Chapter 125: Contract Market III
---
The horned man swallowed, and this time his arrogance looked smaller. Slowly, he released the woman.
The woman adjusted her sleeve, then looked at the guard with a cold nod, like she had just made a mental note to marry him instead.
Sekhmet almost smiled, but he did not allow it. He moved forward, scanning the halls.
This place was a web. If he walked into the wrong section, he could attract attention he did not want. He needed a candidate. Someone suitable for the vampire creation ability, but without placing a knife at his own throat through politics.
Auri’s voice was quiet. "Master," she said, "do you wish to search openly."
"No," Sekhmet replied. "We watch first."
They walked along the edge of the courtyard, passing a wall lined with contract postings. Each posting had a seal, a short description, and a set of terms. Some were simple. Some were written in a language that looked like it had been designed to confuse anyone without a lawyer.
One posting caught Sekhmet’s attention.
{Bonded Retainer Contract.
Candidate: Female, age twenty-two, race human.
Purpose: Administrative retainer to merchant house.
Terms: Salary, lodging, protection.
Special note: Candidate requests "power cultivation access" in exchange for loyalty.}
Sekhmet’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Power cultivation access.
Even here, power was currency. People did not ask for romance first. They asked for growth.
Auri’s gaze flicked to him. She did not speak, but her eyes asked the question anyway.
Sekhmet did not answer it out loud. He kept walking.
A second posting.
{Marriage Alliance Contract.
House: Velloran Branch.
Offering: Female, age twenty-four, human noble.
Terms: Marriage or concubine status negotiable.
Special note: Candidate currently has a love relationship with a rival house’s son.}
Sekhmet paused.
Approved prior attachment.
That was a polite way to say what it truly meant.
This woman was a chess piece already moved across the board by someone else’s hand.
Auri’s voice was quiet. "Master," she said, "this is political bait."
Sekhmet’s lips curved faintly. "Yes," he replied.
He stared at the posting longer. Not because he wanted her, but because he wanted to understand the pattern.
A woman offered as alliance, with a prior attachment to an enemy.
That was a trap layered over another trap.
If Sekhmet accepted her, the family offering her could claim loyalty and gain access to Dawn House benefits. Meanwhile the rival family lover could gain information through her, willingly or unwillingly.
And if Sekhmet rejected her, the family could claim insult and start stirring rumors that Dawn House had grown arrogant.
There was no clean choice.
Only controlled choices.
Sekhmet’s mind moved faster, the merchant part of him calculating.
So this is what the contract meant, he thought.
This is how power is worth more than love.
How much is power worth in Null.
It was worth a daughter.
It was worth a marriage.
It was worth a woman’s entire future being folded into a contract stamp.
He continued walking, eyes scanning.
A third posting made his stomach tighten.
{Concubine and Consort Contract.
House: Minor House Ruun.
Offering: Two females, age nineteen and twenty-one, beastkin.
Terms: Concubine status, no legal wife requirement.
Special note: House seeks "protection and rewards deserving of loyalty" to the House.}
Sekhmet stopped.
Auri halted beside him, silent.
The posting carried a seal that was not the Contract Market seal alone.
It carried a faint crest. It was a stylized crest.
Sekhmet’s eyes sharpened, not because the symbol belonged to him, but because he understood what symbols meant in this place. A crest on a contract posting was not decoration. It was a hook. It was a message to anyone watching that a family had enough pride, or enough desperation, to stamp its name onto a market wall and offer flesh with it.
It was not random. It was not romance. It was positioning.
Sekhmet stared at the paper a moment longer, then let his gaze drift along the entire wall of postings. The Contract Market did not only sell people. It sold outcomes. It sold categories of surrender dressed in polite language.
On one sheet, the title read Bonded Retainer Contract. On another, Security Escort Oath. On another, Debt Redemption Labor. On another, Marriage Alliance Contract, the ink heavier as if the words themselves needed weight. Farther down, he saw Concubine and Consort Terms, then a neat little posting called Cultivation Sponsorship Agreement, as if power could be rented like a room.
A clerk had arranged the papers by type. A cruel kind of organization.
Some offers were simple and honest in their ugliness. A woman sold her service for six years to pay for a parent’s medicine. A man sold his sword arm for food and lodging, signing away his freedom in exchange for three meals and a roof that did not leak. A family offered an adoption bond for a child, not because they loved the child, but because the child carried a minor bloodline they did not want their rivals to steal.
Other offers were layered. The kind that made a person feel dirty just by reading.
A contract titled Private Companion Agreement claimed it was voluntary and respectful, but the terms listed penalties for refusal that were simply torture written with polite ink. Another was a Negotiated Bride Transfer, with a note about "existing attachments approved by both houses," which was a soft way of saying the woman was already in love with someone inconvenient and would now be used as bait, leverage, or revenge.
Sekhmet exhaled slowly and moved away from the wall into the main hall.
Inside, the Contract Market hall felt like an auction house mixed with a courtroom. There were benches. There were counters. There were raised platforms where contracts were read aloud and sealed publicly, because public sealing reduced disputes and increased fear. A bell rang at intervals, not cheerful, but procedural, like the place was reminding everyone that time was money and hesitation was weakness.
The sound of ink scratching never stopped.