The Underworld was a notorious black market syndicate where illicit activities, including the buying and selling of slaves, occurred daily. It was rumored that those who succeeded in making a living there amassed wealth comparable to kings.

- The Secret History of Slavery

Under the new lighting, Nia could make out several figures that she failed to detect earlier. All of them were locked in cages similar to hers. They were also all unconscious. They seemed to be all children, their ages ranging from about six years old to late teens.

However, there was one person that caught Nia’s full attention. It was a boy around the same age as her. His skin was a darker shade than hers, but the feature that stood out most to her was his snow-white hair, which shone like silver under the bright moonlight.

The color was so strange yet beautiful that Nia could not tear her eyes away from him. She was also entranced by his sharp features and long lashes, giving him the appearance of an ethereal but predatory being which did not belong in the human world. She knew right away that he couldn’t be human. He must be a demon or had some sort of demon heritage.

Nia had heard of demons before. They were a race similar to humans, but demons were also known to possess a longer lifespan, and often possess mystical abilities that ordinary humans would never even dream of. 

However, Nia had never met one in person before, and there were times when she even wondered if demons were nothing more than a myth. 

With the exception of her older sister Roshana, whose beauty was renowned across all three kingdoms, Nia had never seen another person as mesmerizing as him. It seemed like the stories of demons’ otherworldly beauty was not just a myth.

The sound of the slaver clearing his throat quickly brought Nia back to reality. She realized that she was not the only person staring at the white-haired demon boy. The slaver and the Zahdian woman were scrutinizing him with a look of almost greedy admiration in their eyes, no doubt already thinking about the money he was worth.

The slaver let out a low whistle. “How did you get this one?”

He said ‘this one’ as if the boy wasn’t a living being but a commodity, just like how he had talked about Nia earlier.

The Zahdian woman laughed proudly as if she was showing off a prize treasure. “I didn’t. A group of street thieves turned him in and sold him to me. I spent quite a fortune on him, but I’m sure he’s worth much more, so I’m not complaining.”

“Is he a Class I?”

“No, I believe he’s a Class II.”

“That’s still pretty valuable.” The slaver nodded in approval. “Such a fine specimen. Will we be able to handle him? We never dealt with these kinds of creatures before.”

Nia had no idea what Class I or Class II is, but she didn’t care. She felt deep disgust by the way they talked about the captives as if they were classifying animals. 

“We should auction him off at the main headquarters instead of a branch market. There are richer clients at the main headquarters, so we’ll be able to turn a higher profit.” The Zahdian woman mused.

“Indeed. Did you make sure to drug him? A Class II can be just as dangerous as a Class I.”

“Of course. I just gave him a dose a few hours ago, but I’ll have someone give him another one in an hour or so to make sure he doesn’t wake up like this one.” 

Nia wanted to scream at them about how they can’t treat humans or demons like this, but she knew better than to do so. She was stubborn, but not completely reckless. She knew that reacting brashly would earn her harsher treatment. What she needs to do is to make them underestimate her and lower their guards.

She suddenly realized that the caravan had entered some kind of place, as views of the night sky were quickly replaced by narrow walls. They must be inside a tunnel of some sort. Even the caravan started moving smoother as the ground beneath them turned from sandy terrain to stone.

Her stomach dropped even lower with dread as she realized that the caravan must have arrived at its destination.

Nia looked outside the caravan, trying to determine where she and the other captives were. All she saw were walls of stone. Not man-made walls, more like…

Nia instantly recognized the place as the Caverns of Labyrinth, the largest system of natural caves in the southern mountain range located in the southern region of Saraja. This further added evidence to her belief that she was being trafficked within the Underworld.

In the past, people who resisted against the Tyrant King would seek refuge in here to escape his oppression, but after King Jasheed Latarias liberated the lands, the caverns have largely been abandoned—until the Underworld repurposed it as their area of business, it seemed. Countless poor souls have been reported to have died here, people who wandered in the wrong direction and were lost forever in those endless tunnels.

Torches started appearing along the walls as they reached deeper into the twisting tunnels. The torches created ghostly shadows on the walls that did nothing to ease Nia’s fear and dread. She clenched her fists so hard her nails left crescent indents on her palm.

By the time the caravan reached the black market port hidden deep inside of the tunnel, most of the other captives had started to stir. While some of them were still sluggish from the same drug that Nia was given, others were hysterical and screamed at the slavers to let them out.

The slavers responded to their outbursts by lashing out at them with a whip that was blunt enough to hurt them without cutting the skin or leaving bruises. The captives finally quieted down when the lead slaver, in a burst of fury, threatened to drug them again.

There were stifled cries and muffled sobs as they comforted one another. Nia was quiet—she was far past the stage of denial. Her mind was quickly trying to figure out a scheme to escape.

