The Rogue Warrior's Redemption

I am holding a blood-stained knife. I had decided to kill the warrior. “I am Irina, Princess of Astraeus, kill me, not her,” I implore. My voice is resolute and the true princess is knelt before me, bloodstained and trembling, yes, but alive.

The Lunarrii Shadows hold her under a curved moonblade, alight with alchemic energy. My false mother had once warned me that moon blades are designed for slicing necks. A dreadful revelation I now fully understand as I hold the fate of the princess in my hands.

I lower my gun to the floor. “My blood ends the Astran line," I repeat, my heart pounding in my chest. I fall to my knees before the Lunnarri, our enemy, and lay my head. “Kill me, not her.”

The Lunarii speak in their ancient tongue, kicking the true princess to her knees before me. She is quivering noticeably, the only tell that she is the true princess and I am her bodyguard.

Silently, I berate her. “Get it together,” I mouth as the Lunarii tie my hands behind my head.

The Lunarii Empire is the enemy of Astreaus and all Light Kingdoms. They are the darkness in our world, colonizers, and oppressors, who seek to conquer as many planets as they can. But their main goal is to kill Astrans, mystic beings who can use what we as an advanced society can only call magic. The last child and only living child of the Astrans, Irina, is currently about to be murdered right before me.

"We will kill you both," one of the Lunarii states, and the princess's gasp echoes my horror.

•    Fuck.*
  

Her reaction is a huge giveaway to our true identities. Why does Irina always do this?

Looks like this is going to be harder than last time.

Suppressing my true emotions, I play the part of a frightened princess, feigning fear to distract our captors. "Please," I beseech with fabricated hysteria, pointing at the real princess. "Please don’t kill me, she’s the princess! Kill her!"

The princess's mouth drops. “Irina! How could you?!”

I almost smile at this, she has called me by her name. I am so proud. The Lunarii hesitate, and in that fleeting instant, I strike. Hands bound, I kick the Lunarrii behind me down, then lunge at Irina’s attacker. I bring my elbows to my side with a strength I knew I would snap bone, but I don't care. The rope breaks, as well as my wrist, but Irina is safe and we are bolting towards the door.

We are safe.

"Wingleader safe," I say into my communications bracelet. We have to get the princess to an evacuation ship and let our armies disintegrate the threat. We've done this what feels like a hundred times before. It barely gets to me anymore.

From the age of five, I have been the princess's bodyguard. One of her four. My life is tied to the princess, if she dies, I die. My whole life has been protecting her.

"Nice job," comes Amaya's voice, one of Irina's four bodyguards. "Get her to West Gate and I'll take over from there--"

Amaya is cut off by the whizz of a fast dagger. I curse, grabbing Irina from my left and shielding her with my own body. The blade sticks in my back with a cruel thud, sinking into my skin and bone. At least it's not as big as the last time I took a blade to my back for her.

I keep moving her towards the door. The blade is close to my spine, and every step ignites fresh surges of pain.

A stab in the spine, this bastard attacker is going to die.

I push Irina into the hall, commanding her to run. With a groan, I pull the blade from my back. With a click of my health bracelet, the wound is already beginning to heal. But before the technology can even begin to close the wound, I turn and hurl the dagger back at the being that wishes for death.

What a foolish Lunnarrii, I think. To challenge one of the Astran princess's bodyguards. Doesn't he know we've been trained from the age of five? Doesn't he know that we only fight to the death?

The attacker is wearing a dark robe, concealing his face. He must be an individual spy, much like my role in Astreaus. He fights alone, just like me, and it's clear he is foolishly confident.

He has caught my dagger with one hand, inches from his heart. His hand is gloved, leather.

Wait a second. It couldn't be.

He raises his head and my heart stops.

I thought his kind were all dead.

There is only one kind in the six worlds that hates Astrans more than Lunarrii's.

Kaimari.

There is nothing worse than a Kaimari.

He is a warrior as ancient as time itself. A man garbed head to toe in not steel, not gold, but iridium armor, the rarest element of our realm. His presence is as enigmatic as the night, both silent and loud, helmet terrifying and powerful. But his confidence, his skill, is as impenetrable as the element he bore.

