Alex's consciousness emerged from darkness like swimmer breaking through murky depths, gasping as awareness returned with jarring intensity. The first sensation was pain—not physical, though his stomach ached where Klaus's fist had connected, but something deeper. Something that cut through ego and pride with surgical precision.
I was unconscious.
The realization struck him like ice water in his veins. Alexander Lionhart, swordmaster at fourteen, Pride's chosen vessel, heir potential to one of the most powerful families on the continent—reduced to helplessness by single blow from his cousin. The memory played through his mind with perfect, humiliating clarity: Klaus appearing before him with speed that rendered observation meaningless, the devastating impact, then... nothing.
