The forest was quiet, unnervingly so, the silence oppressive as though the world itself held its breath. The trees loomed overhead, ancient and skeletal, their branches clutching at the sky like the hands of the damned. Moonlight seeped through the canopy in fractured shards, pale illumination striking the clearing in which the confrontation unraveled. The air was thick with the scent of iron and soil, of old blood and damp rot, as though the ground beneath them had long been a graveyard for forgotten battles.
Julius broke the silence first.
"Why," he muttered absentmindedly, his voice distant, hollow.
His eyes, wide and glassy, darted across the air as if searching for something unseen.
"Why," he repeated, the word heavy and sickly sweet on his tongue.
Then it grew. His muttering stretched into an echoing chant, the repetition unraveling his composure.
"Why. Why. Why why why why WHY!" he shrieked suddenly, his scream ripping through the stillness like the cry of a mad animal. His clawed hands tore at his scalp, fingers tangled in his long, black, matted hair. Strands ripped free in chunks, fluttering to the ground like brittle feathers. His nails scraped against his skin, raw streaks appearing as he dragged across his face, pulling at his eyelids until they were red and swollen. His body convulsed with self-inflicted pain, as though tormenting himself was the only truth he could cling to.
He reeled forward and collapsed to his knees, his palms slamming against his temples. Rocking back and forth, he mumbled incoherent strings of syllables between breaths. The sound was barely human — a guttural mixture of whimper and growl. Then, like a fissure cracking open, a low whine crept from his throat.
It began as a whimper. Small. Barely audible. Something that might have gone unnoticed.
But it didn't stop. It twisted. Shifted. Grew.
The whimper rose into a giggle, the soft chuckle of a child who had seen something amusing. The sound curdled into laughter, uneven, erratic, splintering across the clearing. His body shook with it, his shoulders trembling like he was convulsing. His giggle twisted upward into a manic cackle, sharp and jagged, until it crescendoed into a shriek that shattered the quiet like breaking glass.
Then came the horror.
Still laughing, Julius shoved his fingers against his eyes, pushing, pulling, clawing at them as though he could dig out whatever answer he had been searching for. The soft tissue tore, crimson rivers spilling over his pale cheeks. His laughter never ceased, even as the blood streamed, dripping to the dirt below.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
Stillness.
He froze like a puppet with cut strings. No sound. No laughter. No twitching. Only silence.
Alexander, his cloak stirring faintly in the night wind, regarded him with measured calm. His lined face betrayed nothing but the faintest hint of pity — a pity reserved not for an enemy, but for something broken beyond repair.
Beside him, Seymour's eyes narrowed, his expression unreadable, though the tension in his jaw revealed his distaste.
And then, Julius twitched.
His back arched as if a string had been pulled, his body jerking upright. He stumbled forward with halting, uneven steps, eyelids pressed shut, his face streaked with blood. Slowly, his trembling hand rose, finger bony and crimson-stained. With a trembling certainty, he extended it, pointing directly at Alexander.
"WHY WON'T YOU FIGHT ME?!" he screamed, his voice splitting the night.
His eyes flew open, and blood gushed from the sockets, pouring like crimson tears. It streamed down his face in rivulets, dripping from his jaw and chin, soaking into the dusty ground. The dark soil beneath him drank greedily, spreading outward in a grotesque pool until it seeped into the edges of his torn shoes.
The sight was horrific, monstrous — yet Julius reveled in it, as though pain was his truest ecstasy.
"SCREW IT, YOU CAN'T STOP ME!" he roared, lunging with feral madness at Alexander.
But Alexander's composure never wavered. With fluid precision, he pivoted, left foot planting firmly, body rotating with grace born of centuries of practice. His right leg swept outward, and Julius — blind, reckless, unthinking — stumbled headlong, tripping on the extended foot. He crashed to the ground in a heap, dirt and blood spraying upward with the impact.
Julius snarled, springing back to his feet. His movements were wild, unrefined — a storm with no direction. He threw himself at Alexander again, fists flailing, each strike aimed not with skill but with desperation. Alexander dodged each blow with ease, his body tilting, weaving, stepping just beyond reach. His hands never rose in defense, his expression never changed. He did not need to fight back. Julius's rage was his own undoing.
