Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

Kael had won the argument eleven minutes ago. The room was still catching up.

”She is the only dark mage on this continent who has successfully performed a targeted neural extraction without permanent damage.”

”She,” Griffin repeated, like the word had a flavor he was still chewing.

”Yes, Griffin. We’ve been through this. You’ve identified her pronoun.”

”Fine,” Ryker breathed. ”Bring her.”

”She’s in the corridor.”

”Of course she is.”

”Efficiency, Ryker. Try it sometime.”

Ryker closed his eyes. Opened them. ”Under no circumstances does this leave this room. If anything, and I mean anything, goes in a direction that Jaxon identifies as hostile, we terminate the practitioner. Are we clear?”

”Crystal,” Kael said. ”Though ’terminate the practitioner’ is a bit aggressive for a woman who is about to fix your king for free.”

The door opened.

Lux Nash entered with the stride of a woman who had been standing in a hallway for twelve minutes listening to people argue about her and found every second of it hilarious.

She was tall. Dark hair pulled back tight. Her eyes swept the room landing on Kael.

”Are they always this tense?”

”Worse, usually. Today is a good day.”

Jaxon stood at the headboard, hands ready.

Lux studied Maddox for three seconds. She tilted her head left. Then right.

”Ah. There it is.”

She raised both hands, palms down, six inches above Maddox’s forehead. Black smoke rose in a single, concentrated thread. She closed her fist around it, and the thread dissolved.

Then she lowered her hands.

”The primary block is removed. He should be able to process information about the girl without an adverse reaction. New introductions, repeated facts, visual triggers, all of those should function normally now.”

Jaxon’s face had gone the particular shade of white that meant a man’s professional identity was being quietly dismantled.

Sterling’s arms uncrossed for exactly one second. Then they crossed again. ”How long did that take you. And is it repeatable?”

”One second. Roughly. Everything I do is repeatable, High Marshal. I don’t perform miracles. I perform procedure. The fact that it looks like a miracle is your problem, not mine.”

Sterling blinked at High Marshal. His formal title. Like she’d already decided the title was more interesting than whatever was underneath it.

”However.” She held up one finger. ”The primary block was sitting on top of a secondary structure that I would prefer to examine before I extract.”

”What kind of secondary structure?” Jaxon asked, his hands still glowing.

”The secondary structure beneath carries elements of both fae and mage, which means it was either cast by a hybrid practitioner or it was layered by two different casters working in sequence.”

”Can you remove it?” Sterling asked.

”I will not remove something I don’t understand, because that is how you kill a king instead of fix one. Give me time, give me access, and I’ll map it. If anyone in this room can dismantle it faster, step forward. I’ll hold your coat.”

Ryker let out a long breath. ”His memories of her. Will they come back?”

”Short version. If reintroduced to her, he’ll remember her. But the old memories are still blocked by the secondary structure. Those will return when I dismantle it, assuming I can.”

”So he won’t remember her,” Ryker said. ”But he won’t try to kill her.”

”Correct. The relationship will need to be rebuilt from scratch. Temporarily. I’ll pause here so the room can finish making that face.”

She waited one second. ”Done? Wonderful. While I have your attention, your ward system is comprehensive, Master Mage. I want that on record. Cascade protocols. Prime-number threshold triggers. Textbook excellence. It also has a hole in it I could drive a wagon through.”

Jaxon’s jaw tightened.

”Pay attention,” she continued. ”I’m about to give you the most expensive consultation on this continent for free. Dark magic is a spectrum. Treating all of it as hostile is misinformed. If healers didn’t study poison, then we’d have no antidotes. If your generals refused to study enemy tactics, you’d call them idiots. Pull your institutional head out of your institutional ass.”

Griffin mouthed ’institutional ass’ to himself like he was storing it for later use.

Jaxon said nothing for five seconds. Then he skipped past the part where she’d told him his life’s work had a hole in it, and landed on the only thing that mattered.

”The cascade protocols. You noticed those.”

”Yes,” she replied. ”From the corridor. I have only seen that approach once in a text by Valdris.”

Jaxon blinked. ”You’ve read Valdris.”

”I own a first edition.”

Jaxon looked at her the way he looked at a spell structure he hadn’t seen before. Hungry and irritated in equal measure, because the two feelings lived in the same place for him and always had.

