CHAPTER 104: BIDDING FOR POWER

I should have expected that the inside of the grand theater would reek of wealth and desperation in equal measure.

It was the sort of building that seemed to have been constructed not out of stone, wood, or any other honest material, but out of ego pressed into marble and smugness poured into gilded molding.

Every column screamed excess. Every chandelier hung like a jeweled threat, daring the ceiling to collapse under the weight of its arrogance. I half expected the velvet curtains to start speaking, to recite poetry about how expensive they were, to demand applause simply for existing.

We were herded in with the rest of the competitors and their sponsors, moving like cattle dressed in stolen finery. The knight still carried Salem in his arms, and though the man was bleeding internally in ways only the knight could possibly know, his lips were still faintly parted, breathing in that fragile rhythm of someone straddling the line between living and corpsehood.

Rodrick kept glancing at him, his jaw tight, clearly rehearsing what he’d say if Salem gave up the ghost here and now. I think it might’ve been something pragmatic along the lines of "Damn," followed by him trying to sell Salem’s boots for traveling coin.

We shuffled down the center aisle, the velvet carpet muffling our footsteps, the gold railings gleaming so brightly I wanted to claw the polish off with my fingernails. The seats rose in tiers around us, a horseshoe of crimson upholstery and aristocratic perfume.

A thousand eyes tracked us as though we were rats that had somehow crawled in through the sewer drain and been mistaken for honored guests. Which, in a way, was precisely what had happened.

The knight leaned down, his bare shoulder brushing against me in a way I refused to think too hard about, and his voice dropped low in my ear. "I’ll keep my eyes open for healers. They’ll be here, tucked among the sponsors. You focus on bidding."

His words were simple, almost gentle, but they carried that strange weight he always wore—half menace, half kindness, all confusion.

I nodded, because what else was I supposed to do? Lecture the naked man on decency? He was right anyway. I couldn’t fix Salem. I couldn’t fix anyone. All I could do was keep my eyes peeled for the one thing I could bet on.

My pen.

We found our seats halfway up the slope of the theater, far enough to have a decent view of the stage but not so close enough that the aristocrats would start throwing rose petals or sneers in our direction.

Rodrick insisted on the aisle seat—paranoid as always—while Dunny immediately wriggled between us like a ferret protecting his hoard. The knight settled Salem beside him before wandering off through the crowd.

And then, with a fanfare of horns that made my teeth ache, the auction began.

The announcer was not, as I’d briefly hoped, some shriveled clerk who’d drone numbers until we all fell asleep.

No, he was a performer.

A man dressed in a suit so violently patterned it should have been considered a war crime, striding onto the stage with the confidence of someone who had long ago decided the world was his stage and everyone else merely unpaid extras.

His hair was slicked back with enough oil to ignite under the wrong lantern and his smile gleamed like a blade.

"Ladies, gentlemen, and aspiring corpses!" he sang, throwing his arms wide, his voice ricocheting across the hall with the practiced clarity of a man who had once been booed off a dozen theaters and learned nothing from it. "Welcome to the grand event, the glorious reclamation! Where your gold can buy back your lives—or at least delay your funerals for a week or two!"

The hall rippled with laughter, that hideous blend of entitlement and amusement that only the wealthy can perfect. I wanted to throw something at his head, but Rodrick’s hand on my arm suggested now was not the time to debut my career as a heckler.

"As you all know," the announcer continued, his grin widening until I wondered if it would split his skull, "every competitor registers their items upon entry into our little tournament! Tonight, thanks to our gracious sponsors, those items are returned to the table. Literally! To this very table!"

He slapped the lacquered wood beside him.

"And you, oh brave survivors, oh reckless gamblers, oh desperate dreamers—you may bid to reclaim what was once yours! Or, if you’re feeling particularly sadistic, to rob someone else of what they foolishly thought would be returned to them. Isn’t that fun?"

The hall erupted again.

I sank deeper into my seat, clutching the pouch of coins the sponsor had gifted me earlier. When I loosened the strings and peeked inside, the gold winked at me with the smug confidence of wealth. Two hundred thousand crowns. Twice what I had once bled for in the Tower of Sin. Twice what I had thought possible to hold again.

