Daniel POV
The first thing I heard was the voice.
Low and Familiar in the worst way.
I froze in the corridor outside the storage rooms, with a basket of dried roots clutched to my chest. My feet refused to move. My breath caught painfully in my throat.
“I’m looking for a girl.”
The words struck me like a blade.
“She escaped,” the man, looking so rough continued. “Fell from the mountain. Everyone thought she died, but I know better.”
My vision became blurred.
No.
No, no, no.
I leaned closer to the stone wall, my heart pounding so loudly I feared it would betray me.
“She would be about twenty-three,” the man said. “Soft-looking. Quiet. From an average family. Sold to us by her own kin.”
The basket slipped from my hands and hit the floor with a dull thud.
I clapped a hand over m
