The sun was already sinking behind the hills when the day’s training finally came to an end.

  Ardeshir—or as many always called him, Ariadna—panted, leaning on the hilt of his training sword. Sweat ran down his forehead, neck, and back, soaking the simple linen tunic until it was nearly translucent. But it wasn’t the exhaustion of defeat. It was the sweet, almost euphoric fatigue that comes from finally breaking through a barrier he had spent years believing unbreakable.

  He had never felt this before.

  In his previous life, and during the first months after being reborn in this body, his training had been methodical, patient, but fruitful. Basic strength. Correct technique. Breathing. Posture. Repetition until numbness. All very proper… and very limited. Along with some torture from his master forcing him to improve his flexibility.

  Today, for the first time, something inside him had truly been unleashed.

  He struck with fury and precision until the notched blade sliced clean through the trunk in a single stroke, splintering it as if it were dry paper. He ran. Not jogged—ran. Fast, light, almost weightless, dodging obstacles that grew more and more complicated while his master interfered by throwing rocks or blunt-tipped arrows. He moved with a feline agility he had only ever dreamed of before. His stamina no longer collapsed after three minutes; today he had endured nearly two hours of continuous combat without his lungs burning like hot coals.

  He had talent. No—more than talent. He had martial potential.

  He felt as though the body that once seemed borrowed, clumsy, and mediocre had finally decided to obey him. The heart that previously allowed him only brief bursts of speed now beat steadily, fueling endurance until even that ran dry.

  He staggered slightly out of the training courtyard, an exhausted but satisfied smile curving his lips. In a few years… no, perhaps in much less time, he would become a swordsman spoken of with respect and fear in taverns, academies, and the royal court. A name that would echo: Ardeshir the Invincible. Ardeshir the Undefeated.

  And then, without warning, a cold jet of reality hit him.

  “Ariadna!” a female voice shouted amid laughter.

  He spun around. Only then did he remember where he really was.

  He wasn’t alone in the barracks training yard. He was in the west wing of the palace. In the harem.

  Around him, several young servants and low-ranking concubines watched with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and something harder to decipher. One of them—a girl with reddish-brown hair and lively eyes (the same one who had called his name)—spoke:

  “Would you like to help us carry some things?” she asked in that melodic tone that always seemed to hide a second intention.

  He nodded almost reflexively, though he felt heat rising from his neck to his ears. It had become routine by now: appearing in the inner gardens of the west wing, receiving some apparently innocent errand, and eventually finding himself surrounded by harem women who laughed together, brushed arms as they passed, and left trails of jasmine, amber, and something indefinable in the air.

  He took the baskets they handed him—one of them from Alexa, who winked shamelessly—and accepted them into his arms. The weight was considerable, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

  Muffled laughter. Someone murmured something about “the fights between the new concubines and certain slaves who don’t understand their place,” triggering another wave of low chuckles.

  It was true that the years in his previous life had been almost exclusively male: counselors, scribes, captains, ambassadors with thick beards and hard stares. The few women in high positions were wives or sisters of someone important, always guarded by protocols so rigid that speaking to them was almost equivalent to challenging someone to a duel. And to secure a hand in marriage, you either had to be very famous or hold a very important position. If you possessed some worthy quality, it wasn’t uncommon for them to offer you their sisters, cousins, daughters, or granddaughters.

  But if you had no talent, you were ignored—and in the end, he had been one of those who ended up surrounded by philosophers and thinkers pompously debating philosophical topics or more pragmatic matters of how to govern a country.

  Here, though, in the heart of the harem, the rules were different. There was no danger of a brother or father deeming you unworthy and nearly turning you into a eunuch with a blade (no one in their right mind would tie their lineage to a man without talent or relevant titles like him—he was the fourth son, so his inheritance would be only the family name and some minor support in a lesser career).

  He was lost in these thoughts when he collided with someone.

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  The impact was sharp, almost violent. His body pitched forward from momentum and he fell onto—of course—a girl. There were only women here, and the eunuchs were tall and dangerous.

  The scent reached him first: faint, metallic, like freshly spilled blood mixed with sandalwood incense and something older, perhaps cold iron. Then came the weight. It wasn’t the weight of an ordinary girl; it was the precise, controlled weight of someone who knows exactly how to distribute their center of gravity—even when falling.

  Before he could pull away or apologize, their eyes met.

  Pale, almost translucent skin under the dim light of the oil lamps. Red eyes. Not reddish-brown, not dark amber. Red. Like fresh blood under moonlight, like embers that refuse to die. Jet-black hair, long, perfectly straight, falling like spilled ink over her shoulders. And those sharp, slanted eyes that seemed capable of cutting before the sword even left its sheath.

  It was her.

  The “Red Serpent.”

