NIKOLAI

Time seemed to stand still as I swung the silver sword in a neat arc, striking the stretched meat of my best friend’s neck and feeling the sword spasm in my death grip before cutting cleanly through the bone and clanging up to my shoulders against the hard rock of the dias.

My heart pounded wildly in my chest as the brightly colored room blurred in my vision for a moment before I caught the lapse and blinked everything back into focus.

The silence was so loud that my ears rang from the nothingness, not a breath, not a word, nothing but quiet. I watched Igor’s blood-spattered head roll...