Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 173

Chapter 173: Statistically, All Mages Explode

Nicholas Shadowfell had made a lot of questionable decisions in his life. Sailing across an ocean for another man’s wife was bold. Marking her while she was clinically dead was bolder. Hiring a questionable mage Kael Ashenvale had hired and fired multiple times and a mage Kael once held at bladepoint during a siege because he fucked up the wards? That one took the fucking cake and then set it on fire.

"Alpha Shadowfell." Brennan swept into a bow. "I accept. I accept with my whole chest. I accept with enthusiasm that should concern everyone in this room. You will not regret this. Others might. Bystanders, possibly. But not you."

"I already regret this," Damon muttered from Nicholas’s right.

"Beta Tavian." Brennan straightened and offered his hand. Damon stared at it like it was a surprise marriage proposal from his crazy ex. He did not shake it. Brennan retracted the hand without losing a single degree of enthusiasm. "Understood. Trust is earned. I will earn it. Starting now."

"You can start by telling us why your coat is smoking," Damon said.

Brennan looked down at the suspicious grey smoke curling out of his coat pocket.

"Ward anchor residue. It’s a reaction to wards incorrectly configured, especially ones at high altitudes. Your Keep’s wards will need to be looked at." He smiled. "But the view is stunning."

"We don’t have wards," Nicholas said.

"Exactly what I meant." Brennan spread his arms. "Where would you like me to begin?"

Nicholas looked at Damon. Damon looked at Nicholas. The shared look carried a full silent conversation, summarized as this: We are so dead it’s not even funny... okay it’s a little funny.

✦✦✦

"A simple containment ward," Brennan announced. "Textbook configuration. Nothing in, nothing out. I’ve done this approximately three hundred times. Conservatively."

"Conservatively," Damon repeated, arms crossed.

Four lines of blue light connected the anchor stones, forming a glowing square on the courtyard. Inside the perimeter, the air shimmered with containment energy.

"There," Brennan said, gesturing with obvious pride. "Sealed. Contained. Nothing crosses that boundary without my—"

An anchor stone popped, followed by it catching fire. Not magic. A regular fucking fire.

"That’s fine," Brennan said, moving towards it. "Minor environmental variable. I’ll just—"

He channeled a burst of containment magic at the fire.

The courtyard gate slammed shut with a clang that echoed off every wall in the Keep.

Nicholas looked at the closed gate. Looked at Brennan. Looked at Damon, who was on the other side of the gate, separated from them by iron bars.

"That was the security demo," Brennan explained. "As you can see, nothing gets in or out. Including us. Give me a moment."

"Take your time. I’ll be out here," Damon called from the other side of the gate. His arms had been crossed since Brennan showed up and they weren’t uncrossing until the man cast one spell that didn’t need a ’my bad’ follow-up.

Another ward caught on fire at that moment. The timing was unfortunate.

The moment lasted four minutes. Four minutes of Nicholas standing in his own courtyard, locked in by his own mage, while his Beta stood on the other side of the gate looking at him with an expression that said ’we fucked up on this one’ in twelve different languages.

The gate swung open.

"Normally that doesn’t happen."

"Which part?" Nicholas asked.

"Any of it. All of it. The fire was an outlier. I’ll adjust for that going forward."

"You’ll adjust for fire."

"I’m very adaptive, Alpha. It’s on my resume."

Nicholas pinched the bridge of his nose. Behind him, one of the guards leaned towards the guard beside him and whispered, "Twenty silver says he blows something up before sundown." The other guard shook his head. "He already blew something up. I want the over-under on how many fires before he’s actually fired."

✦✦✦

"One in four," Brennan explained, holding up a finger. "Statistically, for every mage, one in four spells produces a minor detonation."

"For every mage," Nicholas repeated flatly.

Brennan gave an eager nod. "Oh yes. You would be surprised, Alpha."

Brennan’s face did something complicated at the word view. The emotion that crossed it was, against all odds, gratitude, and it was so sincere that Nicholas briefly regretted every cynical thought he’d had in the last two hours.

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