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at the auctions in a few days time. Nostra wouldn’t
risk her family coming after her or any Lyran army officer
discovering her whereabouts.

    They would be lucky if
they could get someone to buy her at all, but if they did, they
would never need to sell another slave again.

    He would buy back his
sisters.

    He would be free of this
life.

    But at what
price?

    Could he live with himself
knowing that he had sold her into slavery? Miali. A name as
beautiful as her face.

    His heart thumped harder,
betraying his desire to touch her as his hand trembled at his side.
She stared deep into his eyes, their dark depths still pleading him
to help her, speaking to his soul. It waged war against his mind,
leaving him torn between helping her and condemning her.

    “ You mentioned
that your sisters are slaves,” she said and he silently cursed her
for bringing that up at this moment, when he stood balanced on a
knife’s edge.

    “ To free
himself of a life of slavery, my father sold them. That night still
haunts me. I couldn’t do anything to stop him. I tried. I was no
match for him in a fight. I fell unconscious to the sounds of my
sisters screaming and when I woke, they were gone.”

    Kosen sat back down, not
daring to risk continuing to stand so close to her when he desired
to touch her in order to gain some comfort and was barely strong
enough to stop himself. Whenever he fought, the memories of that
night haunted his sleep again for weeks afterwards. Now, when he
closed his eyes, he saw the fight on her ship mingled in with his
fight against his father. It tormented him. He hadn’t been able to
save his sisters. He wouldn’t be able to save her.

    “ Your sisters
are slaves, and you work to send others to a similar horrific fate.
What kind of a sick man are you?”

    Her words rocked him to
his soul, making him nauseas as it struck him that she was right.
He was sick. In order to get money to save his sisters, he had
resorted to condemning others to the life of a slave. He was no
better than his father. His father had sold them to save his
family. Now he sold strangers for a similar reason.

    He was going to sell Miali
and he knew that whatever horrors his sisters had lived through,
they would be pale compared to those that awaited her. As a
princess, as a Lyran, she would be prized by her owner. He would
take great satisfaction in using her repeatedly, favouring her
above any other slaves that he might own.

    She was right.

    What kind of sick man was
he?

    He had thought that he had
been doing right by trading people that he didn’t know for those
that he loved. Those people meant nothing to him. His sisters meant
everything. He had even managed to fool himself into believing that
at first and that he had no other choice. Now he could see that
this wasn’t the only way of saving his sisters. Minervans prided
themselves on their valour and strength.

    What valour was there in
this?

    What strength?

    He was weak and shameful.
It was little wonder that he hated himself and the things that he
had done. They haunted his sleep, pervading his dreams. Every face
of those that he had helped sell into a life of hell had stayed
with him, lived in him.

    The thought of seeing
Miali’s face amongst them was too much to bear. He couldn’t live
with the idea that he had traded her life for his sisters. She
wasn’t a stranger to him. No stranger could make him feel this
way.

    Staring into her dark
eyes, he could see how easily life as a slave would break her. The
thought of Sasue touching her had frightened her half to death. How
would she survive the touch of a master?

    “ I only wanted
to save my sisters,” he whispered and hung his head forwards. His
eyes unfocused. “I have no right to call myself
Minervan.”

    Burying his face in his
hands, he asked Arkus for forgiveness, strength and guidance. He
couldn’t allow them to send Miali to her death but he couldn’t
sacrifice his sisters either. He had to find a way to