His words are designed to make me feel like a fool. Maybe I am one. My resolve wavers under the prisoner’s furious stare. I can hear the laughter and unrest in the stands. The crowd shifts in their seats, mumbling.
I take a deep breath and lift my chin. “Didn’t he flee the Federation?”
“He’s still the enemy.”
“He’s not their loyal soldier. He left them willingly. His movements are far too precise to belong to a common soldier. If we kill him now, we could lose a well of information that he might be willing to give us.”
“We’ve already questioned him to exhaustion. It’s useless.”
“Give him more time. He may know something invaluable.”
“Step aside, Talin,” Aramin answers coldly.
“Corian wouldn’t.”
Aramin sighs at that. This is Corian’s spirit haunting me, giving me the stubbornness to take a stand here. I grit my teeth, not knowing how else to answer him. Not caring. “Haven’t you said before,” I sign, “we could use any help we can get? What if he can give us what we desperately need?”
He grunts in irritation as I use his words against him. “Help?” he says with disgust. “We need a miracle.”
“And yet things clearly aren’t desperate enough, are they?” I’m angry now, and my signs turn cutting. “After all, we still haven’t opened up Striker recruitment to the refugees in the Outer City.”
“I’m not having this argument with you today.”
“When, then? When the Federation’s banners fly over our nation?”
The tension between us grows thicker. I’ve challenged him, dared him to remove me. “What do you want to do, Striker?” he finally asks. “Or are you so noble as to take his place?”
I cast my eyes down at the ground. “With all due respect, sir. If you want to waste a prisoner like this during a losing war, then so be it. But if we execute him now, we might be digging our own graves.”
It’s a reckless, stupid answer—here I am, facing my superior before an audience of our entire Striker force, banking on nothing but the fact that we were once equals, two soldiers fighting a losing war.
He faces me in silence, and for a moment, I think he will raise his blade and cut me down.
Then, finally, he takes a deep breath and nods once at the guards. “Leave him,” he says.
Murmurs ripple through the audience. Disbelief. Even I stare up in surprise. The Firstblade does not take orders from a Basean rat.
He casts one last, disgusted look at the bloodied form of the prisoner, then points his sword at me. “He lives,” he says, loud enough for the audience to hear.
The surprised murmurs turn into a disgruntled chorus. People had come out today for the catharsis of an execution, and now I was the reason they would be robbed of it. Up in the stands, I can see Adena’s stormy expression.
Aramin lowers his sword. The blade’s tip buries into the ground with a heavy thud. “But since you seem so fond of him, I assign him to you.”
I look sharply at him. “Sir?”
“You’re in charge of him now.” Aramin’s gaze pierces through me with an edge of vengeance. “Every Striker needs a Shield, don’t they? And it seems to me that you need a new one. Well, here’s your wish. You get to stay. You get your Shield. Your prisoner gets to live. Are we all satisfied now?”
The insult of his words sinks into me. Heat rises on my cheeks. I had made the mistake of embarrassing him before the entire Striker force and the Maran public—so this is my punishment. Of course a prisoner of war couldn’t join the Striker forces. So instead of dismissing me from the Strikers, instead of taking my challenge, the Firstblade has instead turned me into a joke. I picture myself having to lead a chained prisoner around during training sessions. Forced to sit with him beside me in the mess hall. Would the Firstblade go as far as making me share living quarters with him too? The stares from the arena weigh against my shoulders. Snickers echo around me, their laughter cutting.
Aramin reads my expression with a look of grim satisfaction. “I’ll hold you responsible for anything he does,” he says. “Look out for him. He’s your Shield now. Maybe you’ll be able to get the information that you so firmly believe he holds.”
“And how long might that be, sir?” I ask him.
His eyes stay cool and calm. “As long as any Striker stays with her Shield.”