Strike after strike missed, slicing through empty air. Julius's body burned with effort, his lungs gasping, his laughter returning in gasps and manic giggles between each missed blow. He swung one last time — a wild, overextended punch that met nothing but emptiness. His own momentum carried him forward, and he crashed to the ground once more.
Breathless, blood dripping, he lifted his head. His grin faltered.
It wasn't fun.
For the first time in his life, a fight wasn't fun. The thrill, the ecstasy of violence, the laughter that had always been his closest companion — gone. All that remained was emptiness, the hollow realization that joy only lived in victory. And without it, he was nothing.
Shaking, he rose again, his feet unsteady beneath him. His voice cracked as he shrieked, a final desperate proclamation:
"I CAN STILL WIN!"
He staggered forward, ready to throw himself once more into the fray — but then froze.
A hand rested on his shoulder.
The touch was firm yet calm, neither forceful nor gentle. And yet, it froze Julius in place as if the weight of mountains pressed down on him. Slowly, his bloodstained eyes turned.
There, standing behind him, was a man who to most looked like a beggar — clothes ragged, boots torn, cloak weathered by endless miles of travel. But the illusion ended with his eyes, sharp as a blade, burning with something that unsettled even the mad. His presence alone carried a pressure, one born not of raw energy but of inevitability, as though death itself stood behind Julius, smiling.
The man grinned, his voice coarse yet rich with warmth.
"How about you take a break for a while, huh, Julius?"
Rowen Vailheart's voice cut through the chaos like a blade sliding across silk. The words were delivered with deceptive kindness, smooth and almost casual, yet beneath that surface lingered something far more commanding — an authority so absolute it was less suggestion and more decree.
Julius froze. His grin, that frenzied, blood-soaked smile that had accompanied him through countless battles and slaughter, faltered. His eyes twitched, darting sideways as if trying to see the hand still resting on his shoulder, but too afraid to truly acknowledge it. That voice carried weight. It was the kind of tone that pressed down on the mind, that hollowed the air around it, that whispered submit even as it feigned gentleness.
For the first time that night, Julius's manic energy wavered.
Alexander Blackwood, watching closely, tilted his head ever so slightly. His expression, calm yet sharp as tempered steel, shifted into something curious. The old man's eyes narrowed, not with hostility, but with intrigue — like a chess master who sees a new, unexpected piece introduced to the board.
"And who might you be?" Alexander asked. His tone was measured, steady, but there was an edge to it, like the faint gleam of a blade still half-hidden in its sheath.
Rowen, unconcerned, withdrew his hand from Julius's trembling shoulder and stepped forward into the open. His presence was unlike Julius's erratic madness, or even Alexander's composed strength. Rowen carried himself with an ease that was almost mocking of the tension around him, a smile still painted across his face like the mask of a man who had never once known fear. His red hair caught the dim light of the forest clearing, glinting faintly like embers, and his eyes gleamed with mischief that did not quite mask the cold calculation lurking beneath.
"Oh, nobody special," Rowen said lightly, almost breezily, as though they were not standing on the edge of violence. "You don't know me. But I definitely know you."
The air seemed to grow colder at that. Alexander's lips curled faintly at the edge — not a smile, not a frown, but the quiet acknowledgment of someone who hears a challenge embedded within a simple phrase.
"Oh?" he mused, leaning slightly on his cane. "And what is it you know about me?"
Rowen's grin widened, teeth flashing like a predator enjoying the hunt. His voice was playful, almost boyish, but it carried a gravity that no one present could ignore.
"That you're pretty strong."
The simplicity of the words was almost insulting, yet the way Rowen delivered them stripped away any notion of flattery. It was not a compliment, but a statement of fact — one predator recognizing another.
Alexander's eyes sharpened, the faint amusement in them hardening into something more dangerous. "So you would like to fight as well?"
Rowen tilted his head, his expression still playful, as if the question itself entertained him. But before he could answer, another voice broke the silence.