He does not move yet is moving, calculating his hunt and my next twelve steps. He is serene, and it is clear he has seen horror known to man, and I am nothing but a little girl.

A good warrior knows a good warrior. And I am an excellent one. Even from under his armor, I understand, he can kill me in a heartbeat. I have no chance.

I reach to my sides and pull my twin blades, but instead of drawing them, I turn my back to the skilled warrior and place them between the two door handles leading to the princess. I am going to die today, and I know it. But I am going to die protecting Irina.

I open my mouth to speak but quickly shut it. The Kaimari Warrior and I do not need to speak, everything we need to say to one another has already been spoken. I am nothing more than a human shield, a bodyguard, and he is enough a warrior to recognize this himself.

I am nothing more than a door for him to push past. I am the sacrifice.

He pulls his own twin blades and advances. For my own choice of weapon, I reach to my leg and pull the blade that he had sunk into my flesh. I will attempt to pierce his armor with the blade he had pierced me with. It is the only death of honor.

His first strike narrowly misses my shoulder. I roll underneath him and do not dare to counterattack. He is better than me, smarter than me. An eyeless creature behind the helmet but I can see right through him, he lives and bleeds death.

I need to scan my health bracelet, throw on my shields, heal and protect my body as much as I can, but something about his stance tells me in the half second it would take my hand to press the button, I will end up dead. He is a real warrior, stance full of hatred and experience with life or death, nothing the Dawnlight Masters I sparred with growing up.

He is simply death.

The second violence targets my wrist, narrowly missing my health bracelet. It shatters bone. I hold back a scream with a strength that rivales the gods, wanting nothing more than to yell in the Kaimari’s face, tell him truths we both know are not true; that I am not afraid and he will not win. But I bite my tongue, maybe if I fight as decent prey he will grant me a quick death.

My wrist is impaled to the ground by his left blade, his right one rises to slice my throat. He does not falter as it hovers near my skin, but neither did I. Kill me already, I wish to scream at him. Stop stalling and end it fast.

But the Kaimari does not slice my neck, he is enjoying this. Seeing if, like so many others he had surely killed, if I would break at the last second before death. Cry or sob for mercy. Call upon his creed of honor or pray to gods who will not come. No, I abandoned faith when my parents died. Honors is my only companion now.

Suddenly, shrieks echo through the hall—my princess, Irina.

It's desperate and horrifying, but I am only focused on catching the Kaimari off guard. All I need is one second, one second of his shoulders tensing, a slight reaction to what is going on in the hall.

But he doesn't look. The warrior doesn't even flinch.

The hesitation and distraction that I so often rely on from opponents are completely lost on him. But I move anyway, this may be my only chance. He too, knows this.

I lean over and try to pull his left blade from my shattered wrist bone. But before I can move, he swiftly catches my second hand with his other blade. The second blade pierces through the smack middle of my palm. I am on my back, my right wrist stabbed by one blade, my palm stabbed by the other.

I'm pinned to the ground like a damn dead butterfly. Like a macabre tableau to the cold stone floor.

I only have my legs now. We both know this. He expects me to use my legs, I expect myself to use my legs. I want nothing more in the six worlds to kick him between his armor and see if he has protected his balls. But I can't be foolish, I cannot lose this game we have named ten steps ahead.

So against all my instincts, I tense and hold my breath.

Time seems to stop as I pull my arms, hard and fast, from the Kaimari's blades. One from my wrist, one from my palm. My flesh tears, hard and sickeningly. Never, ever, under twelve years of torture training could have prepared me for the mental and physical pain of tearing my own bone.

I think I'm vomiting as I sprint away from him to the door at the end of the halls that lead to my princess. I hurl my only weapon at him with the palm that is not broken, right where his eyes would have been.

I hear the blade hit his helmet and fall to the floor. I have no chance.

The button, I need to press the button. I barely manage to press my shields and health before I half-smack into the door. My hands are nothing less than mutilated, so I kick the blades to the left and the right. I would arrive at Irina weaponless, but if the healing works quickly, at least I will have my own two fists.