  Mizore Kagasaki, though almost no one dared speak her full name. Brought from the islands of Nihon, far beyond even the Qin trade routes, delivered through agreements between families that played with entire kingdoms as though they were chess pieces. From a house of the highest samurai lineage, yet tainted by the curse of those red eyes that, according to rumor, appeared in her bloodline as a synonym for death.

  Quiet. Serious. Silent. Lethal.

  It was said—and it was no exaggeration—that her martial skill stood at the pinnacle of all known female warriors in the Persian Empire, including the legendary Immortals. Some swore she had eliminated a dozen hashashin with nothing but a knife. Others, more sensible, simply avoided looking directly into her eyes for more than two seconds.

  Zara had claimed her as personal shadow and guardian almost from the day she set foot in the palace. No one knew for certain whether it was out of admiration, fear, or pure political pragmatism. But since then, wherever Zara went, the Red Serpent followed two steps behind, always at her right flank, always with her left hand near the silk-wrapped hilt.

  She was so feared and so infamous for her cruelty and violence that, although technically she held the rank of servant—a category that in theory allowed any high-ranking noble to purchase her as concubine, personal guard, or simply an exotic trophy—no one dared.

  Not the richest and most degenerate satraps of Babylon. Not the Parthian princes who collected foreign beauties the way others collect jeweled daggers. Not even the most ambitious eunuchs of the royal harem, who were usually the first to sniff out opportunities for advancement through strange marital alliances.

  The mere rumor that someone had expressed contempt or insulted Zara was enough to ensure that person suffered a very “convenient” accident in the following days: a stray arrow on the training field, poisoned wine that mysteriously only he drank, or a fall from a terrace far too high to be accidental. And always, always, the last person seen near the victim was a petite figure with black hair and crimson eyes who never raised her voice nor quickened her step.

  That’s why, when his best friend—the prince—the only idiot with enough blind confidence or enough disregard for his own life—approached him one night while they were drinking in the private gardens and said, between laughter and spiced wine:

  “Hey… what if you married her? No one else dares. It would be perfect. She’s incredibly sexy, she’d protect you, both bloodlines would grow stronger, and we’d do the empire a favor by getting the serpent out of the way before she bites someone important. Plus, my mother told me she would support the marriage.”

  He had stared at his cup for long seconds, unsure whether to laugh, punch him, or simply throw himself into the pond and drown to end the conversation.

  He was still turning that madness over in his mind—weighing pros, cons, survival odds, and above all the recurring image of those red eyes staring straight at him—when the invasion of the Lich King arrived.

  “You have very beautiful eyes,” he said quickly, purely on reflex, as though the words had escaped on their own before his brain could stop them.

  The silence that followed was deafening.

  Mizore froze. Completely still. Not a blink. Not the slightest movement of her lips. Only those red eyes, opened slightly wider than usual, fixed on him as though they had just received an order impossible to process.

  And then it happened.

  A strange, almost impossible color began to climb up her pale neck. First a faint pink at the ears—barely noticeable under the dim light and lingering smoke in the courtyard. Then it rose, slow but unstoppable, until it painted her cheeks a crimson so intense it clashed violently with the whiteness of her skin and the absolute black of her hair.

  She blushed.

  …

  Ardeshir was unusually drunk. It wasn’t something common; in fact, he was usually the one who kept a clear head while everyone else fell one after another under the influence of spiced wine or the pomegranate liquor his companions loved so much. The prince had an almost perverse talent for getting those around him drunk: he knew exactly when to refill a cup, when to change the subject so no one noticed how fast they were drinking, when to let out a laugh that invited everyone to keep pace. That night, however, had ended with a harsh reality: he was not material to be the husband of one of the daughters of any respectable noble family.

  His steps were clumsy on the polished mosaic of the west corridor, the pointed boots scraping lightly against the stone each time he tried to correct his course. The world seemed to sway around him disproportionately. He muttered something under his breath, a mix of ancient Persian curses and nonsensical phrases that tried to be clever.

  That was when she appeared.

  The servant—or rather, the guard disguised as a servant—approached with restrained speed. Dark panties and bra with filigree patterns depicting serpents. Her duty was clear: protect the prince during his nocturnal outings in the lower city, in seedy taverns and private gardens where young nobles gathered more for scandal than for sense. That night, however, she hadn’t had to follow him through alleys or pull him out of any fights. She had simply waited in the palace shadows, as always. Today the Serpent was bored—more interested in leaving the same place than in actually helping the prince’s friend.

  When she saw him dangerously teetering near a column, she sighed softly and approached without hesitation.

  “My lord,” she said in a neutral, almost professional tone, “allow me to assist you.”

  Ardeshir turned his head too quickly and nearly lost his balance. He looked at her through narrowed eyes, bright with alcohol and the dim light of the oil lamps.

  “You…?” he mumbled, then let out a hoarse laugh, “they’ve told you you’re very pretty”