For a moment I let myself believe this would be easy. That I would march in here, raise my hand at the right moment, and walk out with the pen nestled safely back in my pocket.

Easy. Yeah right.

The first items came out like appetizers. Random swords, a mace that looked like it had been forged for someone compensating for a lack of personality, a set of daggers that glowed faintly blue.

The bids sprinkled in, cautious at first—five thousand here, seven thousand there. Nothing spectacular. I could have sneezed harder numbers than that. The announcer worked the crowd with a comedian’s timing, calling out bids, cracking jokes about bankrupting your children, reminding everyone that one man’s life’s work was another man’s lawn ornament.

I almost relaxed. Almost.

But then the bigger things began to roll out. Jeweled swords that gleamed brighter than chandeliers, shields inlaid with gems that could feed a village for a year, relics pulsing faintly with power that made my teeth hum just looking at them.

The bids soared, leaping in increments of twenty, thirty, fifty thousand. My pouch suddenly felt less like a fortune and more like pocket change at a noble’s picnic. Still, I told myself, it was fine.

None of my other items had appeared yet, but none of those mattered right now. Not the revolver, not the stopwatch, not even the spear.

The pen. Only the pen.

That was when I began to notice the voice.

A woman’s voice, clear and bright, echoing across the hall above the rest. Every time a new relic came out, she dropped an obscene number onto the floor like a bomb. Sixty thousand. Eighty. One hundred.

The crowd gasped and cheered, clearly delighted by her meddling. She bought with the kind of casual cruelty that comes from knowing no one can outspend you.

I craned my neck, trying to spot her in the sea of jeweled gowns and powdered faces, but the acoustics of the hall made it impossible. All I had was the voice, lilting, mocking, dripping with the joy of the hunt.

I clenched my fist tighter around the pouch. Two hundred thousand. Enough. More than enough. It had to be.

The announcer strutted. The bids climbed. My heartbeat quickened with every item that passed without revealing the pen. It was like waiting for an execution, each reprieve just another turn of the screw.

My gaze flickered to the balconies, searching for that high priest’s terrible grin, searching for the Lady of Fangs. But I saw only faces, blurred and bright, laughing into their goblets.

And then—

The announcer paused. The hall hushed. A ripple of anticipation swept the seats.

"Well, well, well!" he sang, clapping his hands together like a delighted schoolteacher. "Now this... oh, this is interesting. Look what we have here, ladies and gentlemen. Not a sword, not a shield, not a jewel or a gem. Something far more curious. Something... humble."

A servant stepped onto the stage, and in his gloved hands was my pen.

My breath caught. The hall fell silent.

And then one man burst into laughter. Loud, derisive, cruel. Others began joining in until their cries spread like rot, echoing from balcony to floor, filling the theater with mockery.

I smirked despite myself. Let them laugh. Let them think it worthless. That would be their mistake.

The announcer grinned, clearly reveling in the absurdity. "A pen, ladies and gentlemen! A simple pen! Who here has not dreamed of bankrupting themselves for stationary?" The crowd cackled. "Shall we start the bidding at one hundred crowns, just for the sheer novelty?"

For a long while, no one moved. Not a single bid. The laughter continued, cruel and casual. My fingers twitched.

Then I raised my hand.

"One hundred crowns," I called, my voice sounding steadier than I truly felt.

The announcer beamed. "Ah! At last, a true connoisseur of ink and parchment! One hundred crowns to the gentleman with the sense of humor. Going once—"

"Five thousand."

The woman’s voice cut through the laughter like a blade. I twitched, my stomach dropping, before instantly snapping my hand up. "Six thousand."

"Ten."

"Fifteen."

"Twenty."

The hall stirred, the sound swelling like a tide that was beginning to crest, and then it broke, erupting into a storm of laughter and delight, the kind of laughter that wasn’t really laughter at all but the brittle clinking of crystal glasses, the noise of predators who had scented blood and were thrilled to be entertained.

It was no longer an auction, no longer business, no longer a transaction between desperate men and smug patrons—it was theater, it was a play, and we were the clowns who had been shoved onto the stage to make them smile.

My thoughts spiraled as the numbers climbed. Each coin was a heartbeat, every raise a twisted knife. My palm was slick with sweat around the pouch. Rodrick leaned in, muttering warnings I ignored. Dunny squeaked encouragement that sounded vaguely like "bankruptcy!"

