The arm on the floor stopped mattering the moment Regulus turned.
He turned with the sword still in his remaining hand, and the expression on his face was something different from everything that had come before it. Not the cataloging attention of the tunnel.
Not the composed disappointment he'd used like a weapon all evening. This was simpler than that, and worse — the specific quiet of someone who has just decided that the conversation is finished.
Daniel didn't wait for what came after that expression.
He drove forward with the axe still in his grip, the second one off his back and in his left hand before Regulus had completed the turn, and the strike aimed at the center of the chest with the force of someone who has spent the last several minutes above a grate calculating angles.
It landed.
Regulus didn't move.
