The Grain Road ended abruptly, like an open artery dumping everything into the city’s pulsating heart: the Garden of Merit Square. That is, of course, if that heart weren’t constantly on the verge of a cardiac arrest, throbbing like the myocardium of a grandmother whose medication had been swapped for caffeine capsules by her hyperactive, slightly homicidal grandchild.

  The square was monumental. And ugly. Not ugly in the common sense, but in that unsettling way born from the contrast between what was once beautiful and what has been reshaped by force. Where Micah expected to find a garden or an ordinary public plaza, he found something that resembled a Brazilian street market from his hometown… if the devil had decided to open franchises and sell them as historical heritage sites.

  Improvised tents in vibrant colors clustered in irregular patterns, merchants shouting offers in voices competing with one another in volume and desperation. There were fruits, vegetables, tools, clothes, animals—and, announced with the same clearance-sale enthusiasm—people. Chained men and women, with placards hanging from their necks advertising skills, ages, and dental condition. Micah noticed that many vendors sold their wares directly off the ground, laid out on filthy cloths or makeshift boards. Others, luckier, occupied the permanent shops around the square, protected by iron bars and a safe distance from the rabble.

  The sound was a cacophony of voices, horseshoes, bells, and chains. The smell… was a war. Between spices, roasted meat, old fish, dust, and human sweat baking under the merciless sun, there was no possible victory. And all of it was mixed with something it took him a few seconds to identify: burned ash, like from a barbecue… minus the steak.

  His eyes were drawn to the center of the square. Three structures dominated the landscape: two wooden platforms with ropes swaying gently in the wind, as if missing bodies, and a tall, imposing black stake driven into a stone pedestal darkened by soot and melted grease.

  Micah didn’t need to ask. The smell, the wary looks of children passing with heads lowered, and the man beside it—carefully scraping black powder and pocketing it with near-religious reverence—said enough. Farther back, a Church cart bearing a hand-painted emblem—a silver serpent coiled symmetrically around a vertical black axis—received small cloth bags, while an acolyte wrote something on a parchment and murmured, clearly but softly:

  “Three measures. Pure. From the hill witch. Axis will bless the fields…”

  Micah looked away, his stomach twisting as if trying to escape through his throat.

  That was where slaves were sold.

  That was where people were hanged.

  That was where some… turned into ash, and then…

  fertilizer.

  The square wasn’t just a commercial hub. It was an altar. Order disguised as chaos, muffled by hundreds of tents and the constant flow of trade. But while all tents are eventually dismantled, the platforms and the stake remain—fixed at the center, ready for yet another spectacle.

  Before him, occupying much of his vision like a stone god that refused to die, rose the Ducal Market.

  Micah needed a few seconds to understand that it was, in fact, a functional building—and not a mausoleum built by a monarch obsessed with gold, columns, and megalomania.

  The structure was a baroque monstrosity. An architectural excess of curves, towers, and ornaments that seemed carved by sculptors in the throes of mystical seizures. The light limestone fa?ade was etched with hundreds of figures: stern-faced angels, serpents coiled around pillars, merchants carrying scales—these noticeably more recent—and eyes… many eyes. All carved with unsettling precision, as if watching passersby—as if judging them.

  The arched windows, framed in gold long corroded by time, held stained glass in shades of amber and gray, filtering sunlight as though it were sinful to enter without paying proper tribute.

  The entrance was a monumental triple arch, flanked by Corinthian columns so ornate they seemed to compete with one another for attention. Above it, the city’s motto was engraved:

  “FROM THE FRUITS, WE GROW.”

  He noticed that no one with chains on their feet climbed the polished steps. The guards bore no traditional insignia of Luther, indicating they were not state-funded, but employed by another organization that held power over the Ducal Market.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  The Ducal Market was not a place where one bought out of necessity. It was where one proved their worth through coin. And that truth was stamped into every aspect of its structure.

  As vendors’ cries echoed across the square and bells announced yet another execution scheduled for late afternoon, Micah kept his eyes on the building—trying to understand what that baroque monstrosity was saying, even in silence.

  At that moment, he wanted only one thing: to go home.

  He still felt pain, hunger, thirst. Fatigue gnawed at him from the inside. But fear—the fear and uncertainty of his fate—drowned everything else.

  Even if his home was a rented shack in a dangerous favela, barely occupying half a floor of a crumbling house, where he had to endure unbearable neighbors until two in the morning… it was still a thousand times better than this.

  However, the universe, with its peculiar sense of humor, solemnly ignored Micah’s wishes. Before he could sink further into despair, the group turned left around the square, and the cart stopped at a patch of sidewalk already worn smooth by human trade. One by one, the slaves were ordered to line up beside the cart.