“Since it’s already so late, why don’t we examine the inventory tomorrow?” The woman proposed. “I’m too old to stay up this late.”

The slaver thought for a moment and nodded. “Alright. Lock them all in the barrack and give them some food and water.” He directed the last part at some of his underlings.

The slaver’s subordinates unlocked the cages to move the captives to a barrack. They forcefully dragged out the people one by one to pass them to another slaver who then dragged the captives into a cell in the barrack.

Nia went through the same treatment. She was roughly yanked from her cage by a slaver and tossed to another one who proceeded to drag her to an empty cell and shackled her ankle to the wall. 

She dimly thought about making a break for it during her transportation, but decided against it because there were too many alert slavers around, watching them for signs of attempting to escape. She needed to wait for them to lower their guard before she could try anything.

The cells were small and filled with clean straws. Since the cells were probably built for livestocks, not humans, they were slightly more spacious than the cages. Still, the captives had left one cage only to go into another. 

When two of the youngest captives start crying and screaming for their mothers, the lead slaver made good on his threat by pouring drugged water down their throat. The two children fell unconscious within a few minutes.

Nia had to look away from the scene to avoid throwing up, but the sound of the two children choking on the drugged water was enough to almost make her retch from horror.

She watched as the slavers opened the cage holding the white-hair boy and moved him to the empty cell adjacent to hers with softer treatment, as if they were afraid to wake him.

“That should be the last of them. Let’s leave them for the night and deal with them in the morning.” The Zahdian woman spoke up after the demon boy was securely locked in his cell.

The lead slaver nodded. “Give them something to eat and drink for the night.” He ordered before they left without another look.

Nia clenched and unclenched her fists as she silently simmered in her cell. How could those two commit such terrible crimes without an ounce of guilt? She could hear the other captives crying as they realized what was going to happen to them tomorrow.

She discreetly patted her pockets, trying not to draw any attention to her. To her pleasant surprise, nothing was stolen. Her jewelry was still there. They probably thought she didn’t have any valuables on her, but they were wrong. 

She reached into her other pocket and pulled out a gold handclock, which told her it was quite late in the evening, just as she had expected. The handclock had been the last gift she received from her brother. 

But it was never meant to be a gift. As Nia continued to study the handclock, she started to recall how it ended up in her possession.

“If you behave, I’ll ask Mother if we could go to the market tomorrow.” Vivian told her with a bemused smile on his face.

“Really?” Nia’s eyes lit up with excitement. She hated being cooped up at the palace, and she often started making trouble out of boredom. The palace servants were no doubt tired of her, having already suffered one too many pranks at her hand.

Vivian seemed to be aware of this, and he often tries to give her little moments of freedom, like taking her out to the market sometimes.

“If you behave.” Vivian chided her. 

Nia’s face turned glum at the thought of having to restrain herself for a whole day. 

Vivian, sensing her disappointment, added, “And here, I’ll give you my handclock for ransom to make sure I’ll keep my words. Don’t lose it, it’s the newest invention developed by our horologists.”

Nia wrinkled her nose at it. She had no idea what a horologist was. “What would I need it for? For the last time, I didn’t steal that old geezer’s handclock. I don’t know why he keeps blaming me.”

The king’s lead advisor, the old sagehand, had recently lost his silver handclock and blamed it on Nia because she had the reputation of being a troublemaker.

“I know.” Vivian chuckled. “I’m sure he placed it somewhere and forgot. He is kind of old. But if you ever felt the need to create chaos again, just count the seconds on this clock until it passes.”

“How boring.” Nia scoffed. “But fine, I guess it’s nice to look at while passing time. And if you break your promise, I’m keeping this handclock.”

“Hey, it’s my birthday, not yours. Shouldn’t you be giving me something instead of the other way around?”

Nia responded by sticking out her tongue at him.

He wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to take her out to the market today. Nia’s fist tightened angrily around it, raging at the unfairness of it all.

She wished the handclock had some sort of magical power that would let her rewind time back to yesterday morning, back to when Vivian was still alive and they were still laughing together without a care in the world. 

But miracles did not exist in this world. Nothing will change the fact that Vivian died later that evening on his sixteenth birthday, and a part of Nia’s heart had died with him that night.

Tears dripped down Nia’s face as she started mourning the deaths of her family members for the first time since it happened. Now that she was no longer fleeing for her life, she finally had time to process what happened. 

Roshana was the only family left, but Nia was completely unable to save her now. Not when she was possibly being sold as a slave tomorrow. She needed a way to escape—but how? She gripped the bars of her cell with her free hand, the one not holding her handclock, while her mind raced with ideas of ways to escape.

A groggy voice broke through her train of thoughts. “That’s a pretty handclock you got there.” It came from the boy with white hair. He had woken up.