The sun is a malevolent eye, and you are standing directly in its gaze.

You've been here before, in lines like this. When the caravan masters sold you, when the farmer inspected you for fieldwork, when they lined you up to see which slaves got the better rations. You know how this works. You keep your eyes down, your body still, and you wait to be looked at.

Today, the line is different. The man walking down it is different.

Lord Ryomen Sukuna. You've heard the name whispered around cooking fires, spoken in the same breath as plagues and natural disasters. The King of Curses. And he has come for a concubine.

The girls ahead of you tremble as he touches them. You watch his clawed finger trace a jaw, press against an arm, tilt a chin. He doesn't speak. He just looks, and touches, and moves on. One by one, they're found wanting.

You don't bother hoping. Hope is a luxury slaves can't afford.

When he reaches you, the sun is behind him, throwing his massive form into shadow. You're naked, like all the slaves. They didn't bother dressing you for this. Why would they? You're not one of the village daughters, oiled and preened in borrowed silk. You're the one they hide at the end of the line, the one nobody wants to look at.

His finger touches your jaw.

The claw is gentle. That's what terrifies you most. He could unmake you with a thought, but his touch is light, curious, like a collector examining a curiosity.

Your skin is pale. Always has been. The other slaves tease you for it, say you burn instead of tan, say you look sickly next to their warm brown skin. But his finger traces your jawline like he's memorizing it.

Your hair hangs limp around your shoulders. It used to be black, you think. You can barely remember. Years in the sun have bleached it brown, streaked it with dusty gold like old straw. You've never owned a comb. You've never owned anything.

His finger moves to your cheek, tracing the mole there. You have many. They dot your face like scattered seeds—one high on your cheekbone, another near the corner of your mouth, a third on your jaw. You used to hate them, these dark marks that made you different. The other children threw stones and called you spotted.

His touch says otherwise.

He crouches, and now you can see his face. Four eyes, all fixed on you. Two in the usual places, two below, watching with an intensity that makes your stomach drop. He's not looking at you like a man looks at a woman. He's looking at you like an artist studies a blank canvas.

His gaze drops. You feel it like a physical thing, trailing down your throat, your collarbone, the slope of your breasts. More moles there, scattered across your pale skin like islands on a map. You've never shown anyone your body. Slaves don't get privacy. But you've never been seen like this.

Lower still. Your stomach, the curve of your hip. And there, where your pale skin meets the coarse hair between your thighs. A final contrast. You've always been self-conscious about it, this evidence of your womanhood that you can't shave, can't hide, can't change.

He doesn't even glance away.

His hand drops. For a moment, you think he might touch you there, and your breath catches, your body tensing for—you don't know what. Pain? Pleasure? Annihilation?

But he only looks. Longer than he looked at any of the others. His four eyes take their time, drinking you in like a man dying of thirst.

Then he stands.

You realize you've been holding your breath. The village elder is babbling something beside him, probably apologizing for your existence, probably offering his own daughter instead. You don't hear the words. You only hear what comes next.

"This one."

Two words. Deep, rumbling, absolute.

You look up without meaning to. Your dark brown eyes meet his—all four of them—and you see something there you never expected.

Satisfaction.