For one breath, James stayed upright.
Alice's hand was closed around the scythe blade where it sat buried in his chest, and her grip was the only thing holding him on his feet. She watched his face while she did it, the way someone watches water go still.
Then she opened her fingers.
James dropped.
He hit the marble shoulder-first with a flat, heavy knock, then his head followed, a second sound, smaller and worse. His arm landed across his own chest and slid off. The scythe came down beside him, scraped a half-circle through the blood spreading under his back, turned once, and stopped.
The System prompt still hung in the air above him.
[CHALLENGER JAMES GANNER HAS DIED]
Nobody moved.
The throne room had been full of noise for an hour. Steel, bone, Finn roaring, the wolf, Camillia's sword ringing off Alice's guard. All of it was gone now. The only sound left was blood finding the grooves between the marble tiles.
