"Just a little mark of a fish," Silas explained, standing beside her with his hands clasped behind his back. "They need to be branded. In this world, everything has an owner, Mia. The mark ensures that if one of them tries to swim away, the whole country knows who they belong to."
Psst...hiss.
The device pressed against the first girl's skin. She let out a sharp, strangled cry as a small, intricate blue-black tattoo of a stylized dragon-scaled fish was seared into her flesh. It wasn't just ink; it was a tracking chip and a permanent badge of slavery.
Mia and Acacia exchanged a look. There was no horror in Mia's eyes, only a dark, burgeoning fascination. She looked around at the guards, the high-end surveillance monitors, and the sheer scale of the operation. This was the power she had been chasing. This was the Byron Empire that the public never saw.
"I see," Mia said, her voice regaining its hardness. She watched the second girl get branded without flinching. "It's efficient."