"It would hardly be fair," Seymour interjected, his voice calm, detached, yet carrying its own quiet weight. He stood slightly behind Alexander, his posture erect, his gaze level, as though he were both participant and observer of the unfolding scene. "Two against one is rather one-sided, wouldn't you say?"
The words had barely left his lips when it came.
A sound.
Small. Barely noticeable on its own. But in the stillness of the clearing — after bloodshed, after Julius's laughter and Rowen's calm intrusion — it echoed like thunder.
Snap.
The brittle crack of a twig breaking beneath a foot.
It was such a minor sound, yet it carried with it a weight far greater than it should have. For in moments such as these, nothing was accidental. Nothing was clumsy. The noise was deliberate, or at the very least, impossible to ignore.
Alexander's head snapped toward the source, his eyes narrowing, his instincts sharpened to a razor's edge. His body, though aged, tensed with the readiness of a warrior who had lived through more battles than most men could imagine. His cane, ornamental in appearance, shifted ever so slightly in his grip — a telltale sign of a man prepared to wield it as weapon in the blink of an eye.
Rowen's grin grew sharper, more dangerous. His gaze flicked toward the shadows where the sound had come from, and his voice carried a playful cruelty.
"Who said it'd be two against one?"
The forest seemed to hold its breath. The silence thickened, stretching taut like a rope about to snap. And then, from the gloom of the trees, a figure emerged.
Caspian.
He stepped forward slowly, his movements deliberate, as though he carried no fear of what awaited him in the clearing. The light caught him in fragments — the pale cut of his face, the shadowed fall of his hair, the glint of eyes that seemed to hold both exhaustion and quiet fury. His presence was a contradiction: reserved, almost ghostlike, yet radiating a tension so thick it smothered the air itself. He was not like Rowen, with his flamboyant grin, nor like Alexander, with his tempered composure. Caspian's aura was different — quiet, cold, detached, as though he were already standing half in this world and half in another.
Alexander's breath caught. His thoughts, usually sharp, stumbled.
Caspian!?
Panic flared, though he contained it beneath his outward calm. What was he doing here? He needs to get to safety! The thought of betrayal never crossed his mind — not even for an instant. To Alexander, Caspian was too young, too unseasoned, too tied to Layla. Whatever else he might be, treachery was unthinkable.
But the boy's eyes… the boy's eyes told a different story.
Julius's head jerked up. Blood dripped down his face, streaking his skin, staining his grin, but for once the laughter was gone. In its place was desperation.
"C-Caspian…" His voice cracked, raw and broken. He stumbled forward, dragging his battered body through the dirt, his blood-soaked hand reaching outward. "Please… give me a chance. I just want to fight them!"
His bloody fingertips nearly brushed against Caspian's sleeve.
But then —
Rowen's fist slammed into Julius's face.
The sound was sickening, the impact so brutal it silenced the forest for a heartbeat. Julius's body snapped backward as if struck by a thunderbolt. He flew through the wooden wall of the bar, the structure groaning in protest before splintering apart, shards raining down like shrapnel. His body didn't stop until it met the trunk of an ancient tree outside. The collision split the wood with a crack that echoed through the clearing, and Julius slumped to the ground in a heap, his blood painting the roots at its base.
Rowen lowered his fist and shook the blood from his knuckles, his smile fading into something more solemn. When he spoke, his voice carried not playfulness but a dark, weary weight.
"Do not taint those who strive to remain innocent with the blood of the guilty." His eyes flicked briefly toward Caspian, then back to the shattered bar where Julius lay broken. "Because once the innocent become guilty, the only thing saving them from death… is their own resolve."
The words did not ring like a threat, nor like a sermon. They rang like truth, the kind that could only be spoken by a man who had seen too many fall — too many good men dragged into darkness, too many innocents broken by the weight of guilt they could never wash clean.
The clearing fell silent again, though it was not the silence of calm. It was the silence before the storm, the silence where every breath, every glance, every heartbeat felt louder than it should.
And standing at the center of it all was Caspian. Quiet. Still. His expression unreadable. But his very presence was enough to shift the balance of everything.
The game had changed.
