Mira Pov
They didn’t take me to a room.
They took me to preparation.
That was what the guard called it when I asked again, even though I already knew he wasn’t going to explain anything properly. His voice stayed flat, like the word meant nothing more than a step in a process.
Preparation.
It sounded harmless enough on its own.
But nothing about the way I was being moved felt harmless.
The corridor changed again after we left the viewing hall. The noise from the auction space faded behind thick walls, replaced by silence that felt deliberate. Every few steps, I could hear my own shoes against the polished floor, and even that sounded too loud in a place like this.
We stopped in front of a door that had no number, only a symbol carved into the metal. Two guards stood on either side
