The Auction

The chains are cold against my wrists.

Not uncomfortable, the fae who forged them clearly wanted their human cargo presentable. No raw skin. No blood. Just the quiet weight of captivity disguised as jewelry.

My father always did have expensive taste in the things he sold.

The throne room stretches before me like a jeweled throat, all obsidian walls and silver starlight. Fae nobles line the galleries above, watching with the patient hunger of predators who've never known a hunt that lasted.

I've been told human "pets" don't survive long here. Boredom. Breaking. Convenient accidents.

I counted seventeen exits. Twelve guards. Three nobles watching me with specific intent, two of them scheming, one merely curious.

The curious one worries me more.

At the far end of the hall sits the throne. Carved from a single piece of midnight stone, it seems to drink the light around it. And in it...

The High Lord of the Night Court.

He looks bored.

Which is exactly what I expected. Centuries of immortality will do that. His advisors probably promised him something entertaining, a new toy, a fresh diversion. Instead he got a human girl in silver chains, neither weeping nor screaming.

I refuse to give them either.

The fae who bought me, a minor lord with too much gold and not enough sense, shoves me forward. "Your Grace. As promised. A human from the border villages. Her father owed... considerable debts."

Three gambling debts. That's what my life is worth. Three hands of cards played badly in a fae-run establishment, and suddenly his daughter belongs to someone else.

I memorized the numbers. I always memorize the numbers.

The High Lord doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just watches with a gaze that holds nothing, not cruelty, not interest, not anything at all.

The minor lord shifts nervously. "She's... quite spirited, Your Grace. I thought she might provide amusement."

Still nothing.

The silence stretches. Fae nobles whisper behind their hands. The guards remain stationary. And I...

I look at the throne.

It's beautiful, in a terrible way. The kind of beauty that costs something. The kind that makes you wonder who paid.

"Is it comfortable?"

The words leave my mouth before wisdom can stop them.

The whispers die. Every eye in the chamber fixes on me. The minor lord makes a strangled sound.

The High Lord finally moves. One eyebrow raises, infinitesimally. "What?"

"The throne." I look him full in the face, which is either the bravest or stupidest thing I've ever done. "Is it comfortable, or just impressive?"

The silence that follows could cut glass.

Then, impossibly, the corner of his mouth twitches.

"Neither," he says. His voice carried the weight of glaciers grinding through stone, ancient in ways that made my spine tingle. "It's required."

"Sounds miserable."

"It frequently is."

The minor lord looks like he's about to faint. The nobles in the galleries have gone very still. And the High Lord...

He leans forward.

The boredom is gone from his expression. In its place, a sharpening. Interest, maybe. Or the beginning of it.

"You're not afraid," he observes.

"I'm terrified." Truth, because fae can smell lies. "But fear doesn't help me survive. Observation does."

"And what have you observed?"

I tilt my head, considering him. The chains clink softly.

"That your court is magnificent and hungry. That the lord who brought me here is an idiot who doesn't understand what he's selling. That you've been bored for a very long time." I pause. "And that I just became significantly more interesting to you than I was five minutes ago."

More silence. But this silence is different, charged, expectant.

The High Lord rises from his throne. He moved the way smoke moves, unhurried, inevitable, filling every space he entered. When he stops in front of me, I have to crane my neck to hold his gaze.

Up close, he was ruin in a beautiful mask. Sharp features, silver-white hair, a face that time had honed rather than weathered. But it was his gaze that pinned me, ancient, fathomless, seeing everything.

"What's your name, little mortal?"

I almost give it. The command in his voice is nearly irresistible.

But I've heard stories. I know the rules.

"What will you give me for it?"

A flash of surprise. Then genuine amusement.

"You know our ways."

"I know enough to survive the first hour." I hold his gaze. "The rest, I'll learn."

He studies me for a long moment. The entire court seems to hold its breath.

Then he turns to the minor lord, who looks like he might actually collapse.

"You brought her to me as a gift?"

"Y-yes, Your Grace. I thought..."

"I accept."

The minor lord sags with relief. Then the High Lord's next words wipe the relief away entirely.

"And I'll remember that you tried to sell me someone without telling me what she really was." His voice doesn't change, but the temperature in the room drops. "A curiosity would have bored me. A player..." He glances back at me. "A player is worth considerably more than you paid."

The lord's face goes gray.

The High Lord dismisses him with a gesture and returns his attention to me. That ancient gaze holds something almost like respect.

"Welcome to the Night Court, little mortal. I suspect you'll find it... educational."

He gestures to his guards. "Take her to the guest quarters. The good ones."

A guard approaches, but the High Lord holds up a hand.

"And remove those chains." Those ancient eyes rested on me one final time. "She's not a prisoner. She's a guest."

The chains fall away. My wrists feel strange without them, lighter, but somehow more weighted.

Because I know what this means.

In the Night Court, gifts are debts. Kindness is currency. And nothing, nothing, comes without a price.

As the guards lead me away, I feel the High Lord's gaze on my back. Watching. Calculating.

I've survived the first hour.

Now I just have to survive the next century.

Behind me, so quietly it might have been the shadows themselves speaking, I hear him.

"Interesting."

I don't turn. Don't react. But I file it away, the way I file everything. Every word. Every gesture. Every tremor of interest in that ancient face.

Information is power. And in a court of predators, I refuse to be prey.