Chapter 61 - I'm scared
(Isabella)
"Lucian."
My voice trembles despite my effort to keep it steady. The word leaves my mouth like a prayer fragile, desperate, almost too late.
The blade rests against his throat, silver bright, humming with a power that feels wrong in mortal hands. Lucian stands perfectly still, shoulders squared, chin lifted in quiet defiance. There is no fear in his posture only exhaustion so deep it feels older than the world.
Around us, the throne room lies in ruins.
Cracked marble. Shattered columns. Blood smeared across gold-inlaid stone like a grotesque mural. The air still smells of ozone and iron, of magic burned too hot and too fast. Somewhere, Dante stands rigid and silent, coiled like a blade waiting to strike but even he does not move.
Because this moment does not belong to him.
It belongs to Lucian.
And to the god who refuses to let him go.
"Lucian," I say again, softer this time, stepping forward slowly. I keep my hands visible, my movements careful, deliberate like approaching a wild creature caught in a snare.
"Please," I whisper. "Put the sword down."
His grip tightens for a fraction of a second. I see it the minute tremor in his fingers, the way his breath hitches before he forces it even again. He does not look at me.
His eyes are locked on Caspian.
Caspian stands untouched amid the devastation, as immaculate as if this were a garden rather than a battlefield.
His dark hair falls loose down his back, catching the faint light of magic still bleeding from the air.
His expression is patient now, almost indulgent, like someone waiting for a child to finish a tantrum.
Alexander, half-crumpled against the far wall, watches with manic fascination, delight still flickering behind his eyes.
Seconds stretch.
Then minutes.
The silence grows unbearable, pressing in on my chest until breathing hurts.
Finally
Caspian exhales.
It is not relief.
It is resignation.
"Fine," he says.
The single word lands like a dropped crown.
Alexander straightens instantly, his grin snapping back into place like a mask. "what do you—"
"Shut up," Caspian says sharply.
The temperature in the room seems to drop. Power ripples beneath his skin now, no longer hidden, no longer polite. He doesn't look at Alexander when he speaks again—doesn't need to.
"You know exactly what i am," Caspian continues coolly. "My loyalty has always gone to the highest bidder."
Alexander scoffs, brushing dust from his sleeve even as his hands shake slightly. "Now that's unfair—"
"You've been outbid," Caspian cuts in, finally turning his gaze on him.
For the first time since I've seen him, Alexander looks... uncertain.
Caspian turns back to Lucian.
His voice changes then lower, softer, threaded with something dangerously intimate. Not kindness. Familiarity.
"I'll leave this timeline," Caspian says. "Alone."
Lucian's breath leaves him in a long, unsteady exhale. I see his shoulders drop a fraction, the tension easing just enough to remind me how tightly wound he's been.
"I'll stay out of it if you come home " Caspian continues. "No rewinding. No interference. No corrections."
Alexander laughs nervously. "You can't just—"
"I can," Caspian says mildly.
He lifts one hand.
The gesture is lazy. Almost bored.
Alexander is ripped from where he stands and hurled across the throne room like a rag doll, his body smashing into the stone wall with a crack that echoes sickeningly. Stone fractures outward. Alexander groans as he collapses to the floor, stunned, blood blooming dark against the pale marble.
I gasp and surge forward instinctively.
Lucian exhales again.
This time, the sound is hollow.
"Is this what this is really about?" he asks quietly.
His voice has lost its rage. Lost its venom. What remains is something raw and aching, stripped bare of pride and fury alike.
"You did all of this," Lucian continues, eyes never leaving Caspian, "just to drag me back to that hell?"
Caspian smiles.
It is not cruel.
It is relieved.
"Yes," he says simply.
He steps closer to Lucian, ignoring me, ignoring Dante, ignoring the broken body of Alexander entirely.
"Come home," Caspian murmurs. "And these mortals can have their happily-ever-after. For another century, at least."
My stomach twists violently.
"I'll stop," Caspian says. "I'll stop playing with them. With their wars. Their suffering. Their endless little tragedies."
