Skylar's POV
I heard the gunshot before I reached the hall.
Not just a gunshot.
His gunshot.
Chris's.
My heart stopped.
Then the second one came.
And everything inside me shattered.
I didn't care about protocol, the guards yelling at me to stay back, the sea of weapons and blood ahead. I pushed through like a storm, eyes wild, heart pounding, dread crawling up my spine.
Then I saw him.
Chris… on the floor.
Bleeding.
The man I had loved and hated, feared and worshipped — my King, the father of my child — was lying in a pool of blood.
No.
No. No. No.
I turned sharply and saw him — Xavier.
Even with a bullet in him, he was standing. Barely. Supported by two of his loyalists.
Still breathing.
Still daring to exist.
"YOU."
I didn't scream it. My voice was ice. Sharp. Final.
He turned. Saw me.
And in that moment, he knew.
I raised the gun.
He didn't beg.
He didn't flinch.
He smirked.
Bang.
Right between the eyes.
He dropped instantly.
Like a broken statue finally crashing down.
The hall went dead silent. Even the Sentinels paused. Christiana froze at Chris's side. The medical team halted for a heartbeat.
I walked forward slowly, past the corpse that once called himself Cainner, my heels echoing like war drums across the marble.
I stood over his body and whispered:
"You don't shoot a god… and expect to breathe after."
I turned to the guards.
"Clean it up. Every last drop of his blood. He's not worthy to stain these floors."
---
Narrator:
The Empire didn't speak Xavier's name after that day.
It was erased from the books.
His title removed.
His portrait incinerated.
History was rewritten by the Queen's bullet.
---
Back at Chris's side, Christiana whispered with trembling lips:
"He's stable… but weak."
Skylar knelt beside her daughter, brushing blood off Chris's cheek.
Then she whispered softly:
"Then we give him the world as a gift when he wakes."
To Be Continued…