The bids soared. Fifty. Sixty. Seventy. My throat went dry, my chest tight. I barely breathed between the numbers. I countered every one of hers, desperate, relentless.

Ninety. One hundred. One-fifty. The hall howled in delight, drunken by the sheer absurdity of the spectacle. I kept pushing. I had to. One-seventy. One-eighty. One-ninety. My budget strained, fraying like old rope.

For a heartbeat, her voice fell silent. I was panting now, sweat slicking my brow, trembling with the weight of it.

Victory. It was mine.

I smiled.

And then—

"Three hundred thousand."

Her voice dropped like a guillotine.

The hall didn’t cheer. It didn’t roar. No, the hall gasped. A collective hiss of air, sharp and disbelieving, as if someone had just stabbed through the belly of the crowd. Three hundred thousand. Nearly a third of the entire prize pool of this goddam tournament. It wasn’t a bid—it was an execution.

My jaw went slack. I could feel it dangling, unhinged, like some grotesque puppet left out in the rain. Rodrick’s face was no better—stone-pale, his eyes bulging in horror, the kind of expression I’d only seen once before when Dunny had told him soup and stew were two different dishes.

The announcer, gods bless his oily little soul, refused to miss a beat. His smile glowed like he’d just been given a personal share of the spoils. "Three hundred thousand!" he sang, gavel raised high. "Going once! Going twice! And sold!"

The crack of the gavel was the sound of my heart snapping in two.

I slumped back into my seat. The air left me in a rush, my limbs limp, my pouch of coins suddenly feeling like like nothing more than a sack of useless tin. I wanted to scream. To leap to my feet, to howl that the pen was mine, that it had always been mine, that no gaudy bitch with a purse the size of a kingdom could take it from me.

I even twitched, my arm rising like it might betray me, my lips shaping the start of a word—

Rodrick’s hand closed around my wrist. His grip was iron, the shake of his head final. His eyes burned, sharp as daggers. And though I wanted to fight him, to wrench my arm free, I knew he was right.

Outbursts here didn’t end in sympathy. They ended in blood.

I sank back down, teeth grinding, bile hot in my throat. The announcer rapped his gavel again.

"And that, my most noble vultures, concludes this evening’s festivities! Congratulations to our winners, condolences to our losers, and may the gods of wealth and war keep you greedy and breathing for another day! You may now approach the distribution desks to collect your prizes. Do try not to trample one another; bloodstains are so terribly difficult to scrub out of marble."

The hall stirred. A wave of silk, jewels, and polished boots swept forward, competitors and sponsors moving like a tide of predators toward the attendants now laden with crates and relics.

And then I heard it.

A laugh.

Not polite laughter, not the silken chuckles of nobility, but a loud, braying thing, cutting through the crowd like a blade dipped in poison. It was obnoxious, deliberate, triumphant, the laugh of someone who had not only won, but wanted the world to suffer for it.

I stiffened, my head snapping toward the sound.

And there she was.

Descending the marble stairs with all the unearned majesty of a goddess, her heels clicking against stone in perfect rhythm, her laughter rolling over the audience like spilled wine.

She was... older, though "older" seemed an insult when her face carried the kind of impossible beauty that mocked time itself. Her hair was a cascade of deep fiery orange, spilling over her shoulders, catching the chandelier light until it looked aflame. Her gown was red and black, cut scandalously low, clinging to her body like a second skin. Black opera gloves kissed her arms to the elbow.

And her eyes?

Golden. Molten. As though twin suns burned behind her irises. Every step she took made men stare, slack-jawed, bewitched more by the valley of her chest than by the weight of her rank.

Because yes—there it was. On her arm, shimmering deep blue, the armband of a Queen-Class mage.

The hall shifted. Even among predators, she was a lioness walking into a flock of peacocks. People parted without realizing they did, as though her presence rewrote the natural laws of movement.

And yet it wasn’t the gown that shook me. Or the gloves. Or even the molten eyes.

It was the smile.

Her lips parted wide with an infectious smirk and there—just beneath the glamour, beneath the beauty, beneath the theater of it all—gleamed a pair of wicked, glinting fangs.