Chapter 68: Chapter 68"What’s so special about this box? What do you think Zayne has been doing in secret? I think he’s meeting with a woman," said Finn.

    "I do not know and I do not care to guess," Liam replied. He removed the cloak from covering his head. "After what happened to Lucy, none of us should be asking what he does in his free time. He has always wandered around where we travel."

    "I know that but it feels different this time. He asked me to pass on a note to the woman he hired as a cook and I opened it. He told her to buy dresses for a small woman. Now, I don’t care about who he meets around with but I am curious if this might be the woman he marries. Think of the trouble," said Finn.

    "You mean of his brother wanting him to marry a princess of this land?" Liam asked as they had overheard the plan. "The king will always be upset no matter what decision Zayne makes. Why would he want Zayne to marry a princess when he is afraid of Zayne suddenly having an interest in being king?"

    The first prince had fallen sick and passed so the title of king went to the second prince though many wished for Zayne to have that seat. All Zayne had to do to become king was to kill his brother.

    "If he picks a woman from this land, all we need to do is protect her from the fire she would be thrown in. Don’t question him about her as he is already in a foul mood or maybe you should so I can take your place. Please, be a fool," Liam suggested, walking ahead of Finn to get to Zayne first.

    "I will not fail just to have you rise. Let me hold the box a little," Finn said, pulling on the box to hold it.

    Liam kept the box in his hands since he was already carrying it. They both took part in bringing the box here so Zayne should reward the two of them. "Knock on the door," he said when they came to stand before Zayne’s door.

    Finn muttered something under his breath and then knocked on the door. "Shouldn’t it be open? It is," he said, pushing the door open. "Zayne, we found a box."

    "Open it," Zayne replied.

    Zayne stood by a window, looking out to the mountain where he had Graham buried. No one should find him there. No one should guess that he was there.

    "Well, Liam said a woman from the brothel told him the key is normally around Graham’s neck. The neck that you took from his body and asked to be buried. We might need to dig-"

    "The key is on the table," Zayne interjected.

    It had fallen when soldiers came to move Graham’s body. Zayne thought it might come in handy so he had it cleaned and put it on the table.

    Liam took the box to the table and tried the key to open it. His worries of failing Zayne went away when the box opened. "It is open, Zayne."

    Zayne left from the window to search for Rose’s paper.

    "That’s a lot of slave papers," Finn noted.

    Some were old and others were new like Graham had recently bought more women.

    "Should these old papers even count to him owning someone? How long has this brothel been in business?" Finn wondered as there was a terrible smell coming from inside the box. He covered his nose with his right hand.

    The least Graham could have done was separate the old papers from the new.

    Zayne ignored Finn as his focus was on finding Rose’s paper. His anger returned as he saw the ages of some of the girls Graham had bought. Many of them spent their childhood in the brothel, being raised for the day they would start taking customers.

    What about this seemed right that the king nor the guards in the town had stepped in to stop this?

    "Some of these women have to be dead by now. This one was bought before I was born," Liam said, setting the paper to the side.

    Zayne knew the brothel had many years to it since Rose said Graham replaced his father and with Graham gone, another relative would show up. Before Graham’s father, there might have been someone else.

    "Rose!" Finn yelled, excited to be the one to find it first.

    Zayne took the paper from Finn and after reading it, Zayne hit Finn on the back of his head with it. This Rose a young girl bought a year ago. She wasn’t any more than twelve. "I am looking for a young woman. She can’t be far more than twenty in age."

    "There’s another Rose," Finn said, passing the paper to Zayne and then moved away from Zayne’s reach. "Are these their real names or names he assigned to them?"

    Zayne couldn’t answer since Rose didn’t have any memories of her past to know if it was her real name. Whoever sold her could have lied about her name or it was her name. "This is it," he said, walking away from the table to find better light to read.

    Rose was sold when she was nine and was expected to enter the brothel. The man who sold her was her father, Patrick.

    Zayne was left where he started since there wasn’t a last name for the man claiming to be Rose’s father. It would be better to have a last name than a first so he could search for the family name.

    "She was sold for fifty copper coins,’ Zayne read. sea??h thё N?vel?ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    "Copper? Here that’s like a week’s worth of food, isn’t it? How could anyone ruin another’s life for a week’s worth of food?" Finn questioned even more disgusted by the slave business. "Don’t some of these women have to pay back what is spent on them? Shouldn’t this Rose be free?"

    Finn had enough knowledge about brothels to know the women had to pay back for the room given to them, the food they ate, and the clothes on their backs but if Rose had plenty of customers, her debt was paid back already.

    "She never had a customer. The owner kept her to himself," Zayne answered.

    "Where that box was hidden none of the women would know what they were sold for so they would spend the rest of their lives paying off money they don’t owe. It’s a sick business. Sick with who sold them, bought them, and used them whilst knowing they were forced into that life," said Liam.

    Liam would like to return to burn the brothel to the ground and others like it. There was no way the children bought were safe. If a customer wanted someone young, Liam had a feeling a child was sent to them. "Do we have your order to destroy it?"

    "No, leave the box by the door where someone can see it and let the women find their papers to leave. The brothel has burned twice in a few days. The town guards will go looking around and find out that Graham is missing," Zayne replied.

    It would be too risky for Liam or Finn to linger around there too long.

    "Must we join hands with a kingdom that allows its people to be turned into slaves? What can this kingdom truly offer us? I have not seen anything worth making a truce. I don’t want our people to come here," Finn said as they might find themselves as slaves.

    "Unless he abolishes that his people can be sold to be slaves, our kingdom will not join with this kingdom. Be ready to fight if King James does not agree to it. I must leave for a moment. I will tell you about Rose when I return," Zayne said, taking the paper with him to show Rose.

    She had to know right away that she was now free. Hopefully, he could end her trouble with sleeping at night.