Chapter 88 : A Trade in Flesh

The man’s jaw tightened. He looked away. “Go,” he said harshly. “Before they find you. I’m not leaving. Not now. Not ever.”


Lio stared at him, unable to breathe for a moment. The air between them felt heavy — like the world itself held its breath. His father’s voice wasn’t filled with fear; it carried the same weight as stone — the kind of resignation that doesn’t come from weakness, but from acceptance.


Narissa took a slow step forward, her boots clicking softly on the damp floorboards. The torchlight brushed against her face, outlining her expression — calm, unreadable, and yet… faintly human.


“Why?” she asked quietly.


The man turned to her, eyes hollow yet unwavering. “Because I made a deal,” he said. “I traded my life for money to feed my family. If I flee now, what do they eat tomorrow?”


His words cut through the silence like a blade drawn in still air. No one moved.


Lio’s head snapped toward him, disbelief flooding his young face. “No… no, you didn’t—”


“I did.” His father’s tone was calm, matter-of-fact — as though confessing to some necessary sin. “The captain’s men came. They said those who volunteer would be given compensation. Enough to keep their families alive for 10 years. Enough to save your mother’s medicine. Enough to buy bread, even when the markets run dry.”


He swallowed, eyes flicking to the side — to the faint outline of other prisoners huddled in the dark, some murmuring, some already silent.


“I signed,” he said. “With my own hand.”


Lio stumbled back as if struck. “You can’t— you can’t mean that. They’ll kill you!”


His father met his eyes, sadness softening the corners of his face. “Then let them. It’s already done.”


Narissa’s expression didn’t change, but inside, a cold heaviness stirred — the quiet weight of understanding. She had seen this before, in cities that pretended order while feeding on despair. People didn’t always die because they wanted to. Sometimes they simply ran out of choices.


She crouched beside the man, her eyes level with his. “There’s still time,” she said. “You can leave with us. No one will know.”


He smiled faintly. It wasn’t the smile of hope — it was weary, brittle. “Miss, please…” he murmured, voice rough but gentle. “This is my choice.”


Narissa looked at him for a long moment. The ropes creaked softly in her hand. The torch flickered, throwing faint gold across his face — a man who had already accepted his end because it was the only currency he could offer the world.


Behind her, Lio’s breathing hitched. “You can’t leave him,” he whispered, looking at Narissa desperately. “Please— do something.”


Narissa didn’t look at him. Her eyes remained on the man. The silence stretched between them — long enough to hear the faint lapping of river water against the wooden planks outside, long enough to feel the slow burn of helplessness coil through her chest.


“I understand,” she said finally. Her voice was soft — too soft for the kind of woman she was. “You’ve already paid.”


The man nodded once. “That’s all I can do.”


Lio’s voice cracked, breaking through the stillness. “You’re just going to die?!”


His father didn’t answer. He only reached out, placing a trembling hand on the iron bars between them. “Lio,” he said, his voice steady now, even through the exhaustion. “Take care of your mother. Make sure she uses the money wisely. Promise me.”


Lio shook his head violently, tears streaking down his face. “No! I won’t promise that!”


His father smiled again, faint but genuine. “Then you’re more like me than I thought.”


The words hung there, raw and final. The boy pressed his forehead against the bars, his body shaking with a soundless sob. Narissa turned away — not because she wanted to, but because there was nothing left to say.


Slyvie’s usual brightness dimmed to a fragile whisper. “We can’t just… leave him,” she said, her voice trembling for once. “He’s… he’s going to—”


Narissa lifted a hand, silencing her gently. “We don’t choose for others, Slyvie. Not this.”


Ian’s knuckles were white around the dagger’s hilt. He wanted to argue — to shout, to cut the chains, to drag the man out even if he fought them. But something in Narissa’s tone stopped him. It wasn’t authority. It was understanding. A quiet recognition that some people’s prisons were built from love and hunger, not from iron and fear.


The father met Narissa’s eyes one last time. “You seem like a good person,” he said softly. “But you don’t need to save everyone. Some of us stopped asking for salvation a long time ago.”


She didn’t reply. She turned and walked toward the doorway. Her shadow stretched across the floor — long, thin, fading into the flicker of the torchlight.