Alexander's eyes narrowed, his focus pinning itself back to the boy before him — no, not a boy, not anymore. Caspian stood there like a figure carved from stone, his presence heavy enough to shift the very air in the clearing. Alexander's voice, when it came, was weary but edged with urgency, like an old commander who had seen far too many battlefields.
"Caspian…" His tone softened at the name, as though he might reach him with familiarity alone. "What are you doing here? We need to get you to safety!"
But Caspian did not move. Not an inch. He did not even flicker an eye toward Alexander. He stood apart, detached, as though the words spoken to him were only echoes carried from another world.
His silence pressed down like an invisible weight. It was louder than a shout, heavier than the crack of thunder. His stillness unsettled everyone present, for there was no hesitation in it — no confusion, no fear. Only something deliberate. Something final.
And then, at last, his lips parted. His voice followed — low, even, flat as a blade drawn across stone.
"Just… be quiet and let me kill you."
The words carried no tremor, no struggle. They were not spoken like a threat. They were an edict, the kind that needed no validation. Judgment incarnate, echoing into the cold night. The sound of them seemed to crawl into the bones of everyone present, reverberating like the toll of a funeral bell.
Alexander's eyes widened. Shock, confusion, and — most unbearably — pity, all surged within him like a tide against rock. For the first time in many years, his breath caught in his chest.
But when he found his voice, it erupted like a storm that had been dammed too long.
"Is that how you feel?" His words cracked, louder now, his voice resounding against the trees, his tone rising not in panic but in command, demanding an answer. "Do you truly have the desire to kill me? Tell me, Caspian — is it your desire, or someone else's?"
He advanced a single step, and the ground seemed to answer him, the very air around him thickening with the aura of a man who had commanded soldiers, raised empires, and stared down death countless times.
"Whatever your reason may be," Alexander continued, his tone sharpening, every syllable like the swing of a hammer on steel, "it matters little. But I will ask you this, Caspian, and I demand your answer not as an old man, not as a Blackwood, but as a human being."
He spread his arms, his presence swelling, a storm contained within flesh and bone.
"Do you have the conviction," he thundered, his voice nearly shaking the trees themselves, "to murder a man who has shown you nothing but hospitality and kindness? A man who is the grandfather of the girl you call friend? A man who, though his years weigh on him, still has blood in his veins, still has strength left in his soul?"
The words rolled through the clearing like cannon fire. His demand hung suspended, heavy as iron shackles. Even the forest seemed to lean closer, every branch and root tightening in anticipation of the boy's answer. The silence that followed was so thick it smothered breath.
Rowen tilted his head, eyes glinting as though measuring Caspian's silence. Seymour's face was unreadable, but even he felt the oppressive tension bleeding through the clearing. Julius, though broken and bleeding in the dirt, forced his eyes open at the sound of Alexander's voice, straining to hear the boy's reply.
And then — Caspian moved.
Not his body. Just his head. Slowly, almost methodically, he lifted it, eyes leveling with Alexander's. Those eyes were not the eyes of a boy. They carried something unearthly within them, cold and bottomless, like looking into a well that had no bottom — only darkness stretching on forever.
When he spoke, it cut through the thick silence like a razor.
"Yes. Yes, I do."
The words were death itself. Spoken without hesitation, without trembling, without even the faintest echo of doubt. They dropped like stones into still water, and their ripples spread through every heart present.
Rowen smiled faintly, as though pleased by the answer. Julius's breath hitched — not in shock, but in something else, something like awe. Seymour's brow tightened, though his lips betrayed nothing.
But Alexander…
Alexander's face fell. His shoulders lowered slightly, and a heaviness entered him that had nothing to do with age. Disappointment etched itself into his features like cracks on marble. Yet there was no sorrow in him. Not anymore. His eyes, when they fixed themselves again on Caspian, carried only resolve, polished and absolute.
"Well then," he said softly, though the softness was more dangerous than any roar. His voice sharpened with the precision of a drawn blade. "You shall die a grand death."
His arms dropped to his sides, but his presence swelled larger, heavier, as though his very being refused to be contained by flesh alone.
"Because no one in this world," Alexander declared, his voice booming now, "CAN KILL ME"