Lucian's jaw clenches. I see his throat bob as he swallows hard.
"You want them to stop hurting?" Caspian asks softly. "Fine."
His eyes burn now ancient, possessive, unyielding.
"Take their pain for them," he says. "All of it."
He leans in, voice barely above a whisper.
"And come home."
The room feels smaller suddenly. Tighter. Like the walls themselves are listening.
The world does not scream when Caspian opens the portal.
It surrenders.
The air folds inward, soft and soundless, like reality bowing its head.
Light spills open behind him not blinding, not violent, but achingly beautiful in the way only traps are.
A castle waits beyond the veil, radiant and eternal, suspended in a sky that never changes.
Towers gleam as if polished by devotion itself.
Gardens bloom without decay. Waterfalls rise instead of fall.
A paradise that never learned how to let go.
A prison that calls itself home.
Caspian steps back, halfway into the threshold, and turns.
For the first time, his voice isn't cruel or amused or distant.
It's bare.
"Come home," he says.
I grab his arm before he can move, my fingers shaking, clutching fabric like it's the last real thing I have. "You don't have to do this," I whisper desperately. "We can fight him. We can outthink him. We always find another way—"
Lucian looks at me then.
Not with sarcasm.
Not with charm.
Not with mischief.
With tenderness so quiet it hurts worse than screaming.
"My queen," he says softly, brushing his thumb over my knuckles like he's memorizing the shape of my hand, "there is no other way."
The finality in his voice is unbearable.
He steps past me.
And it feels like something is being taken from the world like the air itself is thinner without him in it.
Then Dante moves.
He doesn't speak.
Doesn't threaten.
Doesn't posture.
He simply closes the distance and pulls Lucian into his arms.
Hard.
Desperate.
Lucian freezes for a heartbeat then completely unravels.
The sound he makes is not dignified. It is not clever or controlled. It is raw and animal and ancient. A sob ripped from a place where gods carved their lessons and never bothered to heal the wound.
He clutches Dante like a drowning man, fists twisting in armor, face pressed into his chest as if he might disappear if he lets go.
Dante wraps him up without hesitation.
"I've got you," he murmurs, voice breaking despite his best effort. "I've got you."
Lucian laughs weakly through tears. "You always say that."
"And I always mean it," Dante replies.
They stay like that far too long and not nearly long enough.
"You'll be fine," Dante whispers hoarsely. "You're the hardest bastard I know."
Lucian shakes his head. "I'm scared."
The words are small. Devastating.
Dante closes his eyes, forehead resting against Lucian's hair. "I know."
A pause.
"And when you come back," Dante adds, voice barely holding together, "I'll be right here. With the most expensive glass of wine I can steal, buy, or extort. You don't get to drink cheap shit after this."
Lucian lets out a broken, watery laugh. "You're going to miss me."
"Iwill," Dante says.
They separate slowly, like hands being forced apart by fate itself.
Lucian turns toward the portal.
Caspian waits, hand still outstretched.
Lucian ignores it.
He walks past him.
Alone.
Just before the threshold takes him, Lucian turns back one last time.
He smiles not the wide, teasing grin he wears like armor, but something smaller. Softer. Something that looks like goodbye.
Then the mark ignites.
Gold erupts from the sigil on his forehead, liquid light spilling down his face like molten tears. It glows brighter with each heartbeat, carving divinity into him whether he wants it or not.
He flinches but does not cry out.
The portal begins to collapse.
Lucian raises hand weakly. "Don't let the world get boring without me," he says, voice unsteady.
Then he's gone.
The light snaps shut.
Silence crashes down like a grave being sealed.
I turn to Dante.
He hasn't moved.
His hands are still clenched, as if holding onto someone who is no longer there. His shoulders shake once just once before he bows his head.
A tear slips free.
He doesn't wipe it away.
Doesn't hide it.
"I'll be waiting," he whispers into the empty space. "As long as it takes."
the tyrant of the West looks like a man who has just lost his last friend to eternity.