Chapter 402: Bang If You’re Regulated

"I may have no memory of meeting your sovereign, but based on his kingdom, he sounds like a fine ruler and I am sorry to hear he fell into a coma," Guinevere began, voice firm. "To answer your question, Commander, the runes that keep appearing on my skin have an unwanted side effect of flashing."

"She means with light. Her clothes stay on," Kael cut in, clarifying for the group.

"Yes, light. Thank you for flagging that," she said with a nod. "The word ’flash’ carries more than one meaning and I apologize if I caused alarm from the alternative interpretation during this interrogation. In my context, white light flashes and I find myself in a new location. I am not sure how to turn it off."

"That is because it isn’t stabilized, Your Highness. You bonded with King Solveil’s light and need him to help you," Octavian stated. ℴ

Commander Veyron turned his head slowly to look at the Master Mage, who gave him a flat look right back that clearly said, we’ve had this conversation.

"I have no memory of bonding with your king, Master Mage," Guinevere replied. "The reason why I brought up the flashes is because a flash brought me to Solveil. That was the night I became a domestic terrorist to your community."

Kael pinched the bridge of his nose. "When she refers to herself as a ’domestic terrorist,’ she is referencing the damn plants and water fountains."

"Yes, I am referencing those crimes. I also want to say my terrorism was not out of hate. It was unintentional, stemming from ignorance that I would like to correct. I woke up on a land I had never stepped foot in and jumped from a balcony and landed on someone’s flower garden. That’s when the police chase started. I am happy to replant every flower I ruined."

"Your Highness, let me clarify that King Solveil brought you here to help stabilize your light. You were unconscious when he brought you. You woke up in his room with him. Probably lying with him on the Master Healer’s orders," Octavian explained.

Guinevere thought back to waking up. She was naked under a man she had no memory of meeting, panicked, then jumped from a balcony. That was the full truth. She assumed she flashed there and somehow lost her clothing in the process.

She had a moment of holy shit that she did not show on her face because there was zero chance she did something to put a king in a coma.

"When you say coma, could you clarify the means? Or how you found him? I don’t quite understand."

Octavian opened his mouth. Veyron raised one hand signaling for the Master Mage to be silent. Octavian closed his mouth and looked up at the ceiling.

Veyron leaned back. Crossed his arms. Said nothing. Waited.

The silence was deliberate. Textbook pressure. Let the suspect sit in the quiet until the quiet becomes a weight and the weight becomes a confession. It worked on killers, smugglers, and every man who had ever sat in that chair and cracked under the unbearable pressure of a room that refused to speak.

Guinevere sat across from him. Hands folded on the table. Back straight. Comfortable.

Most people broke at forty-five seconds. Most people didn’t have a father named Renwick Lunaris.

One minute passed.

Two.

At the three-minute mark, Guinevere gave a slow, knowing nod, then she closed her eyes.

The glow that had faded started again immediately.

Kael watched Veyron stare at her with the growing discomfort of a man whose power move had just turned into a charging station for the accused.

Another minute passed. The glow intensified.

Kael put his hand on her arm. Energy surged into him on contact, but the warded cuffs throttled it down to a trickle. Like trying to drain a lake through a straw. Enough to take the edge off. Nowhere close to enough.

He looked at Octavian.

The Luminari Master Mage was not looking at Veyron. He was not looking at Kael. He was looking at Guinevere with his lips slightly parted and his head tilted at exactly eleven degrees and his eyes doing the thing that Kael recognized instantly because Jaxon had the same goddamn expression every time he encountered something he wanted to be a nerd about and write a paper on.

Kael said nothing. He would give it three more minutes before he said something. His cuffs needed to come off either way or they would lose her in a flash and he wasn’t going to do that.

Thirty seconds later, Veyron broke.

"Why are your eyes closed?"

Guinevere opened one.

"My eyes were shut, Commander, so I missed it if there was a visual cue for me to speak. Was that question directed towards me?"

"Yes," he said flatly.

"I recognized you were taking a self-directed pause and I didn’t want to interrupt your emotional regulation process. Are you ready to re-engage?"

Veyron banged his fist on the table.

"Stop it!" BANG. "Stop turning everything I do into something I didn’t do!" BANG. "I." BANG. "Am." BANG. "Regulated."

Kael was unimpressed. "Compelling argument, Table Banger. Now answer her goddamn question. How did you find Solveil in a coma? You’ve given zero information."

"I am the one running this interrogation. I give her the information I want to give her," Veyron said through gritted teeth.

Kael leaned back in his chair. "So you have zero witnesses except a healer, who says Solveil carried a woman in who looked like her. She has no memory of meeting the man. And you have no weapon or idea on how he wound up in a coma. That’s what I’m hearing."

"We have an idea of the weapon," Octavian said. "And it is her right to know what it is, part of our due process. But not until the Commander has the information he needs."

Guinevere opened her mouth, but Kael put his arm in front of her.

"She is not answering any further questions until we are given more context. You took her out of her home to arrest her. She is the future High Queen of Velkaris and agreed to come, and has been as cooperative as possible."

Commander Veyron gave a smile that was not warm.

"Two puncture wounds on his neck. His blood was injected with a substance we cannot identify and he has been in a coma ever since."