The day of the wedding was hotter than most. Even under the shade of their place upon the second level of the palace arena. The princess and the Karo Shar were alone, left to their privacy. Not even a single slave attended to their needs after Kaden had dismissed them all.

He wanted private words with his future wife. Words he had yet to find the courage to speak as the desert air felt grittier than normal with every breath.

Words, made more difficult by the unpleasant knowledge that any eyes that could see them were upon them from the varying levels of the arena. Witnesses had gathered on the other balconies all around. But they were not packed so tightly as when Kaden and Lar had fought.

Today's pre-wedding entertainment did not seem as important.

Together, the soon to be husband and wife overlooked a raised wooden platform. Upon which stood a firm hunk of wood with a neck sized gouge and stained from copious amounts of prior spilled blood. Kaden sat transfixed by the sight, prepared for the pending execution.

The High King, the prince's father, like so many others, was nowhere to be found. This was a trivial moment for the supreme ruler of Imeron. Something he could not be trifled with. Something so far beneath him that it was best left for his son, the prince, to handle.

"You don't have to do this," Kaden finally mustered the courage and said, unable to tear his eyes away from the morbid scene while speaking to his soon to be wife.

"By the Decrees, the slave, Hernah, has committed a crime," the princess said with no hint of emotion. "She has betrayed her mistress and her princess by sleeping with my future husband."

"Under your orders, I remind you," Kaden dared to recall the all too well known facts for Lyla.

A vision of stoic beauty, she too sat and watched the block of wood. "Does that excuse it?" she asked. "Do the Decrees make such a distinction?"

"No." The words were bitter upon Kaden's lips.

"Then, as I have told you many times before, I will have no further discussion on this topic."

"I believe it is the wrong thing to do," Kaden pressed.

"You need to learn to take orders better," the princess snapped. "I'm growing tired of this. No more. Will you miss her in your bed? Is that what this is about? You'll seek to run to her when I displease you?"

"No. No. And no."

"Then it is settled."

A drumbeat began. Slow and methodical. Deep, like a Koronai's roar. And unlike the princess's command, that grim tone had the power to stop the discussion.

The man producing the noise entered into view from under where Kaden and the princess sat. The drum he pounded on was slung across his chest and was as big as he was, but he seemed to have no trouble carrying it. Behind him followed Hernah in her rough spun tunic, looking as though she'd been beaten for good measure prior to her ceremonial appearance.

Kaden couldn't place her posture. She seemed calm, marching to her doom, hands bound by rope before her. She followed like a willing dog. Kaden detected some virulent pride oozing from the plumply curvaceous woman at having had first dibs on the cock of the man meant ultimately for the princess. Still, he couldn't understand how she seemed so relaxed. But at this distance, he knew he couldn't see everything.

Hernah's head had been shaved bald, as was customary for those soon to be beheaded.

The drummer led her up a small wooden staircase to her pending doom and continued his menacing beat. Both stopped at the block and stood facing Kaden and the princess.

Kaden could see Hernah test the strength of her bonds. They held without yeilding.

There was one more needed for the ceremony to begin. Prince Relastin himself.

The prince arrived moments later with a head high strut as though he were confidently going to battle. His breastplate showed the signs of battle scars that would never grace his skin. And he took up a position behind Hernah on the platform.

The drum beat its final beats.

"Citizens of Ison," he proclaimed to a crowd quieted by his mere presence. "Before the wedding of my sister can commence, there is business to attend to. An adulterous act has be recorded. A woman, a slave, has violated the sacred covenant between my sister, the Princess Lyla, and her promised husband, my Karo Shar."

No one gasped at the charge. All in attendance knew why they were there and what was to be witnessed.

The prince continued. "The punishment for any woman who beds the man betrothed to a princess of Imeron is death. But if anyone has any evidence they would like to present that shows these acts did not take place, they may present them now. Or forever hold their tongue."

