Chapter 169: You Shall Not Pass, Goddamnit

Two kings walked into the room where deals get done. One had sold his daughter for seven hundred fifty million. The other had turned down a hundred and twenty billion to keep her.

Only one of them was about to humble himself and ask the other for a favor.

"Unannounced. At my war summit. Bold," Maddox stated.

"I wrote you four times, Drakencrest. You did not respond. So I came to check on my daughter," Renwick replied.

"Your daughter is my wife. She’s safe."

Renwick smiled. It was not warm.

"I am relieved she’s safe. Particularly given the events of her abduction to Eldoria."

He had just referenced redacted intelligence casually. Maddox’s face gave nothing.

"Interesting approach, Lunaris."

Renwick’s jaw worked again. Once. "I’m a father, Drakencrest. Being informed about my daughter’s safety is the minimum."

"I’m a straight shooter. Brass tacks. Why are you actually here, Renwick? You and I both know it’s not about your daughter."

Renwick didn’t flinch.

"Nyros is under siege," he said. "Your fleet was part of the terms. I’m here to collect."

"The terms were a dragon fleet at my discretion on a timeline that serves both our interests." Maddox leaned back. "You’re asking me to deploy into an active warzone on a continent I don’t control. That’s a significant ask, Lunaris. I want you to hear me acknowledge that before I answer it."

✦✦✦

KAEL’S CHAMBERS

Blair pushed open the door to Kael’s chambers and stopped dead.

Kael was asleep and a big spoon.

His arm was draped over Guinevere’s waist, his face buried in the back of her white hair, and he was mumbling into it with the slurred, syrupy cadence of a man whose mouth was operating three full minutes ahead of his brain.

"Mmm. Love you, baby." He pressed a kiss to the back of her head. "Stay right here. Don’t go anywhere."

Blair’s eye twitched.

Guinevere remained unconscious, glowing, and oblivious.

Maddox would be back any second.

He would walk through that door and find his brother spooning his wife and whispering "baby" into her hair, and the resulting explosion would register on seismic equipment in kingdoms that hadn’t been discovered yet.

"Kael," Blair hissed.

Nothing. He nuzzled deeper.

"Kael." Louder.

She crossed the room and shook his shoulder. His arm tightened around Guinevere like she was a stuffed animal being confiscated by a parent.

"Mm. No. Mine. All mine."

"She is the OPPOSITE of yours, you half-dead idiot. KAEL."

"Five more minutes," he mumbled. "You smell so good."

"What is WRONG with you two." Blair was shaking him with both hands now. "Every time I leave this room for ten minutes one of you turns into a goddamn koala bear."

Kael’s response was to mumble something that sounded disturbingly like "Mrs. Ashenvale."

Blair’s hands froze mid-shake. She stared at the back of his head with the pure, distilled horror of a woman who had just heard her brother rebrand her sister-in-law in his sleep.

"You did not just say that."

He murmured something else. Softer. Blair leaned in despite every instinct telling her to stop because she needed to know.

"Gerald approves."

She looked at the bear rug. Gerald stared back, dead-eyed and complicit.

"I am surrounded," she whispered, "by insane people and a dead bear, and every single one of them is working against me."

She grabbed a decorative pillow that had fallen on the floor and attempted to wedge between them with the force of a woman driving a stake into the earth.

Kael’s arm resisted. Blair shoved harder. The pillow went in between Guinevere’s ass and Kael’s erection that Blair was going to aggressively pretend she didn’t see.

His arms didn’t yield, still locked around Guinevere with a pillow in between.

"Oh for fuck’s sake," Blair hissed. "Are you joking? How are you still asleep?"

"Don’t leave, baby. I will read to you," he muttered. "....stole my tokens... "

"KAEL. WAKE. UP."

Blair had seen Sterling do this once to Maddox. The scientific method of consciousness restoration. She grabbed Kael’s water glass off the nightstand and dumped it on his head.

Kael shot upright like a man who’d been stabbed, eyes wild, water streaming down his face. Then every muscle in his torso reminded him simultaneously that they were held together with borrowed blood and spite, and he collapsed back onto the pillow with a noise that was half groan, half profanity, and entirely deserved.

"WHAT THE FUCK," he rasped, blinking water out of his eyes. "Why would you do that. I was having the best dream of my entire—"

Blair didn’t answer. She was already moving, hands under Guinevere’s shoulders, pulling her away from Kael with the determined efficiency of a woman separating magnets.

Guinevere’s body came loose without resistance because the woman was unconscious and had no vote in the relocation.

Blair repositioned her on the far side of the bed and shoved the decorative pillow back into the demilitarized zone with a finality that said you shall not pass goddamnit.

Kael blinked at her, dripping, offended, his hair plastered to his skull in a way that made him look like a wet cat with opinions. His dragon was growling so loud the brown candle on the brown nightstand rattled against the brown wood and threatened to fall.

Blair ignored the growl. She ignored the candle. She ignored the wet, shirtless, freshly-dead man glaring at her from his own bed, because there was a bigger problem.

"She really has passed the fuck out," Blair said, looking down at Guinevere, who hadn’t moved through the water, the shouting, or the pillow reinstallation. The glow was still there, steady gold, but the woman beneath it was somewhere far away.

"Gwen." Blair leaned over her. Snapped her fingers in front of her face. Once. Twice. Close enough that the sound should have triggered something.

Nothing. Her breathing was steady. Her face was peaceful. She was running a fever.

"Gwen. Wake up."

Nothing.

Blair looked at Kael. Kael looked at Blair. The water was still dripping off his jaw and neither of them commented on it because the woman between them was supposed to be sleeping, and what she was doing was starting to feel like something else.

Jaxon entered through the door with Lux half a step behind him.

"Oh good, you’re here." Blair straightened. "She’s not waking. Should we get Aldric?"

"Yes." Jaxon answered with zero hesitation, already crossing the room, already reaching, blue magic humming at his fingertips before he made it to the bedside. His hands hovered over Guinevere’s sternum and the light that came back made his jaw tighten. "Her energy is different. Something shifted."

"I feel it," Lux said from the doorway. "Get Aldric. Get the Luminari healer. And get Maddox."