Chapter 206: Sounds Like A You Problem
No, she did not just eat shit in high definition in front of the Lunaris warriors.
Just kidding.
She did, in fact, trip in full view of every fighter on the wall and the gods above. The dress looked damn good, but it was freezing and impractical. Decision made.
It took her fifteen minutes to raid the laundry room and turn into a twelve-year-old squire boy. She looked like any other fighter: hair tucked in, hood up, crown hidden.
Unless someone scented her or saw her face, they’d have no idea that a royal pain in the ass was undercover.
Things were going according to plan right until the sky ripped open and started vomiting demons. Dark rifts split wide, winged bodies surged through in tidy groups of six. She stared upward in disbelief and her hood chose that exact moment to abandon ship.
Immediately, Tyler was at her side.
"Gwen? What in the—you know what, never mind. Let’s get you inside. Now."
She didn’t look at him, her eyes fixed on the sky. "What are those things?"
"Guinevere, listen, this is on the dragon’s order that you are to—"
His words died mid-sentence. She was already nocking an arrow.
"What do you think you are doing?"
"Left eye."
"Left eye of wha—"
She released.
The arrow punched through the left eye of the lead Dark Fae from a range that screamed show-off. The creature dropped from formation.
Tyler’s jaw hit the floor. She called it from this range in the dark with wind like she’d done nothing more impressive than swatting a fly. She was aware of the optics. He’d survive.
"Why are the perimeter pyres dark?" she asked, already drawing another.
"They absorb fire."
"What do they want?"
"They’re hitting every major Keep in Nyros. We don’t know."
Yelling surged up from below the wall. Eight Lunaris soldiers were pinned. At least fifty Dark Fae had emerged from the trees, enclosing them on all sides.
"SHIT." Tyler spun. "RESERVES. SOUTH GATE. NOW."
"Beta." A warrior cleared his throat. "Respectfully, sir, look the fuck down."
Laughter rippled across the archers.
Guinevere peered over the merlon and found the source of their sudden and deeply misplaced confidence. The half dead dragon named Kael was walking into the scene like he owned the place.
"Evening, gentlemen. You’re messing with my wolves. That’s going to be a problem."
Then he moved in a blur.
Swipe.
Four were dead before the fifth realized what was happening.
"You interrupted my nap." He swung. Two heads. "You keep threatening my wolves." Slash. More heads. "And gods, you’re all so fucking ugly it’s making this easier."
Bodies dropped. Fifteen. Twenty five. He didn’t stop.
"That...." The words died in Guinevere’s mouth.
"Yeah. THAT," Tyler agreed. "He’s been saving our asses all night and gave strict orders that you are to be guarded in your chambers."
She didn’t respond, her eyes still on the dragon. She was watching a man decapitate two Dark Fae in a single rotation and she felt several emotions at once, none of which she had time to sort through.
"Behind me. Back to the wall. All of you. Now," Kael ordered. "I didn’t crawl out of a grave to lose a goddamn tree line."
An archer on the wall turned to Tyler. "He does the best shit-talking while killing I’ve ever seen."
Tyler dragged a hand down his face but he didn’t disagree.
The wolves that were trapped moments ago broke through the gap Kael had carved and sprinted for the wall. He held the line behind them alone, completely calm, like he was taking out the trash.
"Fifty-two," an archer announced.
Only two remained. The ones with functioning survival instincts. One circled Kael directly. The other was ghosting through the underbrush, glued to his blind side with the patience of something that had just watched fifty-two idiots get deleted and refused to join the highlight reel.
The blindspot one’s blade came up just as Kael’s momentum was locked on the front kill.
Guinevere drew.
PFFT.
Her arrow slammed into the left eye at the perfect second.
Kael spun just as its body hit the ground. He stood over a dead Dark Fae with an arrow in its skull, wearing an expression that was furious, impressed, and completely fucked.
He looked up at the wall. Already vacant. But he didn’t need to catch her in the act to know exactly who did that. That shot had her name, her attitude, and her complete lack of desire for credit written all over it.
He had known she was good from her lethal simulation. But drills on a dragon were different than real life. That same girl swung a blade with her eyes shut. Everything about her mindfucked him. Every. Goddamn. Thing.
His dragon grumbled.
Mate is special. We knew this.
"She just fired an arrow four inches from my skull."
And she did not miss. Perfect.
Gods, he was in love with her.
He shook his head once. Twice. Then his entire face went flat. Cold. The face of a man who had just gone from combat mode to a different kind of dangerous, the kind that didn’t need a blade.
Why the fuck was she out of her tower and on the fucking wall?
He wiped the blood off his blade without looking at it. His eyes hadn’t left the wall. His mouth was a line. His pulse was a war drum. Someone was going to answer for this and the line started with six guards and ended with the woman who’d walked past all of them.
From above, she had already moved. Crouched behind a merlon, nocking the next arrow, scanning the southern tree line like a woman with a schedule. The Dark Fae were reforming. She counted them, adjusted her position, and decided their second attempt would go just as poorly as the first.
"Guinevere. Please. Kael was very clear. Let’s get you back to your chambers," Tyler said, voice low and pleading.
She still planned on thanking the dragon, but this was her Keep and who was he to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. Nope.
"Tell him that I appreciate his concern, but I can handle myself," she replied flatly.
Tyler ran a hand through his hair.
"He told me if you left that tower he’d hold me personally responsible. Do you know what personally responsible means to that man? It means my organs leave my body in alphabetical order."
"Then I suggest you don’t tell him."
"That won’t work. When he finds out you’re up here, and he WILL find out because that man has a sixth sense for shit that pisses him off—"
"I just shot a Dark Fae in the eye from two hundred yards. I think I’ll be fine."
"YOU’LL be fine. I’LL be dead. Do you see the issue?"
She flashed a grin and shrugged. "Sounds like a you problem."
"That doesn’t— that’s not— please just go inside. I am begging. On my knees if you want. I will literally kneel on this rampart in front of every archer on this wall if you go back inside."
"No thanks."
At that moment, more portals split the sky. The archers lit up the incoming wave mid-flight, hitting all but one.
To Guinevere’s pure disbelief and horror, it landed ten feet from her on the wall.