Caught

27.

Shira finally moved.

Slowly, step by step, he made his way towards me. With a metallic hiss, he drew his katana, the sheath hitting the ground with a thud. Face unreadable, frozen, numb. Once again I noticed that he was memorising the positions and alignments of each soldier in the room.

However, if he wanted to attack, it was a losing battle. Maybe he could kill a few of them, maybe he could kill the Emperor himself, but even he wouldn't have managed it before a bullet from the pistol at my temple blew my head off.

He stopped just in front of me, our eyes meeting. His right hand with the katana didn't move.

I felt my heart beating fast, the sweaty shirt clinging to my back. I feared death, of course, but the thought that it would be by Shira's hand, for his survival, gave me strange comfort.

"Do it," I said so quietly that no one but him would hear, my throat tightening. There was no point in both of us dying. And even if he wasn't the one to kill me, someone else would finish the job.

The hand holding the katana still didn't move.

The man I had met in prison many weeks ago would have executed me. Maybe with a heavy heart, with regrets, but he would have done it because he would have known that it was the most merciful way even for me.

But the man standing here at this very moment could no longer do that. His blue-grey eyes burned into mine, suddenly no longer cold and deadly, for the first time clearly reflecting what he might never have said, but what was evident in his every action, every touch, every look.

And because of that, he would disobey the Emperor's order and condemn himself to death as well.

He did not hesitate whether to do it or not. He had made up his mind long ago, and suddenly it all made sense to me. Shira knew he was trapped. He knew he had let me get too close. So close that I had become a weakness that could threaten him.

He knew it from the moment he wrote those words he didn't want me to say out loud, with his fingers on my skin, using characters from a thousand-year-old script.

The black-haired man raised his left hand, ran the back of it gently down my face and smiled so beautifully that my heart almost stopped.

Then he slowly turned to his master and just said, "No".

Just one short word, and in a fraction of a second he threw away all his years of service, all his privileges and honours, and made himself a traitor condemned to death.

Because of me.

I looked anxiously at the Emperor, expecting an outburst of rage. But the lord did not seem angry. Only disappointed.

"Shira," he sighed with a regret that sounded almost genuine. "You were like my own son to me. I gave you everything you asked for. And you throw it all away for a filthy rebel."

The black-haired assassin continued to stand resolutely between me and his master.

"Put down your sword," the lord ordered him sternly.

Shira hesitated for a moment, then dropped to his knees and laid the katana at the Emperor's feet. The sight of my proud warrior willingly surrendering his weapon was so heartbreaking that it shook me to the depths of my soul.

The Emperor slowly lifted the katana from the ground and took a moment to examine the shiny blade. I was barely breathing, my throat constricted and my arms still tied behind my back. All I could do was watch helplessly, hoping for a miracle.

"My lord," Shira said, still on his knees. "This man saved my life and freed me from captivity. I beg you, Your Highness, be merciful."

His master gave him a scornful look, then struck the assassin in the face with the hilt of the sword.