Just a few hours before he assassinated the King Emperor’s heir, Eshaad had been nursing his third cup of wine while thinking of home.

The clink of clay and copper cups against wooden tables were a poor backdrop for his thoughts. Eshaad sat with his back to the wall—the eunuch masters taught him well—his eyes scanning the room partly out of habit, partly out of anxiety.

He would have preferred some mare milk instead of this bitter palm wine, but the Red Guards were forbidden from bringing any.

Should these weak-boned easterners take one whiff of the stuff, the truce will die that same moment, their sergeant joked. They were on a diplomatic mission here, and the only thing he needed to worry about was the safety of the ambassadors.

But still, how could a grown man reject mare milk?

Eshaad shook his head. This place was too foreign.

Around him, the Yattoshi guards joked and laughed in their harsh accents. They were at home here.

He grew tired of their constant banter, but other Red Guards did not share his reservations.

The room smelled of sweat and damp leather, and the floor was sticky with sweet plum wine. They ran out of the stuff hours ago and now were down to palm wine (which Eshaad didn’t mind that much) and moss wine (which he refused to try).

Men only drank this heavy at a wedding and a funeral. Eshaad couldn’t tell which one was happening now.

Two empires, bound by bloodshed, soon to be bound by paper, he thought solemnly, swirling the dregs of his wine.

“The ink dries as good as the blood and remembers only half as much.” That’s what his father used to say. Eshaad remembered the words, even if he couldn’t remember the face of a man who said them.

He briefly wondered whether that man would have been proud of him. Once, long ago, a shallow youth was sent into the tutelage under eunuch masters. One fewer mouth to feed, that was all the justification his parents needed.

He was broad-shouldered and prideful back then, but they had beaten that pride out of him.

He held nothing against his masters. The eunuchs were no men, but they had made one out of Eshaad.

“Look at me now,” he said out loud without realizing.

“Whu?” someone asked to the right of him, then burped and went back to sleeping.

Eshaad’s hand brushed against a thorned, swordless hilt strapped to his belt—a standard weapon of the Red Guard. A small part of him hoped he would have to use it; it’s been too long since it had last drawn his blood.

He wondered how many of the men in the room he could kill before they would stop him. Four? Six? Ten?

The small scars along his palm itched at the thought.

One of the local guards, a burly man with a gap-toothed grin, was recounting a story about a brawl he’d once had with a particularly stubborn mule.

A small Red Guard bannerman—his name was Leng Li or Li Lan or some combination thereof—was translating the best he could, barely keeping up with the man’s abrupt storytelling.

The others laughed uproariously, first at the story, then at the translation. Even Eshaad allowed himself a faint smile.

“Not much for drinking, eh?” one of the Yattoshi guards said, turning to Eshaad. His name was Juro and he had come by a few times already. “Or is it not up to the Quwri standards?”

Eshaad shrugged. “Depends on how much you’ve already had,” he replied, keeping his voice low but good-natured. “This swill does the job well enough.”

Juro laughed, slapping the table. “A man of practicality! I like that.”

The conversation returned to lighter matters, and Eshaad let his thoughts drift.

He glanced toward the hearth, where a group of guards were playing khalatran. The pieces were scattered across the board haphazardly, and the men weren't even paying attention to whose turn it was.

One of the men had a symbol of a breaking wheel around his neck, Eshaad did not fail to notice. The Iron League’s teachings spread like fire.

The ease with which the men around him entertained themselves made him queasy. Didn’t they understand what was at stake? Or had they simply grown numb to it all?

One wrong move at the parlay tomorrow, a mistranslated word, a poorly timed joke, and the treaty will collapse.

“You’re too quiet by half,” Juro said, pulling Eshaad from his thoughts.

Eshaad hesitated, then shook his head. What was there to say?

“Well, enjoy the quiet while it lasts,” Juro roared. “Come tomorrow, we’ll all be running around like headless chickens.”

Tomorrow. It couldn’t come soon enough.

The room felt too warm, too noisy, too suffocating. Juro did not help one bit—the man was as wide as he was tall and took up all of the space wherever he appeared.

Eshaad set his cup down, nearly spilling the contents.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Fresh air,” he said, sensing a question in Juro’s eyes. “Don’t drink yourself stupid. We might still be at war soon.”

Juro laughed. “I promise not to kill you too quickly, then!”

The chill of the night hit Eshaad like a splash of cold water. The Royal Palace was quiet, the stars above scattered like pieces of amber in the dark sand.

He walked along the perimeter, listening to the way his boots crunched softly against the gravel path. There was soon another sound beside him.

He didn’t need to turn to know it was his blood panther. The beast had been soulbonded to him for years (another standard practice of the Red Guard), and they shared one life between them.

As the cool air filled his lungs, the weight in Eshaad’s chest lifted slightly. But still, some ugly, rocky thoughts lay at the back of his head.

Strange, how peaceful it seems, he thought, glancing toward the distant flicker of torches along the outer walls. Beyond them, the world stretched into darkness—the unknown territories of the Yatto Empire.

This was the furthest to the East that he had ever been. 

His grandfather and father both died while the Quwri and the Yatto Empires were still at war. Eshaad scratched his blood panther behind the ear, wondering what it would be like to live and die in times of peace.

Could his wish be granted tomorrow?

The thought warmed him. If the treaty held, he might finally have a chance to tell Jarena how he felt.

She would laugh at him, just like she had years ago when they were younger, but he wasn’t the same fool anymore. He was a soldier now. Almost a captain.

Surely, she would see it?

Might be he’d even return home with her, take care of the farmstead, and raise a family. The idea of it was almost too sweet to bear.

A quiet life, can you imagine that?

And if money were tight, he could still find work. 