”His proof for asymmetric decay in Chapter seven was incomplete,” Jaxon said.

”A circle jerk of mediocrity,” she agreed. ”I submitted a paper on exactly this topic to the Valdorian Academy six years ago. They returned it unopened with a note that said ’we do not publish in this discipline.’”

”I was rejected from the same academy.”

They stared at each other. The energy in the room shifted in a way that made Ryker deeply uncomfortable.

Griffin farted.

”I’m sorry,” he said. ”I’ve been clenching for four minutes.”

”I have the competing theory in written form,” Lux continued, not noticing. ”If you’re interested.”

”Send it.” Jaxon said it the way a dehydrated man says water. ”Send all of it.”

”Better idea. I’ll bring the annotated manuscripts, the proof corrections. I don’t trust couriers, and frankly, I want to see your face when you read page fourteen.”

”Did they just become best friends?” Griffin asked.

Kael rubbed his temples. ”So we’re doing this now. Jaxon found his soulmate. Sterling found a new reason to be angry. And Griffin just violated the Geneva Convention. This is what I have to work with.”

Ryker glanced at Sterling. ”Whatever you think your face is doing right now, it’s not doing that. It’s doing something else entirely. And everyone can see it.”

”I’m monitoring the procedure,” Sterling said, voice clipped.

”Is that what we’re calling it? Because from where I’m standing, your eyes are about six feet to the left of it.”

Lux looked at Sterling. Then at Jaxon. Then back at Sterling.

”Gentlemen. If you’re going to stare at me like that, at least buy me dinner first. I like Solindari red and restaurants where the waitstaff is afraid of me. I’m free Thursday. Sort it out amongst yourselves.”

Jaxon opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Nothing came out.

”Thursday,” she repeated. ”Don’t be late. Don’t both show up. And don’t make it weird.”

Kael and Ryker had a rare ceasefire moment of shared eye contact.

It was already weird.

✦✦✦

Forty minutes later, the dragon king was walking through his Keep, business as usual.

He entered his tent with the energy he brought to every room: like he owned it, had always owned it, and was mildly inconvenienced that other people were already inside.

”Shadowfell.” Maddox crossed the tent and extended his hand. ”I’m told you took down attackers and carried me through a collapsing tunnel last night while your men held the rear.”

Nicholas took the hand. The grip was firm. The eye contact was steady. Two kings shaking hands. No subtext.

”You would have done the same, Drakencrest.”

”I would have. You’re always welcome in Drakencrest. That’s an open offer.”

”I appreciate that.”

That’s when Maddox looked up and saw her.

White hair. Crown. His sister pulling her out of the tent away from him with a speed that registered as unusual.

He blinked and she was gone.

”Who was that?”

Sterling and Ryker glanced at one another.

Nicholas rubbed his hand down his face. The gesture was Ryker’s. He had apparently joined that club.

”A rider,” Sterling answered. ”She’s running a skyrunner lethal simulation trial.”

Maddox’s lips twitched. ”You’re joking.”

”I am not, Commander.”

”Since when do female riders do lethal simulation?”

Ryker let out a dark laugh. ”Since I trained her.”

Maddox gave him a flat look. ”You trained someone.”

”Yes,” Ryker replied. ”Taught her everything she knows. Didn’t know how to shoot arrows before me.”

Sterling rolled his eyes. ”You are so full of shit.”

Maddox shook his head and turned back to the map. Unbeknownst to him, the woman with the white hair was about to do something that his record and ego would never recover from.

Damon shifted from the canvas wall and moved towards Sterling. ”What is this lethal simulation?”

”Moving targets at altitude,” Sterling explained. ”Mid-air transfers between dragons, incoming fire. All timed.”

He glanced at Nicholas. ”You probably don’t want to watch, actually.”

Every second this conversation continued, the tendons in Nicholas’s neck pulled tighter.

Maddox glanced over at Sterling.

”Sterling.”

”Commander.”

”Are you wearing eyeliner?”

”No.”

”Wait... are you wearing a cape too?”

”It’s a half-cloak with decorative draping.”

”It’s a cape, Sterling. You’re wearing a cape to a war summit.”

”Blair said it frames my shoulders.”

Maddox squinted. ”You’re wearing lip gloss too.”

”It’s balm, Commander.”

”Blair put gloss on you.”

Sterling said nothing. His glossy lips said everything.