Eda has never seen life outside of Asterism, a haven to most but a prison to her. Closely watched by her mother and her assigned Guardian, Alstroe, she lives a perfect, protected life, until all she knows is destroyed by Aries, a man who will stop a...
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With the sharp edge of Aries's blade flush against my neck, Alstroe silently surrendered. He hovered his hands in the air and allowed a soldier to guide his wrists together and bind braided rope tightly over his forearms.
Aries did the same to me. When I flinched from the tension in the rope, his gaze shifted from my wrists to my face.
"Is it too tight?" He asked. There was no hint of cruelty or amusement in his deep voice.
I remained quiet and still, as if I were a wild animal corralled into a trap.
He loosened it until the grain of the rope eased against my skin, and finished with a knot. Before I could even think of muttering thanks, which I would sooner cut off my own foot, Aries, prince of horseshit, guided me forward with one strong hand on my shoulder.
Beside me, Alstroe was treated the same while a third pickpocketing soldier patted every inch of his body to reveal his hidden weapons. She stockpiled her findings beneath her black cloak. First she found the dagger, then his small hatchet. But when her wandering hands wrapped around the hilt of his broadsword, Alstroe burst into movement, pushing his head forward. Swifter than what my eyes could catch, his forehead collided with the hers. A skullbreaking crack split the night air. He had hit bare skin against the metal of her helmet, but it was she who flew back and fell ass first into the wet green slush of the courtyard.
"I will be keeping that if you don't mind," Alstroe said with a dazed smile. Between his eyes, vibrant red blossomed and streamed down either side of his nose. It wasn't until moments like this, when our lives depended on it, that I remembered how much brutality my Guardian was capable of.
"I'll have your eyes for that," the woman shouted from the ground. Alstroe didn't even look down as he stepped over her.
"You won't touch him, Cera," Aries said. "We aren't here to kill them. That is not the point of all this."
Protected by the dim light, I rolled my eyes. Half an hour ago, Aries was determined to place a blade into Alstroe's chest. If he didn't bring his soldiers to decimate my entire people, then he brought them to take Asterism away from my mother.
In front of us, the castle shone in warm golden lights. From here, its strong stone walls appeared proud, an ode to my mother's people. But from between its windows, an impossible nightmare had come to fruition. A siege was destroying everything my mother, and the mothers before her, had deemed worth protecting.
I was the first to pass under the grand entrance of the castle's marble totems and to step into the grand opening foyer. From the stone walls, hand-weaved tapestries had been torn down and defiled with the long, angry pulls of blades. My mother's favorite painting – the sole surviving portrait of my grandmother, which showed her long crimson hair and her kind face lit up with a small smile – lay in ribbons of canvas and broken frame. Crimson pools of blood spattered across the floor, creating a stark contrast against the white tile beneath.
