Chapter 376: I Spy With My Dragon Eye

Six apex predators who’ve commanded armies were about to learn, in real-time, that "that’s how it’s fucking done" has a face, and it’s a dragon princess.

Lux fell into step on Blair’s left. Damon on her right. The formation was automatic.

"What do you need?" Damon asked as they moved.

Blair glanced at him. "I need you to read body language and your mind to be in puzzle solving mode."

"Done."

She looked at Lux. "I need you, Lux, to scan for energy in that room. The magic will be mage in signature, but with a twist."

"Twist?" Lux asked.

"Noxari. The evil twin of the Luminari or something," Blair answered lightly.

Lux gave a single nod.

Behind them, Kael’s boots hit the stone at a pace that was trying very hard to be casual and was failing. Nicholas, Sterling, Griffin, and Ryker were behind him, because of course they were.

Blair stopped three feet from the throne room doors. Every servant and palace staff member in the Keep had been mindlinked and was waiting for her.

She turned and the look she gave them could have frozen lava.

"If you enter, you do not interfere. You remain inconspicuous and do not draw attention to your presence. Or I will turn your rooms pink."

"Yes, Ma’am," Ryker said immediately.

Kael looked at the ceiling. "I’d like it on the record that the High General of Drakencrest just called a woman who tortures people with maple syrup ma’am, and I am the only person in this room who finds that concerning."

Blair ignored him. Her eyes were on Sterling.

"Understood. I’ll be useful," he said after a tense moment.

"Yes. You will be," Blair agreed. "Griffin?"

"I’ll be good."

Her eyes glossed over Nicholas, which he didn’t take as an insult.

"Kael? Confirm."

"What happens if I say no? You redecorate my room? Pour syrup on me? Call Maddox? Actually don’t answer that. Confirmed."

Two guards moved to open the doors. Blair held up one hand. "Don’t."

She rolled her neck once. Then she kicked the doors open with both hands at her sides, the boom rolling through the throne room like a war drum.

The moment she entered, the rows snapped to attention. Spines straightened. Chins lifted. Eyes forward.

Griffin whispered "holy shit" behind her with the reverence of a man watching the final boss level up in real time.

Blair walked through the center aisle towards the throne with her hands clasped behind her back and her chin elevated.

Blair Drakencrest ran a clean ship.

She knew every face in this Keep. Every name. Every start date. Every reassignment. She knew who was sleeping with whom, which laundress had been covering shifts for which chambermaid and why.

She stopped at the third row. Sniffed. Turned her head.

"Ryan."

The man flinched before his name finished leaving her mouth.

"What do I hate?"

Ryan swallowed. "Brown, beige, and taxidermy, Your Highness."

"Which rug?"

"Gerald."

"Correct." She tilted her head. "But that’s not what I’m asking. What else do I hate, Ryan?"

Ryan’s mouth opened. Nothing useful came out.

Blair walked to the far wall. Her hand found the iron poker beside the fireplace. She lifted it, turned, and drove it through the portrait of a Drakencrest ancestor that hung between two windows.

THUNK.

The canvas tore with a sound like a scream. The poker stayed embedded in the wall behind the painting, sticking out of a dead king’s forehead like a flag planted on conquered territory.

The room stopped breathing.

"TRY AGAIN."

Hundreds of servants and staff stood in the kind of silence that has its own heartbeat. The poker was still vibrating. The portrait was still hanging, impaled and ruined, the dead king’s painted expression somehow more dignified than every living person in the room.

"Being unprepared," a small voice answered from the sixth row.

Blair’s head turned. "Say it louder for the class, Connor."

Connor’s throat bobbed. "Being unprepared, Your Highness."

"Louder."

"BEING UNPREPARED, YOUR HIGHNESS."

"That’s right." Blair walked past the poker, leaving it there. "I hate being unprepared."

She stopped in front of a woman in the second row.

"McKayla."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"When I entered this throne room, were you all standing at attention?"

"No, Your Highness."

"No. You were not." Blair resumed walking. "Some of you were talking. Some of you were leaning. One of you was eating. I saw the crumbs, Davis. They’re on your collar. Third button down. Don’t look. Don’t touch."

Davis went white. His hand, which had been rising toward his collar, dropped back to his side.

Blair turned at the end of the row and walked back. Every head tracked her movement. Nobody shifted their weight. Nobody cleared their throat. The room had learned in under two minutes that sound was a risk and stillness was survival.

She stopped center.

"Kitchen staff."

Fifty people in the back left section straightened so hard their spines could have been used as rulers.

"You’re dismissed. If anyone asks where you’ve been, you say nowhere. If anyone asks what happened in this room, you say nothing. Go."

They went. Single file. Silent. The exit was so clean it could have been drilled.

"Stable hands and groundsmen. Dismissed. Same rules. Nowhere. Nothing. Go."

They left like soldiers.

The room was shrinking. The air was tightening. The remaining staff were watching their colleagues leave and doing the math on why they were still standing here.

"Laundry and linens. Chamber attendants. Dismissed."

A ripple went through the remaining rows. The ripple of people who had just learned they were not in the safe group.

Blair sniffed. Stopped. Started walking down a new row.

She made quick eye contact with Lux Nash who hadn’t sensed any magic yet, but she had an idea of what Blair was doing and was ready.

"Second row. Dismissed."

They left.

"Fourth row, columns one through three. Dismissed."

Gone.

"Remaining columns four and five. Dismissed."

The throne room emptied in stages. Each dismissal was clean, fast, military. Nobody lingered. Nobody asked why. The people leaving were grateful to be leaving and the people staying were starting to understand that staying was not a reward.

The room thinned until a single row remained. Twenty people. Standing at attention. Hands behind their backs. Eyes forward.

Blair walked down it. Sniffed again. Stopped in front of one woman. Didn’t look at the woman.

"You may all go. Outside of Mary Sellsor."