The crowd remained deathly silent.

The prince surveyed them with all the power of a feared monarch. "Then, by my glorious hand, I proclaim the charges as true and the sentence to be death by beheading." He then went on to say, "It is traditional that I, as your prince, should carry out this sentence." He rang his sword out, and displayed the gleaming, slightly curved metal for all to behold. "But the princess has made a special request. She asks that my Karo Shar perform the execution as a show of his love and devotion to her."

The crowd began to express its surprise. And none were more shocked than Kaden as the prince turned his gaze directly onto the Karo Shar.

"It appears," the princess said to Kaden without looking at him, "that you have a duty to fulfill. I suggest you do so."

Kaden's body rose from its seat of its own volition. Knowing that hesitation longer than he'd already taken would be noticeable and not looked upon favorably. "We'll talk about this later," he growled in the direction of his not-quite-yet wife.

"No we won't," she said.

The Karo Shar did an abrupt about face, snatched his Rohs Fang from where rested against the wall, and exited the viewing box created for the guests of honor at this morbid event. He knew exactly how to get down. Left, then take the carved store stairs, left again, and he was heading straight for the execution platform.

The sand grit between his feet and the soles of his sandals while the crowd cheered his entrance. While his trek to where Hernah would meet her fate seemed to take forever. He ascended the stairs to join those already atop it the platform.

As he did, the prince sheathed his sword and turned to leave. When the two passed, the sovereign who ruled Ison grabbed Kaden by the bicep and froze him with whispered words. "I suggest you be sure to take her head off in one stroke to mitigate her suffering." He looked back at the slave, defiant and quiet. "I know you don't want to do this. And I'm not saying it's fair and just. But the Decrees call for this. You must do it. So, do not disappoint me."

Kaden replied with silence as the prince released him and went on his way, as though no threat had just been delivered.

The man with the drum sat it down with a muffled thump thump as the skins on either side vibrated. He grabbed Hernah around the back of her neck. First, he forced her to her knees, then urged her throat across the block before stepping back and leaving her there of her own free will.

Kaden pitied Hernah. If her life was worth so little, his was worth not much more. In the moment the Karo Shar was reminded how meaningless his existence in the grand scheme of things really was. A pawn—that was what he was.

Taking up a position beside the slave woman, Kaden raised his weapon as the crowd hushed. As it was over his head, prepared to deal a swift and fatal blow, it paused.

Hernah seemed to sense the hesitation, despite not seeing it directly. She took that moment to blurt out, "I fucked the Karo Shar! And did so before the princess could! And we both enjoyed it!"

Kaden froze harder. He looked up to see the reaction from the princess to the defiant proclamation. Her face was stern, but immensely sour. A force to be reckoned with that put the deepest of fear into Kaden. That dread unfroze his muscles.

On reflex, he brought down the bladed end of his Rohs Fang.

He felt the exact second steel broke Hernah's skin on the back of her neck. The sensation of the blade finding the gap between two of her vertebrae was next. The resistance to the blow was minimal. And before Kaden knew it, blood sprayed and the edge of his weapon was into the wood block.

Hernah had started to scream out, but when Kaden severed her head from her shoulders, there was no more breath to continue her painful terror. Her head tumbled forward, end over end, dropping from the block to the platform and staring up at the Karo Shar in a pool of blood.

Just beyond the severed head of the slave woman Princess Lyla had sent to train Kaden for her pleasure, on the floor of the arena, was Prince Relastin. He had a satisfied smile on his face. A sign of deep pleasure at how the spectacle had unfolded.

Kaden's body pumped with adrenaline. He hadn't partaken of any essence, but his body felt as alive and alert as though he had. As though his body was feeding on his own rage. An emotion born from what he had been made to do to Hernah.

And in his state of heightened awareness, Kaden heard something that was out of place.

It was the twang of a string and then the sound of an arrow's blade slicing through dry desert air—