  The men were forced to remove their tunics—ostensibly for physical evaluation, but also, of course, to feed the cruel vanity of buyers. When Micah removed his own, he looked like a typo in the middle of a muscular paragraph. His thin, pale body stood out so starkly that for a moment he felt not like a human, but like a plucked bird for sale at a cockfighting fair. Even so, he couldn’t suppress a twinge of envy. A pathetic feeling, considering he no longer even possessed basic human rights—but the ego, poor thing, always tries to survive a bit longer than the body.

  Time passed. Buyers came and went: farmers seeking labor for the fields, merchants in need of porters, and some whose intentions toward the female slaves required little imagination—only a touch of disgust. Slowly, the line thinned. The square’s stalls began to be dismantled as curfew approached.

  Micah, an unwilling observer, began to notice an unsettling pattern. The vast majority of citizens wore black tunics. But among them appeared rare, ostentatious figures—individuals wrapped in silver cloaks, adorned with jewelry, bracelets, and carefully polished brooches. They moved with haughty confidence, always accompanied by carriages, servants, or guards—and, more importantly, by silent authority. A single glance was enough to make those in black lower their heads. No one dared oppose them.

  Micah understood then, without explanation: the colors of clothing were a living hierarchy. Black obeyed. Silver commanded. And whoever got that order wrong… bled.

  When the sky began to stain itself burnt orange, only one scrawny, red-haired body remained beside the cart. The slavers tried to lower the price—joked about “take this one and get a wounded pig for free”—but no one seemed willing to pay even for the effort of negotiating. After all, who would want a frail slave who could barely carry his own weight? Even if, according to him, he could perfectly imitate a kiskadee—a skill useful only if he were sold as entertainment to lonely old women with stuffed birds.

  Just as the slavers were already grumbling, ready to give up and return to the farm at a loss, the rhythmic sound of hooves echoed across the square.

  A dark-blue carriage, drawn by a single horse and bearing the crest of Luther embroidered in golden thread, stopped before them. The coachman, dressed as neatly as a death sentence, calmly dismounted and opened the rear door. Two guards emerged, clad in full plate armor and wielding ornate spears. And then… he appeared.

  A young man of pale complexion, with light brown hair slightly disheveled as if he had run out of a burning library—yet without losing his elegance. He wore fine dark-turquoise garments, with a bronze half-cape hanging over his right shoulder, stitched with white sigils arranged in a circular pattern.

  He raised a hand to shield his lilac eyes from the setting sun, sighed, and said to himself in a sweet, well-trained voice:

  — I arrived later than I’d planned… oh, well, what’s done is done.

  His gaze then fell upon the slavers. He walked up to the oldest among them, who watched his men dismantle the remains of the trade with the slowness of someone who had lived too long.

  — Good afternoon, sir. Could you inform me whether there is still any kaleorine for sale?— asked the man in the bronze cape, smiling gently, his melodic voice as though he were asking for a cup of tea—not a human being.

  The old slaver, realizing who stood before him, went pale inside. He dropped his pipe, removed his hat, and bowed so fast he nearly swallowed his pride.

  — R-Royal Alchemist Ezra! My deepest apologies for my insolence! I never imagined I’d see someone so illustrious in a place like this. How may I serve you? — he stammered.

  Ezra chuckled softly. A restrained, almost shy laugh—as if he didn’t wish to disturb the flies of the square.

  — Oh, come now. You flatter me too much, sir. Please, stand. I’ve come for a very simple reason… I need a kaleorine slave. I see, however, that I arrived late and most have already been purchased. Is there any left?

  The old man scratched his beard, eyes still wide. After swallowing his discomfort, he replied:

  — Well… there is one. But if I may say so, he’s practically useless. I see no value in him—weak, strange… and red-haired. A complete waste of food. But… if you insist… I can let him go for five soldos.

  The old man gestured, and one of his thugs yanked Micah forward by the arm, placing him before Ezra like an item left unsold.

  Ezra studied him for several long seconds. His eyes examined Micah as if he were an incomplete formula—full of risks… and hidden promises. Then he smiled—that same soft, friendly, harmless smile.

  — Give me your hand. — he ordered Micah, extending his gloved right hand.

  — What? Okay… — Micah replied warily, placing his hand over Ezra’s.

  Ezra remained silent for a moment, staring at Micah’s hand. In that second, Micah could have sworn he saw something glimmer inside the glove.

  Then Ezra released the slave’s hand, turned to the old man, his smile having grown considerably, and declared:

  “I’ll take him.”