Chapter 73: Four Hundred Chains Hit The Floor
Four hundred chains hit the floor in a jingle sound.
Guinevere stole a quick glance to the right of the commander to see what she’d just done. Ankle cuffs were on, but the chains binding them were snapped.
Then she caught Ryker’s eye. His priority was Maddox. She could see it in the way his body was angled toward the king, coiled, ready to cover the six feet between them the moment the window opened.
The throne room doors opened. Behind her, Kael Ashenvale walked into the most fortified room in Drakencrest Keep the way he walked into everything: like he owned it, had renovated it, and was disappointed in the décor.
Guinevere knew it was him from his scent, but didn’t allow herself to look. Instead, she reached for the flame again. Found it. Flexed.
CRACK.
Four hundred right cuffs hit the obsidian at the same time. The sound was a thunderclap of iron on stone that vibrated through the floor.
Nobody breathed. Every hostage looked down at the left cuff still remaining waiting for it to crack too. Some were full-on smiling and not bothering to hide it.
Kael’s footsteps stopped behind her. It dawned on her then that he could be the one behind all of this.
The commander spoke in Setharii to her. "And she breaks dragon iron too. You are the most expensive problem I have ever underestimated. But here’s the thing, I don’t lose, Sweetheart."
"Could have fooled me, Commander," Guinevere replied lightly.
CRACK.
Four hundred left cuffs hit the floor in a single percussive crack that hit every wall and came back layered.
Hostages stared at their free hands. A child in the back row held up his wrists for his mother to see with an expression of absolute wonder.
"Tell your people that if one of them stands, this entire keep explodes. I will burn it to the goddamn ground and everyone in it dies. No one enters or exits. I have wards to do that. And I will portal out of here."
Guinevere met Ryker’s eyes. In truth, she was looking for something. A hand signal. Anything. But then she remembered she was the one running the show and there were four hundred pairs of eyes on her.
Ryker and the high ranking officers who understood Setharii were waiting for her orders. Not the other way around.
"Every threat tonight has been bigger than the last and you’ve followed through on exactly zero of them." She gave the commander a flat look. "Even your men know that math doesn’t work."
Snickers followed.
"I agreed to go with you. Put your men through the portal, and I’ll follow."
"I’m not stupid. You are about to pass out. Your leg is still shaking, honey." He smirked. "And it looks like I’m not the only bounty hunter coming to collect."
He switched back to the Common tongue. "No one outside of you has flame or strength. So here’s my counter-offer. We wait. Or you go with the bounty hunter behind you. He’s much worse than I am."
The edges of her vision were darkening. The flame was still burning, still wrapped around four hundred people, still pulsing in the runes, still holding. But the cost was accelerating, and the woman paying it had been running on nothing since she woke up in a bathtub.
"Draven." Kael’s voice came from behind her. "I was wondering when you’d graduate from robbing merchant caravans to full-scale treason. The career growth is impressive. The execution, less so."
The commander, Draven, went very still. His pale grey eyes moved to Kael with the careful attention of a man who had just recalculated the room and did not like the new number.
"Ashenvale. How did you get in here? Don’t tell me actually. Next poker night, you can tell me all about it. I would like to know." He tipped his chin at Guinevere, his smirk widening. "By all means, try to get her. First shot is yours."
Kael’s footsteps started again behind her, closing the distance.
"Your wards are already failing and your portals smell like Sarkosi mage work, which means you hired Brennan, which means you’re underfunded, because Brennan is what you buy when you can’t afford Theron." Kael paused. "How am I doing so far?"
"I’m going to take that as ’uncomfortably accurate.’ Moving on." Kael walked deeper into the room. Every armed man on the perimeter tracked him, and he gave them the same attention he would give furniture.
"The hostages are glowing, your translator has a blade in his throat, your Lieutenant’s head is decorating the throne, and the woman you came to collect just broke dragon iron that costs more than your contract."
He stopped when he was next to Guinevere. She kept her eyes on the commander.
On cue, the throne room doors opened again.