The war might be ending, but smaller conflicts never do, and a soldier doesn’t unlearn his trade overnight. He could be a sword for hire or a bodyguard or…

The blood panther stiffened suddenly, her ears pricking up.

A strange sound broke the stillness. It wasn’t Eshaad who heard it, not truly. But everything his blood panther heard, he did as well.

“Who’s there?” he called.

No response. Only silence.

Eshaad’s jaw tightened. This place is crawling with guards. No one’s getting past us.

Another sound—closer this time.

The blood panther stopped and glanced back at him, her golden eyes gleaming in the darkness. Then, with a flick of her tail, she slipped into the shadows, her massive paws silent on the stone floor.

Eshaad cursed under his breath. He didn’t like her wandering off, especially not here. The Royal Palace was a maze of unfamiliar halls.

The panther didn’t feel any danger, but today was not the day to stay complacent.

Eshaad picked his hils and winced as the thorns bit into his palm. A warm pulse spread through his veins as his blood seeped into the blade’s core.

It wasn’t pain—or, rather, it was pain he learned to ignore and send somewhere deep inside.

The blood responded, as it always did. It coalesced into a thin crimson blade, razor-sharp and slightly translucent. The blade was alive.

The entire process took Eshaad less than two heartbeats—a sweet result of all the years of training—but also left him lightheaded. Such was the drawback of blood magic.

He concentrated on the panther's senses, and smelled nothing unusual.

It's all in my head. It always is.

The corridor was darker than he’d expected, the torches dimmed or extinguished entirely.

Eshaad pressed on, his boots scuffing lightly against the floor. The air here felt different—cooler, heavier, almost damp. He rounded a corner and stopped short.

Pain shot through him like a lightning bolt. He gasped, his vision swimming, and almost lost control of his crimson blade.

His panther... she was in pain. He was in pain.

He felt fire growing inside of him as something burrowed in the panther's side.

“Stay with me,” he muttered, his voice breaking. “I’m here.”

The blood panther was lying down in a dark-red puddle.

Why couldn't she smell an ambush?

The sound of footsteps made Eshaad freeze. They were slow, deliberate, and impossibly loud in the suffocating silence.

A figure emerged from the shadows, cloaked and hooded. It moved with an eerie calm.

Then, a sudden motion. Eshaad couldn't react quickly enough and caught something sharp in his stomach.

It was his panther's time to yelp in phantom pain.

With a grunt, Eshaad fell down. His crimson blade turned back into blood and was now trickling down his arm.

The figure took two steps forward. Eshaad wanted to run away and scream for help but his voice caught in his throat. “What… who are…”

“…you?” His copy finished his question for him. The voice, the tone, even the way his lips curled in that same guarded sneer, all of it was an exact replica Eshaad had seen in the mirror so many times.

This is all a trick of my mind. I... drank too much. This isn't me.

“Are you in pain? My apologies,” the man with his face spoke so softly that were it not for the wound in his stomach, Eshaad might have even believed he was sorry. “But it would do no good to kill you too soon.”

Eshaad was too shocked to utter anything. And what could he say? His head was suddenly empty, save for the metal drum of pain.

Was this why the panther couldn't smell anything weird? Because it was my smell?

The man shook his head and leaned in closer. “I need you to talk.” He stuck his finger deep into the wound in Eshaad’s stomach and twisted it.

“P-please.” Eshaad could barely recognize his own voice. He was wheezing and panting. “No m-more, please. I yield.”

“That’s better,” the man smiled. “But you should pay attention to what I say.”

“It would do no good to kill you too soon,” the man said.

Eshaad closed his eyes. His lips trembled from the agony that was now spreading from his stomach.

“You d-don’t have to do this.”

“Keep talking, yes. Was that so difficult? You see, I can only hold this visage for as long as I’ve talked to my target,” the man shrugged. “A one-sided conversation can only get me so far. But maybe you’d like to talk to someone else.”

For a moment, the man’s face twisted into something else. Something familiar.

“J-Juro!”

The man smiled the same wide grin Juro had.

“What d-did you do t-t-to him?”

“He’s fast asleep and not like to wake up any time soon.” The man’s face shifted to someone else now. Eshaad didn’t recognize the face. “The lardass has played his role well enough. But he is Yattoshi. What we’re about to do requires a Quwri.” Something glinted in the man’s eye. “Like yourself.”

“Q-q-qu—”

“Quwri, yes.”

None of this made any sense to Eshaad.

“W-what are you p-p-planning?” It took him a few moments to ask the question, but the man patiently waited without interrupting.

“A small mischief,” he said and winked at Eshaad. “You will be accused of murdering the King Emperor’s heir, I’m afraid. Some of your friends will be found complicit. The secret police here in the Yatto Empire are no joke, and nobody likes to be boiled alive.”

The heir to the Yatto Empire? Does he want the treaty to collapse? The Quwri and the Yattoshi will be back at war!

“W… w…” Eshaad wanted to ask why but his tongue was stuck in his throat.

The man understood. “The world would be such a bore without any wars, my dear. I do so hate it when things are not in motion. A still river is not worth watching.”

The man wagged his finger as he said it as if he was a teacher in school.

He then leaned closer and looked Eshaad in the eye without blinking. Eshaad felt something roll down the corner of his eye. He hoped it was only sweat. The eunuchs taught him never to cry.

“But hush now,” the man said softly. ”No need to make a scene.”

He raised a hand and placed it over Eshaad’s eyes. It was a gentle, motherly gesture. Eshaad’s last thoughts were of his father, the eunuchs, that fat drunkard Juro, the cup of bitter palm wine he never had the chance to finish.

And Jarena. Jarena, most of all.

In the end, Eshaad’s wish had been granted: he died on the last, and only, day of peace in two generations.

The Thirty Years’ War had just ended, and the Six Years’ War was about to begin.