Chapter 45- A liars game
I send a guard for her.
I regret it the moment she appears.
She drifts into the office like a ghost pulled out of sleep too soon bare feet on stone, robe hanging loose at her shoulders, hair a dark spill down her back. Her eyes are heavy, unfocused, sharp only with irritation.
She stops short when she sees Lucian.
Human. Fully, unapologetically human. Leaning against my desk like he owns it.
She squints at him. Blinks once. Twice.
Then groans.
"I liked the cat better," she mutters. "He was quieter. And cuter. Less... whatever this is."
Lucian presses a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I am devastatingly attractive in all forms. This one simply comes with opposable thumbs and better posture."
She drops into the nearest chair with a thud, rubbing her face. "Why am I awake?"
"We're having a meeting," I say.
She looks up at me slowly.
"It's dawn."
"Yes."
She stares for a long moment, then slumps back. "I hate you both already."
Lucian clears his throat. "For the record, I suggested waiting until noon. You're the tyrant here."
I ignore him.
"We need answers," I say. "And he may be the only one who has them."
Isabella straightens slightly at that. Sleep drains from her expression like water receding from stone.
I tell her everything.
The hot spring. The illusion. The way Alexander's body passed through my blade like smoke. The certainty in his voice. The way he spoke like this was not his first attempt nor his last.
I don't leave out the worst part.
That he spoke of her like a disaster waiting to happen.
That he spoke of me like a constant obstacle.
Lucian listens in silence, arms folded, eyes sharp and calculating. Isabella doesn't interrupt once. By the time I finish, her fingers are curled white-knuckled against the arm of the chair.
For a long moment, no one speaks.
Then Lucian exhales.
"Unfortunately," he says, "his story almost makes sense."
My jaw tightens. "Almost?"
"There are holes," Lucian says. "But the framework is... familiar."
Isabella leans forward. "Start talking."
Lucian glances at her, then at me. "There are four timelines. No more. No less."
My pulse thuds once. Hard.
"In the first," Lucian continues, "Dante dies."
Isabella's breath stutters. I feel it like a blade between my ribs.
"He dies ten years from today," Lucian says gently. "And Isabella does not become cruel. Not immediately."
I don't look at her. I don't trust myself to.
"She disappears," Lucian says. "Withdraws from court. From power. She hides."
"Alexander takes the throne," Lucian continues. "At first, carefully. Slowly. He presents himself as a savior. A stabilizing force."
Of course he does.
"But when the children grow," Lucian says, voice flattening, "when Dante's bloodline becomes a threat—he acts."
I close my eyes.
"He kills them," Lucian says. "Every child the two of y'all will have together."
Isabella's makes a sound small, broken, barely human.
"All but one," Lucian adds. "The eldest. The one who escapes."
Her hands slam onto the table. "Escapes how?"
Lucian shakes his head. "That detail is... fuzzy. Trauma tends to fracture memory. But that child finds you."
Isabella'sface drains of color.
"And tells you everything," Lucian says. "The torture. The pain. The way Alexander made it slow."
Something inside her breaks. I can feel it like glass under pressure.
"That," Lucian says softly, "is when she stops being a grieving woman and becomes a force."
My chest tightens.
"She hunts him," Lucian continues. "Relentlessly. She tears the kingdom apart looking for him."
Isabella's voice is ice. "Good."
Lucian nods once. "Timeline Two is Alexander panicking."
Of course it is.
"He decides the problem isn't Dante," Lucian says. "It's Isabella. So he goes back further. To poison her while she's still young."
Isabella chair scrapes violently backward as she stands. "I was a child."
"Yes," Lucian says. "He didn't care."
Something red-hot and vicious coils in my gut.
"But something interferes," Lucian continues. "Instead of dying, Isabella is sent back."
Her laugh is sharp and hollow. "Of course I am."
"That leads to Timeline Three," Lucian says. "The execution."
Silence crashes down on the room.
"And again," Lucian adds quietly, "someone intervenes. Out of pity. Out of balance. Out of guilt."
Isabella's hands curl into fists. "So he tries again."
"Yes," Lucian says. "And now we're here."
I lean back slowly. "Which means either Alexander knows something we don't..."
Lucian finishes it. "Or he's bluffing."
Isabella laughs but there's no humor in it. "He doesn't care about the world."
Lucian nods once.
"No. He cares about inheritance."
The word doesn't shock me. It settles. Heavy. Certain. Like a truth I've always known and simply refused to say aloud.
"Then remove him," I say.
The room stills.
Isabella turns toward me slowly, as if hoping she misheard. Lucian doesn't react at all only watches me with that familiar, calculating calm, the look he gets when the future fractures and he's trying to decide which pieces will cut deepest.
"You mean now," Lucian says.
"Yes."
Isabella's chair scrapes violently across the stone. "He's a child."
Her voice shakes not from fear, but from disbelief. From the naive hope that there is still a version of me who will hesitate.
"Killing him would destroy an entire family," she continues. "You'd be punishing people who have done nothing wrong. You would turn yourself into—"
"A necessity," I cut in.
She flinches.
"You speak of innocence," I say, my tone even, detached. "As if it is a shield. As if it has ever stopped a blade."
Lucian interjects carefully, "It would solve one problem—but not the other. Alexander exists in this timeline twice. Adult and child. Which means the man will guard the boy."
I smile faintly.
"So he hides behind his own youth."
Isabella shakes her head, horror creeping into her expression. "Listen to yourself."
"I am," I reply. "That's the difference between us."
I step closer not to threaten, not to intimidate. Simply to make sure she understands.
"Evil does not announce itself," I say quietly. "It grows. It waits. It roots itself so deeply that by the time you see it clearly, tearing it out kills everything around it."
Her hands curl into fists. "That's not justice."
"No," I agree. "Justice is a luxury for people who can afford to lose."
Lucian watches me closely now. "Dante—"
"If Alexander lives," I continue, "he will kill again. He will reset time again. He will erase lives again until the future bends into the shape he wants."
Isabella's voice cracks. "And you think murdering a child makes you better than him?"
"I don't care," I say.
The words land like iron.
"I don't care what that makes me. I care about results."
She stares at me as if I've struck her.
"You would really do this?" she whispers. "Cross that line?"
I don't hesitate.
"There is no line," I tell her. "Not when the cost of mercy is your corpse on a scaffold. Not when the price of hesitation is watching our children die screaming because I was too weak to act."
Lucian exhales slowly. "You're talking about becoming something unforgivable."
"I already am," I reply. "Everything since has been refinement."
Isabella's eyes shine with tears now, but I don't soften. I won't insult her by pretending.
"If I must be unjust so my family survives, I will be unjust," I say. "If I must be cruel so our bloodline endures, then cruelty will be my virtue."
Lucian's voice is low. "You would become a monster."
I finally look at him fully.
"I will gladly wear the title," I say. "Monsters don't hesitate. Monsters don't mourn. Monsters protect what is theirs."
I turn back to Isabella.
"You think I enjoy this?" I ask. "You think this is rage?"
I shake my head once.
"This is clarity."
Silence presses in, thick and suffocating.
"Alexander is a rotten fruit," I finish. "And I will pluck him before he poisons the tree—even if the world decides I am the villain for it."
If the future demands blood to survive
Then let it be mine to spill.