Chapter 71: Hottest Bitch Daddy Ever Made
"You’re going to stop right there."
The man lifted his hand lazily. The exact same gesture she used a few minutes ago to request a severed head from Blair.
He was mirroring her again without realizing it, which meant the leash was on. He just couldn’t feel it yet. If she was Cassian, Renwick Lunaris would have said job well done.
The doors behind the dais opened. Two men dragged Maddox Drakencrest into the throne room by his arms. His torso was a canvas of blood. His armor was shredded across the left side, exposing gashes that ran from his ribs to his hip. His head lolled forward, chin to chest, eyes shut.
They dropped him on the obsidian floor in front of the dais like cargo.
RULE 7: Crying in public is bending over the negotiation table and telling them where the hole is.
The blood was dried, which meant he’d been like this for a while. She’d been crying about not being given a title, while he had been suffering. This man who had saved her life more than once. This man who had done nothing but be kind to her. This man who she loved more than anything on this earth.
Grief, worry, and guilt warred in her chest. Every part of her wanted to run to him. But she forced herself to give no visible reaction to his state.
Elders were dragged in behind Maddox. She had never been officially introduced to any of them. But she knew their names and faces because they had been at her wedding. Fifteen were shoved to their knees beside the king, wrists bound in dragon iron, their faces carrying the particular expression of powerful people adjusting to being made unpowerful.
RULE 8: Shut the fuck up and let the other man dig his own grave. He’ll hand you the shovel if you’re patient.
One of the soldiers approached the man and spoke in Setharii. "Commander. Perimeter seal has been holding since initial assault."
"Keep it that way. Nothing in, nothing out," the commander replied in the same tongue. "Converge on the white-haired female. Subdue by any means necessary. Do not kill."
He had either forgotten Guinevere spoke Setharii or it was an operational habit. Either way, she was listening.
The guards who had just entered moved as one. The fire answered for her before she blinked. A gold ring surrounded her body and expanded outward like a pulse.
The six guards froze. Looked at each other. Then at the commander. Then back at her. The math was visible on their faces. They were being paid to hold a throne room, not to walk into gold fire from a woman who had already decapitated their lieutenant.
One of them actually sheathed his sword. Just put it away. Stepped back. Folded his arms.
RULE 9: Walk into his house, sit in his chair, and fuck his wife. Once you score on a man in his own tongue on his own turf, he’ll start choking on every word after.
"Interesting." Guinevere said it in Common, then switched to Setharii. "Who are you waiting on? Your reinforcements are late. And you’re running out of room to pretend you’re still in control of this."
"Enough." He drew his blade and spoke in the common tongue. "Someone grew up in daddy’s war room. I get it. You’re good. Wrong house, wrong odds, wrong night. But the delivery? Phenomenal. You talk like you’ve done this before."
"Take another step towards my king and you’ll find out exactly what I’ve done before."
Fifteen out of fifteen elders’ heads swiveled to Guinevere with identical expressions on their faces. She didn’t notice. But Ryker did. If they weren’t in the middle of a hostage situation, he’d have laughed.
The commander’s expression shifted from amusement to something colder.
She advanced towards him and moved her blades in a figure-eight pattern she had seen Cassian do to impress women that served zero practical purpose.
The visual was spectacular. The flames trailed the steel in golden arcs that painted the air with light. The gap between appearance and reality was wide enough to park a dragon in. The trained assassin was a character she was playing, and the role was the best work of her career.
The hostages were recalculating hope. The commander was recalculating everything. Blair was recalculating how many drinks she would need after this.
The man took a step back. It was small. Involuntary.
Every hostage and soldier in the room saw it.
Behind her, Blair gripped an empty box with an expression that communicated: I am telling this at every dinner party for the rest of my life.
"Gorgeous," the commander commented. "If I’m being honest, and I shouldn’t be, I’m a little turned on." He jerked his chin. The guard behind Maddox pressed steel to his throat. "Put the flames out. Hands up. Or I redecorate the floor with your king."
She stopped. But that had less to do with his command and more to do with the fact that she was holding two flaming swords she had no earthly idea how to use beyond looking intimidating, and forward momentum would eventually require doing something with them that exposed the lie.
