Chapter 406: The Art Of Not Invading

Maddox stared at Beta Draven for three seconds longer than the nod required. The stare was the interview. The nod was the offer letter. Everything between was the background check, and Beta Draven had passed it by saying out loud what two kings had been too angry to think.

"The plan stands. We collect information first. Extraction is the fallback," Maddox stated.

Nicholas gave a single nod from the other end of the table. The nod of a king whose wolf was screaming at him to rip through a continent and whose brain knew that was not going to work.

"Which brings us to personnel. Who walks into Solveil?" Ryker asked, leaning forward.

"I’ll go myself," Maddox replied immediately.

"No," three people said at the same time.

Blair. Beta Draven. Damon. The synchronization was so clean it could have been rehearsed. It was not. Three minds had independently arrived at the same conclusion and delivered it in a single syllable because the conclusion was obvious and the Dragon King was the only person in the room who couldn’t see it.

"Respectfully, Your Grace," Beta Draven began, "two kings showing up turns this from discovery to something else entirely. You cannot send two kings into a foreign nation without every diplomat, elder, and person of importance getting involved. They want to keep Solveil’s state under wraps, that works to our advantage."

"He’s right," Damon agreed. "You send kings, they fortify. You send counsel, they comply. Luminari sound like creatures of process from what I’m hearing. That means we speak their language. If we speak ours and send in power, doors shut."

Nicholas’s jaw worked once. "I want to go."

"You especially can’t go," Beta Draven stated. He turned to face his former Alpha’s ally with the casual directness of a man who had been telling kings things they didn’t want to hear for two decades. "Based on the information I have here, the Luminari watched you run from their police with her through a public street. You show up at their courthouse and every officer in the building remembers the wolf who made them chase a suspect through a bar. You are disqualified by your own heroics, Shadowfell."

Reed: Uh oh.

Damon: Don’t.

Reed: He just told Nicholas he can’t go.

Damon: I heard.

Reed: And Nicholas didn’t kill him.

Damon: Also observed.

Reed: This man survived Renwick Lunaris for twenty years, Damon. Twenty. That’s not a Beta. That’s a cockroach.

Damon: Careful. That cockroach just outstrategized both kings in under five minutes.

Reed: I’m being complimentary. Cockroaches are the most resilient creatures alive.

Damon: Tell him that. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.

The room shifted. Two kings who wanted to go personally were being told they couldn’t, and the telling was correct, and the correctness was the part that burned because being right about your own uselessness is a flavor of humble pie that no amount of power makes palatable.

Maddox looked around the table. The look was the look of a king running a mental roster and crossing names off one by one.

Sterling would normally handle this. Sterling was his due diligence machine. Sterling read contracts the way other men read love letters and gossip. Sterling also had three concussion knots on his skull courtesy of Kael’s parenting instincts and was currently unconscious.

His eyes moved across the table. Jaxon. Brennan. Griffin. Ryker.

"Send Blair, Your Highness," Griffin said with zero hesitation.

Maddox paused.

"Send Blair," Ryker seconded. "She’s detail oriented. She narrowed down who Emma was in under two minutes from a pool of hundreds. In a throne room. After six hours of interrogating a man with maple syrup. She will outthink whatever legal team they put in front of her."

Maddox’s jaw did something complicated. His sister. In a foreign kingdom. Conducting legal warfare against a civilization that had just arrested his wife. Every protective instinct he had was saying no and every strategic instinct he had was saying Ryker had a point. He already knew Blair was detail oriented long before the throne room.

"Fine. Blair."

Blair’s face betrayed nothing. Underneath the nothing was everything. She had been waiting for this sentence since she sat down and the wait had been killing her and nobody was ever going to know that.

Maddox’s eyes flicked to Beta Draven. "Draven, this was your plan. You go with Blair. I’ll send one attorney with you."

Beta Draven gave a single nod. The nod was professional, measured, and contained the specific satisfaction of a man who had just been handed the keys to the operation he designed. He didn’t celebrate. Celebration was for people who hadn’t worked for Renwick Lunaris. Competence was its own receipt.

Blair and Beta Draven exchanged a glance across the table. Brief. Evaluative. Two people who had never worked together sizing each other up in one second and arriving at the same conclusion: this is going to work.

"Damon from my side," Nicholas said with zero hesitation.

No deliberation. No scanning the room. The name left his mouth the way a king deploys his best weapon.

Damon straightened in his chair by one degree. The degree was acceptance. He’d known since Beta Draven started talking that he was going.

Then Nicholas said, "Brennan."

The room looked at him.

Griffin looked at Ryker. Ryker looked at Jaxon.

Nicholas didn’t blink. His amber eyes held the room the way a king’s eyes hold a room when the decision has been made and the decision is final and the room’s opinion on the decision is a courtesy he is choosing not to extend.

"If we’re sending a delegation into a kingdom that runs on magic we don’t fully understand, I’m sending someone who speaks the language. Brennan has worked with the Luminari Master Mage. He has a grasp of their magical framework that nobody else at this table has. He picks up on patterns and is quick on his feet. My decision is final."

Silence followed.

"Sending a mage is the correct call," Jaxon seconded. The table turned because Jaxon Valerios did not cosign things unless he absolutely believed it and he had been critical of Brennan. "Brennan has an intuitive grasp of Luminari light-based magic. He processes magical signatures the way I process theory. He’s the right mage for the job."