The clamor of voices drifted in through the window. Lys opened her eyes, roused from a sweet dream. She sat up, finding herself in an unfamiliar room. It was clean, with only white walls and a sturdy straw bed beneath her. The Silverhaired Witch sat at a table, fully dressed in a brown cloak. Bottles and vials clinked softly in her hands, making a pleasant sound.

The priestess’s mind felt foggy. Memories of the previous night’s dreamlike events flooded back, jolting her fully awake. She hugged herself and demanded loudly, “Witch! What did you do to me last night? Why am I here?”

“Just a ritual. And why you’re here? Simple. I plan to sell you.” Aelina didn’t turn around, focused on her test tubes.

Panic flickered in the priestess. Her hand flew to her waist—her spiked hammer still hung there. She patted herself down. Her clothes were intact, her undergarments dry. Last night’s damp dream had only been a dream. A strange sense of loss washed over her. *What if it had been real?*

“Did the ritual work?”

“Of course. Come here. Look in this mirror.”

“A mirror? You actually own something so precious?” Lys sprang up, her legs wobbling. She nearly collapsed back onto the bed. “Why do my legs feel so sore?”

“A minor side effect.” Aelina handed her a palm-sized mirror. Lys approached slowly, her wide blue eyes fixed on her reflection. Her cheeks were flushed, her skin smoother.

“Touch your hair. Doesn’t it feel silkier?”

Lys obediently ran her fingers through her golden locks. They slid smoothly through her grasp. “It does! This magic is amazing! Witch, could you perform the ritual on me again tonight?”

Aelina shot the excited girl a cold glance. Her calves were trembling. Last night hadn’t been about lust, she realized—it had been about satisfying her own need for conquest. “Potions take time to brew, dear priestess.”

Lys flinched at the icy tone, shrinking back slightly. “H-how much longer?”

“Magic rituals can’t be done back-to-back. The timing is… complex.” *Specifically tied to my own desire meter,* Aelina added silently. “I’ll tell you when the time is right. Besides, it’s late. Your companions must be worried.”

“Oh!” Lys snapped fully alert. “I’ll miss morning prayers!”

She leaped up. “Where’s the door?”

“Right there. Just push.”

Lys’s legs steadied, suddenly strong. She dashed out like a gust of wind. Aelina pinched a glass test tube with her leather-gloved hand, watching the liquid inside gleam in the sunlight streaming through the window. *So even with beauty beyond the apes’ wildest dreams, a three-century celibate like me can only attract girls through… this? How pitiful, Aelina. And those novels about women seducing women stored in my mind? Utterly unreliable. If I’d mimicked an Elven Queen and kissed her on sight… I’d probably have a hammer dent in my face right now.*

Outside, the noise grew sharper. At 5:30 AM, the market refugee camp was already chaotic.

“Potatoes! Big ones! Four silvers! Wheat! Eight silvers a pound! Fair prices!”

*Fair? Sixty pounds of wheat for a warhorse.*

“Please! This is all I have!”

“Beggar! No coin? Starve somewhere else! Don’t block the way!”

“Get lost!”

“Daddy! Mama! Mama! Don’t leave me!”

“Grab that brat! Tie him up!”

“Hold still, you little demon!” The crack of a whip followed.

*Seems the round-faced merchant and his customers get along famously.*

Aelina’s mind held vast historical archives—vivid images, videos, detailed simulations. She could immerse herself in any era, feeling its pulse. She knew grain prices soared in chaotic times. She knew trading children for food was commonplace. The absence of parents swapping children here meant this chaos wasn’t *too* dire yet. Or perhaps they simply lacked merchant instincts.

Aelina took a deep breath, steeling herself.

*“I’ve never held any expectations for ape morality,”* she reminded herself.

Gripping the Molecular Reconstructor, she stepped downstairs. Darkness filled the ground floor. She closed the door behind her, raised the device, and fired at a wall. Stone crumbled, transforming into a platform. Light, the stench of animal dung, and icy wind flooded the stone room.

Directly opposite, five ox-carts lined up. Three stood empty. A burly, red-bearded mercenary slammed a sobbing boy to the ground with a vicious kick. He grabbed a rope, lunged down, and punched the struggling child hard in the face. Blood gushed from the boy’s nose.

The round-faced merchant waved impatiently. “Easy! Damage the goods, and I dock your pay.”

“Behave, brat.”

The mercenary pinned the crying boy face-down in the dirt. Tears mixed with mud on his split, crimson cheek. Blind to everything but despair, the child’s hand pointed toward two gaunt farmers carrying empty baskets. “Daddy! Mama! Mama! Mama!”

Aelina turned to the couple—emaciated figures bundled in ragged, oversized coats. They hurried away down the dirt road. *“So the only advantage of primitive breeding is this: parents can’t be trusted. They won’t protect their children. They’ll trade them for food to survive.”*

As Aelina spoke, the mother glanced back. Her sunken cheeks were sallow. A single murky tear traced a clean path through the grime on her face.

Aelina fell silent. *“I have no right to judge.”*

The trading continued. A crowd gathered before the merchant’s carts. They emptied their packs, unloaded skeletal livestock, offered numb children—all for sacks of meager rations. Compared to the rapidly filling carts beside it, the grain cart emptied at a painfully slow pace.

“What fine business,” Aelina murmured, mimicking the merchant’s voice. “We merchants sell to those in need. Both sides profit. But who buys children? Girls to Durant, boys as slaves… or simpler: sell them to the hungry. A child weighs thirty, forty pounds. Decapitate, bleed, skin—boil it and call it mutton. A new breed. ‘Two-legged lamb.’ Tender meat. One gold per pound. Slaughter two, and you’ve bought a warhorse. One gets rich, one gets fed. Mutual benefit. Delightful.”

She gazed at the refugee camp stretching for miles across the river. War had driven them west. A single bridge trapped them, letting them starve slowly—or, if they crossed, be squeezed dry by their own kind. Their countrymen would suck the last drop of marrow from their bones, then wipe greasy lips and discard the husks by the roadside.

Aelina couldn’t accept it.

*“I should teach these apes what sharing means,”* she declared. *“That round-faced ape should give up his grain, carve the fat from his belly. The ones on the other side should lower the bridge. What is a queen’s command compared to life? Worthless. But apes don’t understand. They can’t. Born on such a primitive planet, their morality is low. Only the despicable survive. I’m above this. I should save some pitiful apes… even if it gains me nothing.”*