Heart of the Blade
Part I: Sacrifice
The rays of the morning light had barely touched Snow's bare skin when she began to stir. Broken Sword lay beside still in his rumpled clothes. She did not know why she had come to him last night. There were spaces between them that could not yet be filled. The world was not as it should be in many ways—this being only one of them. Beside her, he knew she had wakened to the new day, but did not want to open his eyes and disturb the moment. This was how time always passed for them, a fragile dance between knowing and pretending. Last night, "knowing" had been the victor, but it was yet to be seen who would win the new day.
Snow swept a silken robe over her body, and closed the door behind her as she left him. She was too fierce to give way to complacency, not when her heart cried for the death of the emperor. And she was not the only one who was slave to that heart. Broken Sword would follow her into hell if it meant that he could one day see her in serenity. What had he to cling to if not her? His life before her had been inconsequential and the life before him still was murky.
But here was the dilemma; how could he follow her heart if he did not know his own? It was not in him so much to find his purpose in the blade. Hours had passed with him studying their art and each one passing led him to a place that he could not reconcile with his love. She was not ready to see to it, and that burdened his heart.
They would storm the palace soon, just as they had always planned, but what did that mean for him? He would be sent to kill a man who he was not sure deserved to die. Which would sacrifice—Snow or his honor?