Chapter 245 - Doukas

"You destroyed my life, as you promised! So I finally arrived to destroy yours," he snarled, and Alexa was surprised at the impression that he was pleased to be recognized.

The former Byzantine general wrapped his muscular arms around the Princess' body, squeezing her against his body in a disgusting gesture. Alexa struggled, knowing that this was a cheap provocation, rubbing her in his sweat, knowing how much she hated him.

"Get off!!!!" Alexa couldn't stand it and tried to push him, to no avail. At that moment, her anger took the best of her. She was much madder at herself for being so stupid to believe that damn vixen! 'How foolish I was! How could I have expected that she might even want to help me?'

She knew why she had believed, of course. She wanted to believe that Magnus was coming. But Charlotte had sold her to Doukas. 

'Didn't I learn anything from what happened in Venice?'

Doukas laughed, taking her by the neck, curling his fingers in a disgustingly e.r.o.t.i.c parody. Alexa cringed, her eyes cloudy with tears of fear and horror.

"You didn't really leave my mind for a moment, Alexios… You ruined every aspect of my life! I cannot allow you to live..."

"The Fall of Constantinople was not my fault…" the princess contested his words. 

"You always had a terrible lack of vision..." Doukas looked at her from above, condescendingly.

How long had Doukas been in Holstein? 

She had no way of knowing that he had survived the Fall of Constantinople! Had the Megadux, the Archgeneral, been spared? It didn't make any sense, and Alexa could only suspect something obscure and shameful in response to the fact that Doukas was there, completely alive!

"How did the great general survive?!" She asked to provoke him. Maybe he would get angry and in an attempt to humiliate her, his reaction would be to throw her, and she would use that to escape.

"I have been wandering, you little devil... haunted by my face in the mirror, by your face in my nightmares..." pulling Alexa's hair back, so that the princess squeezed her eyes in pain, he whispered in her ear. "You got too far, didn't you?"

She could see that, although Doukas was upset by his long-awaited moment, he was not a complete madman. Perhaps he really blamed her even for his failings as a general. But her priority now wasn't to sympathize, but to survive.

He lifted her in the air, and Alexa felt that he was walking towards one of the flying buttresses. Because she wasn't on her own feet, she got dizzy with Holstein's horizon wobbling around her, and grabbed his arms.

"Don't do this ... You won't even be entitled to rest after death if you do this," she warned. She at least was sure Orcaius wouldn't forgive it… Nor Magnus.

"Much worse ... He will have a long life of suffering, and every time he is dying, his last breath will be long ... and long ... and long."

Magnus' voice interrupted.

Instead of the long-awaited relief, Alexa was afraid, hearing the voice of her real husband.

Her feet dangled in the air, and from the corner of her eye, she saw that there were at least four meters of free fall, with some painful obstacles on the way to the ground.

"But if he releases me safely, you'll be very forgiving, won't you?"

"No. Who are you?" Magnus asked, taking the sword from his waist.

"No?!" Alexa asked, astonished. Was Magnus really playing with her life? Was he repeating his father's history, in confrontation with Letitia?

"I am Doukas, that person's husband."

"Alexa? How many husbands do you have, anyway?!" Magnus asked, shocked.

"Three, and counting," another voice spoke. Iacintho was crouched like a gargoyle in the shadows, and joked about his sister's convoluted life of engagements.

"Wait. This is getting confusing. Let's talk while sitting somewhere, drinking, preferably. Let's not distort the facts," she temporized, feeling that she was running out of air.

Doukas raised her at eye level, and his insane gaze searched her again,

"You demon?! Do you want to make me crazy? Do you really laugh in the face of death? Do you think I came all this way to make you laugh in my face again?"

Alexa had already taken the situation in her hands a few times, and not always in the right way. If Magnus and Iacintho were acting so bold, she would blindly trust their plans ... Had they had time for a plan?

"Ah, well," she narrowed her eyes, opening a smile, "That. Yes. Is that what is happening? You should know that not even death can stop us, Doukas. You tried to destroy my family, but it only made us stronger. You are right ... I will laugh, and laugh ... Because you are laughable."

Saying those things at least eased the terror in her chest.

It was as if Doukas and his name were no longer as important as they had once been.

"Alexios! Bastard!" Doukas howled, and the princess felt her body spin in the air, a sudden sensation of weighting nothing. All she could do was instinctively let go of his arms as she saw Magnus coming toward Doukas like a blur.

At the same time that she felt the world turn upside down, Alexa felt the fall being interrupted by a tug on her leg.

She was grabbed and hoisted at the same time as she heard the clash of swords.

"Narses!" she exclaimed, seeing her brother's face acrobatically spinning with her in the air, and landing on a lower buttress, some meters below where she was.

Taking a deep breath, Alexa crouched for a moment to regain her sense of balance and stop the world from spinning around her, while the compass inside her head kept spinning. 

Meanwhile, her brother was pushing to climb the wall again and get to where Magnus and Doukas fought fiercely. 

Alexa would not be left behind, although she knew that Magnus could easily get rid of Doukas. That was a Dallassenos' matter!

Everything that bastard had done to her family, just because of his insane whims! And ... Wait, did he have the audacity to say that Constantinople fell because of the Dallassenos?!

By the time the Princess finally got to where the fight was taking place, Magnus was moving away from Doukas, who was kneeling and panting, and had a hand on his chest ... His clothes were dyed red.

Narses landed on the tip of the flying buttress, behind Doukas, with the lightness of a bird. Iacintho walked there like a cat, calmly and with a frightening smile on his face.

Magnus held Alexa's hand briefly, when she stayed by his side for a moment, but let go. Alexa joined her siblings, around Doukas.

Narses pulled his black dagger, and pulling Doukas's head back through his hair, gently slid the blade down his neck, making a slight red streak ... like a mark.

"Like last time… You don't deserve to die by this blade. But you will have a taste of death! For my father!"

The black blade sank just enough for the blood to spill out of the ex-general's veins in jets. 

Iacintho, standing in front of Doukas, crouched down, and with one hand he grabbed the general's face with contempt. With his small scythe, he dug the curved blade into his side, making Doukas squirm.

"For my brother, Mikalis ... for our friends, for my sister ... Suffer!"

"For our misfortune ..." Alexa approached, seeing him fall on the edge of the stone. She shoved him with her foot, "Die."

Doukas' body spun in the air, encountering many obstacles. It never reached the ground, contrary to Alexa's miscalculations.

It was impaled on an iron cross, on a pinnacle meters below, and became a grotesque new decoration in Holstein Cathedral.

"Oops!"