"Even when his own son held it, he feared him."
James's hand tightened on the sword grip. His eyes flicked once toward Alice, half a breath spent on a line he didn't have time to understand yet, and then he forced himself back into his body and the fight going on inside it.
Alice moved the second he slowed.
She crossed the throne room with her wings half-spread and struck Marcus first, one wing coming around like a black blade. He got his sword up in time, but the impact still drove him back across the marble in a hard slide. Finn swung in from the side for her ribs, and her tail hooked the axe shaft mid-swing and twisted the blow straight down into the floor.
CRACK.
Saoirse cut across the wing joint in the gap that left, a shallow line, red beading along the black feathers.
[ALICE — HP: 101,420/102,000 → 101,180/102,000]
James saw the number barely move and understood the gap without needing to say it out loud.
