you were mute, who knows that you could actually talk. What did you say? A lady disappear?"

"Arian." Elise named. 

"I haven't bothered myself to remember each slaves names. But there wasn't any slave in this cell room other than this one and you." The guard pulled Elise harshly to her cellmate that he pointed. "If you are about to get crazy, do it after you met your buyer. That will give us money."

Chill ran down through her blood as she stepped out of the cell. She clearly talked with Arian a while, ago. But the lady disappeared. Did she once again talk with a ghost?

Her mother cursed her for seeing ghosts, her aunts and the places where she stayed at also called her monsters for talking to them. But to her eyes, the ghosts were far kinder than humans who always beat her up. She looked at her the red bracelet on her wrist, the bracelet which was said to control her power of seeing things that shouldn't be seen with naked eyes. 

Her head slumped down again. She couldn't understand why Arian became a ghost at the slave building, but the reason must be not far off from the guards who killed the other girls. 

"How evil." she murmured to see another girl agreeing with a faint nod. Everyone there had their sympathy for each other but none could do anything that would help themselves. One wrong moves and either the slave traders would beat them to death or perhaps activate the magic on the shackles and have their body blown to little bits. 

The guardsman brought the rest of the girls into a carriage that was wider than the one she used previously. Unlike the previous container, the rail guard of the container was made up of steels wrapped in white carpet. 

As she entered, the little girl's eyes swept the scene and the people inside it. They were docile and quiet, unlike her whose eyes always wondering about to see the whole place. 

The distance between Ulriana and Afgard wasn't as far as the little girl had thought. On the way to enter the Afgard, Elise heard merry chatters and sounds coming off the road. People were laughing without restrain, kids gigglings, the sounds of traders calling new buyers in, and the smell of freshly baked bread that made her stomach growled aloud. 

Timidly, she covered her stomach to see around the carriage mate who didn't mind her stomach growling in hunger as their own stomach was also crying in volume. 

Her curiosity about the place outside the tent made her want to peek in between the slight rip on the tent, but unlike the previous ride, the gap on the tent was hard to look at. Elise retracted back her curiosity and caressed her back which had been hurting from the entire uneven road. 

Riding a carriage also needs skill, Elise thought to herself as she got back to looking at the wooden floor of the carriage. Her day at the slave building was short, but she couldn't praise god enough for it as she hadn't suffered from the guards beating. Thinking that way, she couldn't help but turned sorrow from Arian's ghost who had to stay behind at the cell. Arian didn't look that much older than her, perhaps she was still only sixteen or seventeen. For her to die in the slave building, it could only mean that she died from the guardsmen's beating or by hunger.

Her little heart hoped that she wouldn't be lonely and could ascend back to where she belonged beside god. To lose a kind person, Arian's family must have felt sad for their loss. But Arian was still fortunate enough if she has someone mourning for her death, unlike her who has no one. 

As they entered the place to the back alley of the auction building, the slave traffickers pulled the chain on their hands which was tied in a line. As he pulled one, the others follow and so did Elise who was at the third from the end. 

Before they walk down the carriage, the other guardsman held a black cloth to wrapped the slaves' eyes. 

Not knowing where they entered, the place was quiet with a few footsteps from where they were. 

Turisk played his final round to examine the newest slaves and pulled the hair of the women with a lascivious smile. "They are fairly fresh."

"Virgins." The other traffickers commented. 

Turisk hummed in a tune and Elise felt the presence of a man in front of her. His curly hair brushed her neck as Turisk sniffed aloud. "This one is very young."

"Her family didn't want her." The traffickers explained, rubbing salt to Elise's wounded heart. 

"Thought so. " Tursik said before stepping back. "Okay. The auction would start after another half an hour. Bring them carefully especially the virgins. Sorcerer like virgins for their sacrifices. "

Elise's heart sunk in cold water. It seemed the sacrifice that Ghost Arian said was for the sorcerers. Although she couldn't understand most of the terms they used. Her probability of being buy by the sorcerers must be high according to them. 

As slaves were lower than other beings, they were ordered to sit on the marbled floor. the other slaves Elise down at the cold floor while hugging their knees.