Hieronymous:
So, since you are no mere servant, I respectfully ask you this simple question, Slave Sparrow: is this what you want? Is Azael acceptable to you as your new Master? If so then it shall be done. On behalf of her Imperial Majesty, I shall accept one hundred gold coins for your purchase and have them all given to slaves who seek to buy their freedom, and I shall tell them their gift comes from a wise and noble Lady. How do you answer?"
Sparrow blinked at the question, and realized that the curse upon her was gone. She was still Sparrow but the geas was gone. No longer could she find her only happiness as a slave of Arn.
Or could she?
The curse may have been gone, but her life as Baran seemed so far away now. She could remember her old self, her old battles, but she had trouble remembering how it
felt. It was a little as if it had all happened to a different person, and the story had been told to her. He was so unlike her. And had he been happy, a soldier of fortune, carting from one conquest to another and one battle to another, with no stability and no certainty, death and fear his constant companions?
Baran might have been willing to live that life then, but now? The thought frightened her. To be Baran again meant returning to that life and leaving Sparrow behind. The prospect made her feel uneasy.
Her time as a woman had changed her very nature, she now realized. It had actually happened sometime along the way on the caravan to Arn. She wasn't Baran anymore. She was Sparrow. And so knowing, what was her place in the world? Would she simply go free, a slip of a girl with no real skills, in the rough world outside? What would happen to her there? She didn't like dwelling on the notion.
She remembered the old gypsy woman's words, who told her her place, at her Master's side. She remembered how right that had felt. How she had felt happy at serving Judos, certain that she had her place. Happier than any time she'd remember feeling as Baran, at least. Had that been the geas? It seemed real.
It was that or any number of unknowns after being thrown into the world. And though rationally she might think she should not be a slave, having her grounding removed from under her left her emotionally queasy.
"I..." She hesitated, then made her decision. She bowed her head.
"Please sell me to Azael, milord", she said in a trembling voice. She was sure, as much as she could be given the bewildering decision.