Chapter 1: The Ghost's Last Fight
The sand was red.
Sera had stopped noticing the smell years ago the copper of blood, the sweet rot of things no one bothered to bury deep enough. But the color of sand after a long fight? That she always saw. Red meant she was still alive.
She stood in the center of the arena, chest heaving, sword dripping. The crowd above was a wall of noise and shadow, forty thousand people screaming her name. Well, not her name. They didn't know her name. They screamed for The Ghost.
Her hundredth victory.
The body of her opponent lay twenty feet away, already being dragged toward the gate by arena slaves. She hadn't known his name either. You didn't learn names in the pits. Names made it harder when you had to watch them die tomorrow.
Sera lifted her chin and scanned the royal box.
The Emperor sat on his throne of obsidian, fat fingers glittering with rings, his face unreadable beside him. The royal family was arranged around him like expensive furniture. But it was the figure standing at the edge of the box that made her grip tighten on her sword.
Prince Kaelen.
She'd seen him before, of course. Everyone had. The empire's favorite general. The man who'd crushed three rebellions before his twenty-fifth birthday. But she'd never seen him this close. Even from the arena floor, she could make out the fresh scar cutting across his left cheek, pink and puckered. New. Someone had tried very hard to kill him recently.
Good, she thought. I hope they try again.
The crowd's chanting changed. They were stomping now, the wooden seats vibrating with the rhythm. "Free! Free! Free!"
Sera's heart stumbled.
In the pits, a hundred victories meant freedom. It was the one rule everyone knew. Win a hundred fights, walk away. No one had done it in thirty years. No one had lived long enough.
She had.
The Emperor rose, raising one hand. The stadium fell silent so fast Sera heard her own blood rushing in her ears.
"The Ghost," the Emperor said, his voice carrying through some magic she didn't understand, "has won her hundredth bout. By ancient law, she may claim her freedom."
Sera's knees almost buckled. Ten years. Ten years of waking up in a cell, of fighting and killing and bleeding. Ten years of surviving when everyone told her she wouldn't. It was finally
The Emperor smiled. It was not a kind smile.
"But the Ghost," he continued, "has no name. No family. No house. She is nothing. And nothing cannot simply walk away from the empire that made her."
The crowd murmured. Sera's blood went cold.
"However." The Emperor gestured, and all eyes turned to Prince Kaelen. "My son has lost his champion. The man who guarded his back for five years is dead. Killed by treachery in the night." The Emperor's eyes found hers across the distance, and she saw something in them she didn't understand. Calculation. Purpose. "The Ghost will be his new sword."
The world tilted.
"No," she whispered. The word disappeared into the silence.
"From this day," the Emperor boomed, "your life belongs to Prince Kaelen Ashford. You will eat at his table. Sleep at his door. Die at his side if necessary. Your debt to the empire is paid in full. But your service has just begun."
The crowd erupted. They loved it. A new story, a new drama. The Ghost bound to the prince. How romantic.
Sera wanted to kill every single one of them.
She looked at Kaelen. He hadn't moved. His expression hadn't changed. But his eyes his eyes were on her, and they were the coldest thing she'd ever seen. No gratitude. No curiosity. Just the flat, assessing look of a man who'd just been given a new weapon and was trying to decide if it was sharp enough to keep.
He didn't want her here either.
Good. They had that in common.
The chains she'd worn for ten years had been metaphorical. Now they would be real. Gold instead of iron, perhaps. A palace instead of a cell. But still chains.
Guards appeared at the gate below her. One of them carried a collar of burnished steel, etched with symbols she recognized. A blood-oath collar. Once locked around her throat, she would be bound to the prince by magic itself. She would feel his pain. Sense his danger. Die if he died.
They'd turned her from a gladiator into a piece of furniture in the span of thirty seconds.
Sera looked up one last time at the sky. It was the same pale blue it had always been. The sun didn't care. The wind didn't care. Why would they? She was just a girl from a dead house, standing in a pool of someone else's blood, about to lose the only freedom she'd ever known.
The guard reached her. "Kneel," he said.
She didn't kneel.
She looked past him, straight at the prince, and held his gaze. Whatever came next, she wanted him to understand one thing: she was not his pet. She was not his loyal dog. She was a weapon, yes. But weapons could be turned.
Something flickered in his eyes. Surprise? Interest? It was gone before she could name it.
The guard grabbed her arm. This time, she knelt.
The collar closed around her throat with a sound like a key turning in a lock.
Her new life had begun.