Chapter 44 - Blood ties
Dante
The spring is too still.
Steam curls low over the water, blurring stone and sky, but my instincts don't soften with the heat. They never do. I feel it in the shift in the air, the wrongness, the subtle pressure that means I am no longer alone.
My hand closes around my sword.
Steel clears its sheath with a familiar song.
I turn
And find Alexander standing at the water's edge, smiling like he's just walked into a private joke.
I grin back, slow and sharp. "I was wondering when you'd show yourself," I say. "You've saved me the trouble of hunting you down."
My blade is already aimed at his throat.
I step forward.
He laughs.
A soft, almost disappointed sound. "You really think I'd be so stupid as to come without precautions?"
Then he walks forward.
Straight through my sword.
The steel passes through him as if through fog, no resistance, no blood, no flesh. I jerk back instinctively, water sloshing around my legs as the truth lands cold and heavy in my chest.
Not real.
Not here.
Alexander sighs, rubbing his temples like I am the problem. "Why do you always make this so difficult?" he asks. "Every life, Dante. Every single one. You destroy my plans the moment you appear."
I tighten my grip on the hilt. "You're speaking very boldly for someone who isn't actually standing in front of me."
"I'm not here to fight," he says calmly. "I'm here to talk. To reason. I thought if you understood why I did what I did, maybe—just maybe—you'd finally stand on the right side of history."
I laugh, short and incredulous. "You've never once been on the right side of anything."
He studies me for a long moment. "We used to be close, you know."
That earns him a sharper laugh. "Now I know you've lost your mind. I would never be friends with a fool like you."
Alexander's smile widens. "It always amuses me," he says lightly, "that in every timeline, you never recognize me."
My jaw tightens.
"Then again," he continues, almost fondly, "this version of me is only six."
Something icy slides down my spine.
"And you," he adds, eyes glinting, "will die by the time I'm sixteen, my dear uncle."
I still.
The word lands like a blow.
I stare at him.
"You're lying," I say flatly.
He chuckles. "You say that every time."
The air feels thinner now, harder to breathe. He steps closer, still not solid, still untouchable, but close enough that I can see the certainty in his eyes.
"You're my uncle," he repeats. "And you're going to ruin everything again if you don't do what needs to be done."
My grip tightens until my knuckles ache.
"Say it," I growl.
He doesn't hesitate.
"You need to kill Isabella."
For a heartbeat, the world goes silent.
Then I laugh.
Not softly. Not politely.
I laugh like a man who has just been told the sky should bleed.
"You really have lost your mind," I say. "If that's the best you've got, this conversation is over."
His expression doesn't change. "You always say that too."
I step forward, fury rolling through me like a storm.
"If you're not going to face me like a grown-up," I snarl, blade lifted, voice shaking with restrained violence, "then disappear. Find somewhere to hide. We'll talk again when I drag you out of whatever hole you're cowering in."
The steam thickens.
Alexander doesn't vanish.
He tilts his head instead, studying me with something like tired disappointment, as if he has watched this moment repeat itself too many times to count.
Then he speaks.
And the world cracks open.
"You think I was cold to her," he says calmly.
"You think I was unloving.
The power-hungry prince. The husband who treated her like a crown instead of a woman."
My jaw tightens.
"That's what she saw."
He steps closer, still not solid, still untouchable, his voice lowering, sharpening.
"What I saw... was my aunt."
"I didn't see a queen," Alexander continues.
"I didn't see the monster you refuse to imagine.
I saw the woman who stood with me in the western gardens when I was a child, when the grass was wet, and the wind was kind and showed me how to fly a kite."
My breath stutters.
"She laughed when it fell," he says softly. "She steadied my hands when it rose."
The steam curls between us.
"I saw the woman who knelt beside me and fed birds from her palms," he goes on, voice tightening, "who held my hand as it mattered. Like I mattered."
I don't speak. I can't.
"I saw the woman who loved you."
His eyes darken.
"And I saw the woman who broke when they carried you back to her."
"Bloody," he says.
"Unrecognizable.
Dead."
My grip slips on the hilt.
"I watched her scream your name until her voice tore itself apart," Alexander continues, merciless. "I watched something old wake up inside her chest, something that does not belong to this world."
The steam seems to hiss.
"And before the ground split," he says, "before the sky burned, before entire kingdoms learned to fear her—"
He looks straight at me.
"I knew."
My heart is pounding now, too loud, too fast.
"The cycle had begun again."
I shake my head. "You're lying."
"Don't look at me like that," he says quietly. "You think I didn't try to save her?"
His voice hardens.
"I tried to hide her from you.
I tried to bind her to another life.
I married her because I thought love—any love—might keep her human."
My chest tightens painfully.
"I tried to give her a future where she survived you."
He laughs then, bitter and hollow.
"And every time—every timeline, every version, every desperate lie—you still find each other."
His gaze burns.
"You always do."
I swallow.
"You fall in love," Alexander says.
"You die."
Silence stretches, thick as smoke.
"And when you do—"
His voice drops.
"She doesn't grieve like a woman."
Something cold crawls up my spine.
"She grieves like a god who has been robbed."
"In three days," he continues, relentless, "you will take her west.
In three days, you will show her the cliffs, the wind, the place where the world feels endless and kind."
I don't deny it.
"In three days," he says, "you will introduce her to your favorite nephew."
He taps his chest.
"To me."
"And I will watch her smile," Alexander says, almost gently, "not knowing I will see that smile end everything."
I raise my sword again, but my hands are shaking.
"So this time," he says, "I am trying something new."
My voice comes out hoarse. "Which is?"
"The truth."
He steps closer, eyes locked onto mine.
"If you know—if you understand—maybe you will stop it.
Maybe you will kill her before she kills us all.
Maybe you will choose the world over her."
My stomach twists.
"And if you refuse—"
"Then I will do what I have always done."
The air feels colder now.
"I will become the monster you need me to be.
I will remove her from your life.
I will erase her from time.
I will poison the future if I must."
Rage roars back to life in my chest.
"And if there is no future where only one of you dies—" he finishes softly, "then I will kill you both."
I step forward, blade raised, fury blazing. "You will not touch her."
Alexander meets my gaze, unflinching.
"I have seen what happens when she survives you," he says.
"And there are worse things than being hated by the man I once admired.
Worse things than being remembered as cruel."
The steam curls around his form as his voice drops to a whisper.
"There is the end of everything."
I bare my teeth. "i will kill you before you ever touch her ." i snarl at him
"And I will not let her destroy the world again," Alexander finishes, eyes burning, "even if it means destroying the Wes."
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
Then the steam collapses inward.
Alexander fades like smoke pulled into nothing.
I am alone again, sword raised, heart hammering.
The spring is silent.
But the truth he left behind is not.