Chapter 59- Bones Don't Forget
(Dante)
Her blade whistles through the air with murderous precision, silver flashing beneath torchlight as it arcs straight for Alexander's throat. There is no hesitation in her strike no mercy, no warning only intent sharpened by grief and fury.
Alexander laughs.
Not nervously. Not in fear.
He laughs like a child delighted by a challenge.
He twists aside at the last second, her blade slicing through empty air where his neck had been. The steel kisses his cheek instead, opening a thin red line that immediately beads with blood.
"Oh, beautiful," he says brightly, touching it with two fingers. "You almost had me."
Isabella doesn't answer. She doesn't slow.
She pivots on her heel and comes at him again, blade low this time, aiming for his ribs. Alexander hops back, boots skidding across marble already slick with blood from fallen guards.
"It's not that easy to kill me, my love," he says conversationally, ducking beneath a horizontal slash that would have taken his head off. "I think you fail to realize—I was raised in the West."
He parries her next strike barehanded, gripping the flat of her blade just long enough to shove it aside, skin tearing but not slowing him.
"I trained like a Western king."
He spins, narrowly avoiding a thrust to the spine.
"Fighting me," he adds, glancing toward me with a grin too wide to be sane, "is like fighting Dante."
His eyes gleam.
"You don't win."
That's when I smile.
I let my swords fall.
They hit the floor with a heavy, final clang that echoes through the throne room like a verdict. The sound makes several guards flinch. Isabella flicks me a sharp glance but she doesn't stop attacking. She knows me. She trusts me.
I step past her.
Alexander's grin wavers just a breath, just enough.
I don't draw steel.
I draw my fist.
I close the distance in two strides and drive my knuckles straight into his jaw.
The impact is brutal. Bone shudders beneath my hand. The sound it makes is wrong too hollow, too loud. Alexander's head snaps sideways as blood sprays from his mouth, spattering across the marble floor.
His laughter cuts off mid-syllable.
He stumbles back, boots losing traction, and crashes hard against the base of the throne before sliding down onto one knee.
I flex my fingers slowly.
"I can't kill you," I say evenly, advancing on him as he coughs blood onto the stone. "But I don't need to."
He looks up at me through red-stained teeth, still smiling.
"Oh?"
"I'll break every bone in your body," I continue calmly. "I'll leave you alive. Aware. And so broken you won't be able to move."
Isabella lowers her blade and steps back.
Alexander surges to his feet with a snarl, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Let's see you try."
We collide like storms.
He swings first fast, sharp, trained. I block with my forearm, the impact rattling my bones, and catch his wrist mid-strike. I twist hard. Something pops wetly.
Alexander hisses, pain flashing across his face for the first time.
He answers with his knee, driving it into my ribs. Pain blooms white-hot across my side. I welcome it.
I return the favor with my elbow, slamming it into his spine and forcing him forward. He stumbles, but he recovers too quickly spins, throws a punch that I barely avoid, his knuckles grazing my jaw.
We trade blows fist, knee, shoulder each strike heavy enough to shatter stone. The throne room echoes with the sounds of impact: flesh meeting flesh, bone grinding against bone, breath tearing from lungs.
He's good.
Better than good.
Disciplined. Ruthless. Every movement honed by Western training the kind that teaches you how to kill kings and survive it.
But I am stronger.
I catch his arm as he swings again, wrench it back, and drive my fist into his side.
Ribs crack.
Not one several.
The sound is unmistakable.
Alexander screams this time, the manic edge cracking into something raw. He staggers sideways, blood pouring freely now, staining his tunic, dripping onto the floor in dark, steady drops.
Still, he doesn't fall.
"Still think you've got this?" I ask quietly.
He laughs, breathless, unhinged. "You always hit harder than you think, Uncle."
The word barely registers before he shoves off me, retreating several steps. He wipes his mouth again, leaving a smear of red across his cheek.
Then he looks past me.
"Caspian," Alexander calls out sharply, irritation cutting through the madness. "It would be nice if you helped me."
The name slices through the room.
The air answers.
It groans.
Not metaphorically. Not magically subtle.
Reality itself bends.
The space between columns warps and folds inward, as though something massive is forcing its way through the world. A deep, ancient sound rolls through the hall too low to be human, too vast to belong to anything mortal.
Torches flicker violently.
Shadows stretch unnaturally long.
The marble beneath our feet vibrates.
Something unseen exhales.
Lucian goes pale, color draining from his face.
"Oh," he says quietly.
The groan deepens, vibrating through bone and stone alike, and for the first time since this fight began