Nicholas Shadowfell entered with Damon at his back and twelve of Draven’s men being dragged behind them. Eight were unconscious, bound at the wrists with their own belts, their bodies leaving drag marks on the obsidian. Four were dead, carried by Nicholas’s wolves and deposited on the floor with the ceremonial indifference of men returning a product that had been defective.
Guinevere understood. Every body on that floor was a visual aid designed to tell Draven that the Keep outside this room was no longer his.
Nicholas positioned himself on Guinevere’s other side, blade drawn, his wolves fanning out behind him. Damon, his Beta, took the right flank with the quiet efficiency of a man who had been doing this for years.
Kael looked at Nicholas. Nicholas looked at Kael. The exchange contained the same warmth as two icebergs making eye contact.
The history between them involved a jungle and a woman they were both standing in the same room with. Neither acknowledged it. The acknowledgment would come later, in a room with fewer witnesses and more alcohol.
"Shadowfell," Kael said.
"Ashenvale," Nicholas said.
"Lovely. A reunion." Draven’s voice carried across the room. "The exiled dragon prince, a wolf king, and a wolf princess who throws blades. If I’d known this was a family gathering, I would have brought wine."
"You would have brought poison," Kael corrected. "You did bring poison, actually. Sarkosi mage work in those portal anchors carries a neurotoxin that activates on contact. I dismantled three of them in the east corridor. You’re welcome."
Draven’s expression flickered.
"Oh, you didn’t know about the neurotoxin? That’s Brennan for you. Competent enough to build a portal. Too lazy to mention the side effects. I believe his exact words the last time I hired him were ’functionally harmless,’ which, as it turns out, is a very specific legal distinction that does zero favors for the people who touch the anchors. Did any of your men touch the anchors, Draven?"
Silence.
"I’ll take that as a yes. You’ll want to check on them within the hour. The tremors start in the hands. The organ failure starts after that. Brennan undersells the timeline."
Nicholas, who had been watching this exchange with the expression of a king cataloguing a useful asset, moved to the left side of the room. His wolves spread.
The two of them worked the room without speaking. Kael held the center, keeping Draven’s attention, his blade resting against his shoulder in the carry position of a man who wanted the commander to know the blade was there and the man holding it was bored. Nicholas held the perimeter, repositioning his wolves at the exits, creating a net that tightened with every second Draven spent talking instead of acting.
They had never worked together before. The coordination suggested otherwise. An exiled dragon and wolf king. Working together. For the same woman. In a Keep that belongs to her husband. The politics alone would be studied for a century.
The ringing in Guinevere’s ears had grown louder. Each breath came shorter than the last, the inhales catching halfway, the exhales trembling.
The gold fire pulsed with her heartbeat, which was accelerating.
Kael noticed. The glance was half a second, eyes flicking to her hands, to her throat, to the sweat on her temple, and back to Draven.
Nicholas noticed too. His jaw tightened by a visible degree.
She held.
Just when she thought this was over, three additional portals ripped open behind Draven. His smile came back.
"Right on schedule. Time’s up, sweetheart."
Reinforcement soldiers flooded into the throne room through the portals.
Without warning, the commander moved, fast and low, blade out, straight toward a child in the front row who didn’t see him coming.
He raised the blade to swing.
Guinevere saw it happening like time had slowed.
Kael was mid-sentence. Nicholas was on the far side of the room.
In a blur, she was in front of the little boy, stopping the blade mid-swing with both hands.
It didn’t melt. But her gold slowed it enough that she was able to catch it instead of getting cut in half.
The gold surrounding the hostages and lighting the room flickered off as soon as the blade made contact.
Her spine hit the floor, and he landed over her. His blade dug into her palms and blood gushed down her arms, but she didn’t scream.
He pressed harder. It hurt. Her arms shook holding him back.
"Gold fire. Dead languages. A body count. And all I had to do was reach for the short one." He flashed a crooked grin. "If I had known this was the price, I would have charged it the moment you walked—"
Two blades went through his skull mid-sentence.