She didn’t look at Maddox. She looked through the commander the way her father looked through men who thought they had leverage.
RULE 10: Threats are a man jerking off at the negotiation table. If he could finish, he wouldn’t need to tell you about it.
"You won’t kill him."
"That’s a hell of a gamble. Love the confidence. Bet his life on that?"
"You already bet it. You dragged him in here alive because dead kings don’t buy you anything. You need him breathing for whatever comes next. Which means I have more time than you want me to think I do."
The logic was clean. He needed Maddox alive. She knew he needed Maddox alive. He knew she knew. The blade at Maddox’s throat was a prop, and she had just called it from across the room without blinking.
Ryker watched the exchange the way a general watches a subordinate exceed their rank in real time. His eyebrows had not come down since the first language. They were not coming down.
The commander’s mouth flattened. "You’re gambling. And you’re playing with his chips, not yours."
Heads turned in unison to Guinevere. Four hundred of them. Left, right, left. The throne room had become a spectator event.
"You’ve shown me your best card, your last card, and your only card," Guinevere said. "And it’s a blade on the one man you can’t afford to kill."
RULE 11: Stop when you’re on top, and shut the fuck up. Silence is the kill shot.
She paused. Let the quiet do its work.
The hostages’ heads moved back to the commander waiting for his response.
"Let me clarify your position." He lowered his voice, and the room collectively leaned forward to hear his rebuttal. "All flames are suppressed outside of yours. Shifts down. Your king is bleeding on the floor. Your second is one hand signal from dead. The Keep is outmanned, outnumbered, and surrounded. That is the math, honey."
He wasn’t wrong. The math was ugly. Over four hundred people in this throne room. Two flaming swords she was faking. A body that was running on fever and adrenaline and rapidly depleting reserves.
RULE 12: If the math says you’re fucked, you’re not out of moves. The ones left just take bigger balls. Flip the goddamn table.
A man to the commander’s left leaned in and spoke in Kaelhari, a fifth dead tongue. Whoever was running this group was well read and required his men to be too.
"The stance is theatre. Females in wolf packs are excluded from blade training."
Guinevere’s eyes stayed on the commander. Her expression did not change. Then she did the most un-Guinevere thing she had ever done in her life to the man who had just spoken.
The flaming blade in her right hand left her fingers. She did not think. Thinking would have introduced doubt, and doubt would have introduced aim correction, and aim correction would have introduced the reality that she had never thrown a sword in her life.
She bypassed all of it. Hand opened. Steel left. The gods sorted out the rest.
She aimed for his chest. She missed and hit his throat. Gold fire exploded outward from the point of impact. He made a sound that was half gurgle, half nothing, and dropped where he stood.
The throat looked significantly more terrifying than the chest would have, and she was going to let them believe she meant it.
She was building an entire reputation on mistakes that looked intentional, and the architecture was holding.
RULE 13: Kill one man the right way in front of the right people and you’ll never have to kill again. Reputation is a whore who works for free once you’ve paid the first night.
Her eyes stayed on the commander. The discipline of keeping her eyes forward while a body dropped in her peripheral vision was the most difficult thing she’d done tonight.
She spoke in Kaelhari, the language the dead man had just used to call her a fraud, her voice carrying across the throne room with the calm of a woman who had understood every word and had answered with steel.
"Stop wasting my time."
Four words. In the dead man’s own language. Delivered over his body. The throne room was silent.
Then the blade in her left hand flew.
This one she aimed at the man holding the blade to Maddox’s throat, and this one she watched. The sword turned once in the air, trailing gold fire in a spiral that lit the vaulted ceiling, and buried itself in the attacker’s sternum.
He staggered backwards. Two men lunged for Maddox’s body. Gold flame erupted across Maddox’s skin. Guinevere felt it leave her. The fire traveled through whatever invisible architecture connected her body to his, and wrapped around him like armor made of sun.
The two men who had reached for Maddox pulled their hands back screaming. Their palms were charred. Gold fire crackled across the king’s body in a barrier that said touch him again.
Behind her, Blair watched her throw two swords in under ten seconds and kill two men and set her husband on fire and thought, with absolute clarity: I am never playing croquet with this woman.
