Chapter 429: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little War

Landon’s jaw worked once. The braided voice stayed beneath the surface but the surface was getting thinner.

"Let me get this straight. My Kingsguard entered a civilian establishment in disguise. They drew weapons on an unarmed woman without identifying themselves. They drank ale on duty. They failed to display credentials. A civilian defended herself with a handbag and an elderly man defended his business with a pan. And Commander Veyron’s response was to arrest everyone in the building."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Including the bartender."

"Yes, Your Majesty. The bartender was charged with harboring a fugitive."

"He was correct."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Kael was leaning against the intake counter with his arms crossed and a look on his face that belonged on a man watching a painting being unveiled at a gallery he had funded. He had been in this building for eight hours. And he was now watching the King of Light discover what his Kingsguard had done in his absence and the discovery was producing a facial expression that Kael wanted preserved in crystal.

"Release them," Landon ordered.

"Your Majesty, Commander Veyron’s standing orders—"

"I am aware of Commander Veyron’s orders. I am giving you mine."

The officer’s mouth closed.

"All of them. Now."

The order traveled through the building at the speed of a king’s voice, which in this kingdom was the speed of light, which was immediate. Keys turned. Locks opened. Cell bars sang.

They came out in a stream. The old man from the bar first. Paul behind him. Kevin behind Paul. The bartender. The group who had clinked their glowing beverages. More followed. Each one passed Guinevere on the way out. Each one stopped.

The old man clasped her hand with both of his. Paul gave a nod that carried the weight of a man who had made his decision about her in a bar and was pleased to have it confirmed. Kevin punched Paul’s shoulder and said, "told you she was cool." Three of them hugged her. Two shook her hand. One saluted, which was incorrect in every military context but correct in the one that mattered.

The purse woman came last.

She stopped in front of Guinevere. Looked at her. Looked past her at the golden man whose eyes were still cycling and whose entire body was angled toward Guinevere the way a compass needle angles toward north.

"Oh, another one," the purse woman said. Her eyes moved up and down Landon Solveil once. Then her face did an ’oh shit’ and she dipped. "King Solveil."

Paul dipped. Kevin dipped. The bartender dipped. The old man gave a bow that his knees protested and his pride demanded. Twelve civilians who had spent days in a cell and had just learned that the glowing man standing behind the glowing woman who had read to them was the King of their entire goddamn kingdom.

The purse woman straightened and looked at Guinevere. "We didn’t realize, dear."

"Neither did I," Guinevere replied.

They moved toward the exit. The front doors of the incarceration facility opened onto the staircase.

Guinevere’s boot hit the first step.

The step lit up and played a note.

The second step lit up for her too. Higher note. Third step. Higher still.

The melody was unmistakable by the seventh step. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, performed by a staircase that had zero business being a musical instrument and was committed to the bit anyway.

Every step Guinevere took lit beneath her boots. For her and only her.

Landon looked down at her from a few steps above. The staircase was performing for one person and the person had no idea what that meant and he was watching her not know with an expression that would have destroyed Kael if Kael had been looking. Kael was not looking. The universe had granted Landon three seconds of unobserved fondness and he spent every one of them on the back of her head.

Blair stopped walking. The hood came down.

She clapped.

Brennan clapped from three stairs above her. The synchronization was instant and earned, the partnership of two people who had been clapping together across an entire kingdom and had graduated from acquaintances to co-clappers without either of them filing the paperwork.

Guinevere joined. Her hands were free now and the clapping was okay now because she was no longer in the prison.

All three continued clapping on a musical staircase outside the prison for a good thirty seconds while a king, a dragon, two Betas, an attorney, and a mage watched.

Guinevere turned to look up at Landon. Her green eyes met his and the formality in her voice was warm and genuine and carried the unshakeable sincerity of a woman who meant every word she had ever said in this kingdom and was about to say more of them.

"King Solveil, I want you to know that your civilization’s commitment to integrating artistic expression into functional architecture is something remarkable. The way your musical staircases transform the act of walking into a participatory cultural experience. Your watering holes alone represent what I can only assume is centuries of indigenous engineering passed down through oral tradition—"

Landon’s brows knit. His eyes surged white and light surged into Guinevere at the same time. She didn’t seem to notice.

"—and the way your people have designed communal gathering spaces that respond to the individuals moving through them speaks to a depth of cultural empathy that my own land could learn a great deal from."

The light stayed for a full second. Translation received. Light stopped. Landon looked down at her with genuine fondness like he found her entirely too adorable.

"Thank you, My Queen," he managed, and the twitch fought harder against the gravity of his jaw and lost by a margin so thin that three people saw it die.

"Alright. I’ve seen enough. Field trip is over," Kael snapped from a few steps below. "Time to take her back to Drakencrest. Brennan, start prepping the portal."

Landon’s head turned. The twitch vanished. The molten gold returned to full intensity and the braided voice came back online, renewed, authoritative, because someone else was explaining what was happening to his mate and that someone was not him.

"She is staying here. Her light is unstable. There is dark magic in her, Ashenvale. My mages will examine her. I will also be running my own diagnostic to ensure it is removed. She stays until it stabilizes. The flashes hurt her."

Kael stepped up one stair. DONG. The step beneath him played a C.

"Already got the flashes covered. I am absorbing it. Have been for days. We have a system."

"A system," Landon repeated, and the second voice wrapped around the word. "You are absorbing it because your body is a backup generator. My light matches hers. My kingdom has the foremost mages alive."

"My system has kept her alive for the last week, Solveil. Where were you? Oh, right. Unconscious."