Chapter 423: WHERE IS SHE

The Luminari Master Mage looked at the group with a measured gaze, choosing his next words carefully. His eyes swept the table. Wolf Princess on a dragon. Dragon Princess on a wolf. One attorney processing trauma. One sandwich-eating mage. And one man who Octavian did not know, but he looked like he was in charge.

"Once you discuss amongst yourselves," he said, "if there is a case study for this situation, if you could send it my way that would be helpful. I haven’t found one yet."

He turned and left the room.

The door shut behind him.

Beta Draven’s mouth opened. Closed. His eyes were on Guinevere, whose face was still burning crimson.

Damon was looking at her. His amber eyes moved from the crystal to Guinevere’s red face to the crystal again and the circuit produced a conclusion he had seen coming but was hoping wouldn’t. He was going to have to tell Nicholas, which was not going to be fun.

Blair’s eyes widened, something finally clicking.

Briggs had stopped writing and his expression gave nothing. Brennan looked about as confused as possible.

Kael pulled her back down onto his lap the way a cat pulls a toy back between its paws. Swift. Possessive. He had been wronged and this was fixing it.

Guinevere’s hands covered her face. She was going to need a moment.

"Before anyone says anything, Guinevere has no memory of doing it," he began, his voice hitting the room at the register that meant business.

Beta Draven cut him off. "Let me get this straight. That was the ’attempted murder weapon’ and evidence."

"Yes."

"Have we informed them what that is?" Beta Draven asked gently, using the patient voice he used to rule out variables that Renwick would have lost his shit over because the variables were so obvious.

"Wonderful question," Kael replied, flatly. "I have already informed the Luminari what that is. I drew them a diagram and everything."

"What is it?" Brennan asked.

"A matemark," Kael replied. "And before we all come at her—"

Blair cut him off. "No one is coming at her, Kael. Are we sure it was her?"

The look she gave him said stop saying things out loud, dipshit. Kael gave her an unimpressed look right back that said I know what I’m doing and they already know it was her.

"Let me clear something up," Damon stated from behind Blair. "Maddox and Nick were aware of Landon Solveil. Kael was the wildcard and that information is already out of the bag. This isn’t groundbreaking news or the end of the world."

Guinevere didn’t react to the statement.

"Poor Guinevere. Four is very impressive though. You should be proud," Brennan said, looking at her from his end of the table.

"If they need a wolf-Luminari case study, wasn’t your mother Luminari, Ashenvale? That would make you Luminari," Beta Draven said slowly.

Kael looked at Beta Draven the way a teacher looks at a student who has been paying attention.

"She was not registered Luminari, but yes, that’s what she was. The issue is that was a dragon-Luminari combination. They have documentation for that. They need wolf-Luminari."

"There is another case I can think of," Beta Draven stated, looking at Kael. That was all he could say because he was bound by blood oath and so was Kael.

Kael stared at him for a full second, then gave a knowing nod. "That one. Yeah. That one might be difficult."

Guinevere lifted her head from her hands. A feeling of déjà vu came over her, but no memory surfaced.

"I doubt Solandris is aware what the alleged murder weapon is," Beta Draven added. "He is the one who would be able to inform them. It’s worth pointing their Master Mage in his direction, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. The man has his secrets."

Blair’s eyes narrowed for a moment. Then she gave a knowing nod. They were referring to Guinevere’s mother.

"I’ll speak with Solandris," she stated.

Damon stiffened under her. "Absolutely not." 𝖿𝖗ⅇℴ𝑚

"Absolutely not," Kael said at the exact same moment.

Neither man acknowledged it.

Blair opened her mouth, but before any words came out, white runes ignited across Guinevere’s body.

The light surged.

Blair shielded her eyes. Brennan’s chair scraped backward. Briggs dropped his pen. Beta Draven’s hand went flat on the table to steady himself against a brightness that had no source he could identify and no off switch anyone was offering.

Kael’s runes flared bright enough to turn the windowless room to noon. The walls threw shadows. The files on the table curled at the edges from the heat. Two crystal evidence pieces rattled in their padded cloth.

Then it faded.

The light pulled back. Guinevere’s nose started bleeding. Behind her, Kael was breathing hard.

His arms stayed locked. His eyes stayed shut for three full seconds while his body processed the residual energy that was still crackling through his bones like lightning trapped in a bottle.

He opened his eyes.

Everyone was staring at him.

His eyes went straight to Blair. "See, this is what happens, Blair. For life."

???

SOLVEIL CITADEL - KING’S CHAMBERS

Across the city, in a room made of white stone and silence, the King of Light stopped being still.

His fingers moved first. A twitch. Small. The kind of motion a body makes when the thing inside it decides to rejoin the conversation without consulting the muscles first. His right hand closed around the sheet beneath him, bunching the fabric into his fist, knuckles going white against the linen.

Then his chest expanded.

The breath was violent. Deep. The inhale of a man who had been breathing shallow for days and whose lungs had just been told, by something louder than his own body, that shallow was over. His back arched off the mattress. His jaw opened and the sound that came out was a gasp so raw it echoed off the stone walls and made the healer on rotation drop the vial he was holding.

Glass shattered on the floor.

Landon Solveil’s eyes snapped open.

Gold. Molten. The irises were wrong. They were too bright, too saturated, cycling through a luminosity that did not match anything in the Luminari medical texts. They flickered once, twice, three times, strobing between the warm amber that belonged to him and something hotter that did not.

"WHERE IS SHE?"