Desert of Vanished Souls SEASON 2– Episode 11 – The Market of the captives

Inspired by @Diane-de-la-Cheneraye

Inspired by

“Thank you,” the woman whispered in Wolof-accented Arabic.

Anna poured water into her cracked palms. “Do not thank me,” she said softly. “Thank yourself for surviving.”

> She thought: What is freedom if it can be bought with gold? It is merely a shift in the chains that bind us. True freedom is beyond any man’s market.

Amastan gestured for his men to approach a merchant. Quietly, efficiently, they bought seven captives. Anna watched as coins passed, chains were struck, and the freed stumbled into the bright sand like dazed cattle.

That evening, as they camped under acacia trees, she brought water to a woman who had fallen to her knees.

Anna stood beside Amastan, wrapped in her blue desert robe. Her eyes flicked from pen to pen: a mother nursing a child with vacant eyes; a boy no older than Matthias had been, tears streaking dusty cheeks; an old man praying under his breath in a language she could not place.

The sun burned high and merciless above the desert outpost where they stopped to resupply. Canvas awnings stretched above pens crowded with men and women, their ankles shackled in iron. Merchants in embroidered kaftans shouted prices, lifting captives’ chins to inspect teeth, pinching arms to assess muscle.