Lio stayed frozen, his hands gripping the iron bars until his knuckles turned white. “Father… please…”


But his father didn’t speak again. He simply closed his eyes, head bowing as if in prayer.


Narissa stopped by the entrance, the cold night air whispering in from the river. Her gaze lingered on the flickering torchlight one last time before she stepped out into the dark. The sound of the water seemed louder now — a low, endless murmur against the docks.


“Some chains,” she murmured under her breath, her voice nearly lost to the night, “aren’t made of metal but by life.”


Slyvie walked beside her, quiet for once. Ian followed, expression set in grim silence. Lio didn’t move until Narissa called softly from the shadows beyond the door.


“Lio.”


He turned slowly, his face pale and streaked with tears.


Narissa’s tone was even, calm, but not unkind. “You can grieve later. But right now, if we’re caught, his sacrifice means nothing.”


The words hit him harder than any comfort could. He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve, took one last look at his father, and stepped away from the cell. His movements were unsteady, but his eyes had changed — the naive glimmer replaced by something colder, quieter. The kind of understanding that doesn’t belong to children.


They left the warehouse without another word.
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The night air hung still, heavy with the scent of river water and burnt oil. The moon sat high above the dockyard, pale and indifferent, its reflection rippling faintly across the dark surface below. Narissa stood near the edge of the pier, her cloak fluttering in the cold breeze. The echo of Lio’s father’s words lingered in her ears — the quiet resignation of a man who had traded his life for a few coins of mercy.


Her fists clenched. Money for a life… what kind of world calls that a transaction?


Ian stood a few steps behind her, the dagger still in his hand, his expression uncertain. Lio sat nearby, his head buried in his arms, silent tears staining the wooden planks beneath him. Slyvie crouched next to him, offering quiet words of comfort that barely reached through the wind.


Narissa turned, her golden eyes glinting in the moonlight. “We’re stopping this,” she said finally, her voice low, almost like a command to herself. “Not just him. All twenty of them.”


Ian looked up sharply. “Twenty? You mean—”


“The guard said it himself,” Narissa interrupted. “Twenty people. One ship. Tomorrow night.” Her gaze hardened as she faced the river again. “We end this before it sails.”


Slyvie straightened, brushing dust off her knees. “Then we’ll save them,” she said brightly, though her eyes held a seriousness rare for her. “All twenty. Even the ones who think they can’t be saved.”


Narissa nodded once, her expression unreadable. “Exactly.”


Ian hesitated, glancing toward the shadowed warehouse. “We can’t just rush in. They’ll be guarded — city soldiers, maybe even the captain himself.”


“That’s why we plan,” Narissa replied. “We know their routes. Their watch shifts. Where they keep the ledger. We find their weak points.” She started walking, slow and deliberate, tracing the dock’s edge with her fingers as if mapping it in her mind. “The warehouse, the ship, the path they’ll take. We’ll use all of it.”


Slyvie followed behind, her footsteps light. “So it’s a rescue mission,” she said, grinning. “I like those. Less stabbing, more sneaking.”


Narissa shot her a sidelong glance. “Don’t count on less stabbing.”


Ian’s lips pressed into a thin line, but a spark of resolve flickered in his eyes. “Then tell us what to do.”


Narissa stopped, turning to face both of them. The moonlight framed her like a silver outline against the black water. “Tonight, we prepare. Tomorrow, we strike. No one leaves that ship. Not until every last one of them is free.”


Slyvie nodded firmly, clutching the small charm around her neck. “Let’s make them pay for selling lives.”


Ian looked toward Lio, still silent by the pier. He placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll bring him back,” he said softly. “I promise.”


Lio didn’t answer, but his fingers curled tightly around the edge of his shirt — the faint, trembling sign of someone holding on to hope.


Narissa’s gaze drifted to the dark expanse of water where faint ripples gleamed like veins of silver. A trade of lives, she thought. But not this time.


Somewhere in the city, papers were being signed, payments made — the system continuing as it always had. But here, beneath the quiet sky, three children stood plotting against it.


Narissa’s resolve was final, unshakable.


Tomorrow night, when the ship came to take twenty souls — it would meet her instead.