The Tyrant's Pet

"Ugh!"

Ismael gasped for air as soon as his back crashed on the wall, almost smashing the entire wall from the force. Joaquin simply flung his arm up, but Ismael was thrown like a ball of paper. He coughed as he planted his palm on the floor, feeling his lungs constrict. He hadn't recovered yet when he felt someone's presence at his side.

Looking up, he held his breath. Joaquin was squatting down in front of him, tilting his head, sizing him up in amusement.

"What a bother." Joaquin sighed. "I planned to ask you politely to gather your forces and go back to the scaffold on your own to keep your pride, but you are damn annoying."

Instead of fear, Ismael's eyes burned in rage. "Unless you bow until your forehead is touching the ground, I will never die --" his remaining words were thrust back to his throat when Joaquin grabbed his jaw, covering his mouth and pinning the back of Ismael's head against the wall with a bang.

Ismael winced at the lightheadedness he felt, feeling the slight crack on his skull from the impact. For a moment, he felt dizzy, but because of the situation, he recovered quickly and glared at Joaquin.

"You will never, what?" Joaquin cocked his head nonchalantly, blinking twice before chuckling. "Ismael, I don't think you understand your disposition, but then again, you never knew your place."

"Forgive me for laughing. Although I commend your tenacity, you are foolish until the very end, Ismael. You always speak about what is right and your idiotic idealism, only the naive and foolish people such as yourself utter," he continued, stressing his every word as if to drill his point in the third prince's head. "It was fun playing with you all these years, but... I don't think you've grown even the tiniest bit."

"You're still that young boy whose eyes are full of dreams..." he added with a mocking smirk. "But that's who you are, isn't it? A boy with a dream... dreams you will never attain in this life and the next."

Ismael ground his teeth and let out a muffled roar, getting even more frustrated with the hand covering his mouth. Seeing this, Joaquin chuckled and happily let him go, showing he wasn't scared of giving Ismael all the freedom in the world since he wouldn't even graze him.

"Speak," Joaquin urged, sporting a kind smile. "Let's hear what you got to say."

"Hah..." Ismael panted for air, ignoring the blood in his gums from Joaquin's grip. "... do you think I had lost?"

He chuckled, lips stretching from ear to ear, displaying his bloody teeth. "No, Joaquin. You will never win against that boy because that boy you are belittling overcame the greatest challenge in this life. But you never — you cannot."

"The greatest challenge?" Joaquin arched a brow and frowned.

"That is to witness how rotten this world is, and not allow it to consume me," Ismael breathed out weakly. "You didn't win, Joaquin. Even at this very moment, I had never lost to you — not even once."

"Hah.... hahaha!" A wave of joyous laughter slipped past Joaquin's lips, hunching in as if he just heard the greatest joke of his life. But Ismael kept his firm visage.

"You can laugh all you want, Joaquin. But had it never crossed you why the grass remains standing even after the storm?" he scorned, shaking his head, a little disappointed at Joaquin's twisted beliefs. "Because sometimes being soft is strong. You might have the upper hand now, but don't be complacent, Your Majesty."

"This world stretched far and wide. You might think you are above everyone else, only to realize you are just a big fish in a small pond," he continued with his voice carrying a tinge of ridicule. "This fight... you and I... isn't about winning. The second this revolt broke out, I had already failed. Ridicule my beliefs all you want and mock me. I don't care. Because at the end of the day, I had little to lose since you took it all, while you have many things to lose."

Ismael huffed and smiled in satisfaction. His eyes softened as he lowered them, apologizing to everyone, especially to Aries, for failing her.

'I did my best...' he told himself, leaving this bitter taste in his mouth. 'I did everything to protect our Maganti... but I'm simply too weak and pathetic.'

He slowly raised his eyes to meet Joaquin's unsmiling countenance. But Ismael neither smirked nor ridicule him further to press a nerve when he already pissed Joaquin one way or another.

"This empire... those people... deserves better." He shook his head, his voice almost fading. "I feel sorry for them."

"You should feel sorry for yourself, Ismael." Joaquin raised a fist ever so slowly. "For you will not stand in the gallows anymore."

"Ugh!"

Ismael gritted his teeth to lessen the pain of Joaquin's punch, but the latter continuously pounded his fist against his face until his nose broke and his tooth came off.

Joaquin didn't stop, though.

Unfazed by the splashing blood reaching his face as he beat Ismael with his fist over and over and over. Until the third prince would only move every time, Joaquin's knuckles would make contact with his face.

After long minutes of punching Ismael until no one could recognize him anymore, did Joaquin stop. He looked at the third prince's mangled face covered with blood but kept his stony countenance.

"I have many things to lose, indeed. However, I won't lose them," he muttered coldly. "Until the very end, you never knew how to use that mouth of yours. I guess it's in the blood of the Imperial, huh? That's what killed Inez, and now you."

Slowly, the side of his lips curled up, grabbing a portion of Ismael's hair and dragging him up. The latter didn't resist or react, left unconscious or dead.

"She will be happy if she sees you," Joaquin spat out, sniffing in the air to detect where Aries was currently hiding. He had his eyes closed, but when he reopened them, the side of his lips curled up.

"Found you," he whispered before he sauntered off, still dragging Ismael by the hair to present him to his wife.