Lila’s POV
The hall didn’t go quiet. It went loud in a different way. A hungrier way. Chairs scraping back. Voices rising over each other. Someone’s goblet knocked over and nobody stopped to right it.
The man still had my arm. His grip hadn’t loosened since he dragged me forward. I could feel his pulse through his fingers. Quick now. Excited. He was proud of something. I didn’t understand what until the Lord who spoke first, the one with silver rings on every finger, leaned back in his chair and said it again. Slower. Like he was tasting the words.
“Titus, don’t kill her. Don’t shift her. Auction her.”
The hall erupted.
I stood there while men twice my father’s age argued over the shape of my future. And I understood, all at once, that I had stopped being a person to them. I watched i
