Date: The Night of the 2nd Day of the Month of Blossoms, Year 1107 of the Imperial Calendar.
Location: The Private Study of King Darius, Imperial Palace.
The sword was heavy, forged from cold Damascus steel, and it hung in the air like the pendulum of a clock counting down the final seconds of House Kael.
"I am waiting," King Darius said. His voice was dangerously soft, a velvet whisper over a graveyard. "Give me one reason why I should not mount your heads on the palace spikes by sunrise."
Kael was pressed face-down into the Persian rug. The scent of dust and the King's polished boots filled his nose. Beside him, Elara was hyperventilating, her sobs sharp and jagged.
Aanya lay a few feet away, curled into a ball. She was shivering, the wet bathing shift clinging to her skin. She looked from her father to her mother, waiting for them to stand up. Waiting for them to say, "She is our daughter, spare her."
But Kael didn't look at Aanya. He was doing mental arithmetic.
He calculated the cost of the Alchemist. He calculated the cost of the bribes. He calculated the value of his life. And the sum came up negative.
"Majesty," Kael croaked, his voice cracking. "We... we were deceived too!"
Aanya's eyes widened.
"What?" she whispered.
"It is true!" Elara shrieked, latching onto the lie like a drowning woman grabbing a piece of driftwood. She raised her head, tears streaming down her face, ruining her expensive powder. "We told her to be honest! We told her the Emperor values truth! But she is vain! She is wicked!"
Elara pointed a shaking, accusing finger at Aanya.
"She went to the Alchemist behind our backs! She stole the gold from the family vault! She wanted to be Empress so badly she risked our lives for it!"
"Mother..." Aanya's voice broke. "You... you held my hand while he burned my face. You chose the color."
"Silence, liar!" Kael roared, lifting his head to glare at Aanya with a hatred so pure it felt like a slap. "Do not drag us into your grave! You have brought shame upon this house!"
King Darius watched the spectacle with a cold, detached amusement. He lowered the sword slightly. He knew they were lying. He had seen the greed in their eyes at the ceremony. But watching them turn on their own child was... entertaining. It was pathetic.
"You say you are innocent," Darius mused. "But you sold me damaged goods. The contract is void. The punishment stands."
He raised the sword again.
"No! Wait!" Kael scrambled forward on his knees, his robes tangling around his legs. "We have a replacement! A refund! Please, Great Dragon, listen!"
Darius paused. "A refund?"
"The spare!" Kael gasped, sweat dripping from his nose onto the marble floor. "We have another daughter! You saw her! Riya! The one in the blue dress!"
Darius narrowed his eyes, searching his memory. The invisible girl. The one he had walked past.
"The plain one," Darius said flatly.
"She is not plain!" Elara cried out, sensing a lifeline. "She is... unpolished! She is young! She is fourteen! But she is whole! She has no scars! She is a virgin, untouched, healthy, and obedient!"
"She is the real flower of House Kael," Kael insisted, his voice gaining strength. "Aanya was... Aanya was an accident. But Riya is perfect. She can bear you sons. She can be molded. She will not deceive you."
Aanya listened as her parents bartered her sister like a sack of grain.
Riya, she thought. They are giving Riya to him.
She remembered Riya in the garden, crying because she felt invisible. Now, she was being offered up as a human sacrifice to save their skins.
"Riya is a child," Aanya whispered, forcing herself to sit up despite the guards standing over her. "She is innocent. Don't do this."
"You do not speak!" Kael shouted, backhanding the air in her direction. "You have lost the right to speak!"
He turned back to the King, his eyes wide and desperate.
"Take Riya, Your Majesty. Take her as the Consort. And take our entire fortune as a dowry. Just... spare our lives."
Darius looked at the groveling merchant. Then he looked at Aanya—wet, scarred, and ruined. Then he thought of the younger sister.
He didn't want Riya. She was boring. But accepting the trade served a darker purpose. It kept House Kael under his thumb. They would owe him their lives. They would be terrified of him forever. And he would have a fresh, undamaged wife to replace the one he was discarding.
It was a power move.
"Very well," Darius said slowly, sheathing the sword with a loud click.
Kael and Elara collapsed against the floor, sobbing with relief. "Thank you! Oh, thank you, Merciful King!"
"Bring the girl—Riya—to the palace gates at dawn," Darius commanded. "If she has so much as a scratch on her, I will flay you both alive."
"She will be perfect," Elara promised, wiping her eyes. "She will be scrubbed and scented."
"And as for this..." Darius gestured lazily to Aanya.
The room went silent.
"What shall I do with the trash?" Darius asked Kael.
Kael slowly sat up. He adjusted his robes. He looked at Aanya.
For a moment, their eyes met. Aanya looked for her father. She looked for the man who used to read her stories before the accident. She looked for the man who had promised to protect her.
But she found only a stranger. A stranger who looked at her with inconvenience.
"She is not my daughter," Kael said. His voice was steady. Cold. "My daughter died seven years ago in a kitchen accident. This... this is just a beggar who stole her face."
Aanya felt the air leave her lungs. It was a physical blow.
"Father?" she whispered.
"Do not call me that," Kael spat. He turned to the King. "Do with her what you will, Majesty. Kill her. Exile her. We do not care. House Kael has only one daughter, and her name is Riya."
Elara nodded, looking away, unable to meet Aanya's gaze. "We wash our hands of her."
The betrayal was complete. They hadn't just sold her; they had erased her.
Darius laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound.
"Cruel," the King muttered. "I like it."
He waved his hand at the guards.
"You heard the Merchant. She is nobody. Strip her of the royal jewels. Take the silk. Give her a sack to wear. And throw her out of the Southern Gate."
"And if she returns?" the guard asked.
Darius looked at Kael. "If she returns, Merchant? What should happen?"
Kael didn't hesitate. "If she returns... treat her as a trespasser."
"There you have it," Darius smiled. "Begone."
The guards grabbed Aanya. They hauled her to her feet.
"Mother!" Aanya screamed one last time, reaching out. "Mommy, please!"
Elara flinched. She covered her ears with her jeweled hands and turned her face into the rug, refusing to look.
Kael stared straight ahead, his jaw set, already thinking about how to explain this to the neighbors. "Aanya died of a sudden illness. Riya has been chosen." Yes. That would be the story.
Aanya was dragged backward toward the heavy oak doors. She watched her parents—the people she had endured agony for, the people she had burned her face for—shrink into the distance.
They didn't look back. Not once.
The doors slammed shut.
Aanya was alone in the corridor with the guards.
"Come on, trash," the guard grunted, shoving her forward. "Time to take out the garbage."
The trade was done. Riya was the price of survival. And Aanya was the change left on the table—worthless, discarded, and utterly alone.