"Kali, don't be stupid—who would take you?" Katherine snarled as she shoved the girl. "Take me where? To your pantry?" Kali snapped back, catching herself on the crate. "You already live there, Aunt." "You'll marry him or you'll hand over silver," Katherine barked. "One choice saves your family name. One choice saves your neck." "Or I could sing for coins," Kali said, loud enough for half the square to hear. "Sing louder than your sermons, maybe the market will buy a truth tonight." "A market girl with a mouth," Penn Kato called from the back, spitting on the cobbles. "Perfect match for our lord's nephew." "Shut your mouth, Penn," Katherine warned. "You know your place." "Place? I have a place," Kali said, stepping forward until the crowd pressed around them. "I have two hands and a head that remembers more than you want. You want silver? Name your price." "Five silver," Katherine said, calm and cruel. "Enough to pay the magistrate's fee. Or you marry the boy at dawn and leave my halls intact." "Marry a thief for peace," a woman muttered. "Is that really better?" Kali looked at the villagers—traders with baskets, a skein of women from the dyeworks, a boy with a wooden hoop. Their faces were expectancy and gossip, the town's appetite tuned to spectacle. "You want to humiliate me," Kali said. "Do it. Make a kilt of my shame if it will make you feel full." "She deserves