"You sold me?" Hadley kicked the patched door open with an axe in her hand.
"Soledad!" a woman hissed from the courtyard. "Stand down."
"You sold me?" Hadley asked again, louder, footing steady as the dirt settled under her boots.
Soledad Guerrero shrank against the hearth. "Hadley, hush—"
"You sold me?" Hadley spat the words like a blade. Her fingers tightened on the axe handle. The buyers from the next village stood with folded arms and hard faces. A faded red cloth hung from the gate post, the mark of a completed deal.
Jaya Escobar's matron voice came smooth and flat. "We paid ten coins. The price is final. The boy goes with the woman."
Cade Bolton—no, Cade Barber in this life—ran between Hadley's legs, tiny and earnest. "Hadley—"
"Get behind me." Hadley did not look down. Her voice cut the courtyard. "You do not touch him."
Soledad held up a trembling hand. "We needed the money. The debts—"
"The debts are on you, not on my throat," Hadley said. She lifted the axe and set its butt against the packed earth, not as a threat and not as a joke. People shifted. The buyers tightened their grip on their ledgers.
Isabel Sandoval came forward with a broom clacking the ground. "You will not ruin this, Hadley. A price was paid. Jaya has the papers."
Jaya smiled like a coin. "Papers signed by the village head, witness marks. We do this by law."
"Who witnessed?" Hadley
