Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King novel Chapter 381

Chapter 381: Griffin Thinks Sterling Is The Father

Emma’s dark magic coiled around her hands like living smoke, pulsing with a rhythm that matched nothing natural.

Everyone’s legs froze in place.

"What the hell did you just do?" Blair asked.

"Goddess, I love a good reveal. You can feel the room recalibrating. You know what I love about Drakencrest, specifically? The architecture screams ’we are untouchable,’ and the security says ’please, walk right in.’ It’s like a vault with the door open. Very inviting. Very stupid."

The torches along the walls dimmed further. The shadows in the throne room stretched and deepened, reaching toward her like they’d been waiting for permission.

"Oh, and your mage over there?" Emma’s eyes slid to the woman standing in the shadow near the south wall. "Yeah. She’s staying out of this."

Every head turned. Including the ones that should have been watching Emma’s hands instead of following her gaze like trained dogs.

Lux Nash was white. The color had left her face with the speed and totality of a woman who had just been hit by something she couldn’t name and the inability to name it was the thing that was destroying her.

Her hands were at her sides. Open. Still. A violet shimmer of magic was skating across her knuckles but not moving anywhere.

"Even if she has no memory of who I am, her magic recognizes my signature. She’s my daughter. Magic does not resist that from which it originated. For the dumb one in the back, that means she can’t fight me."

Lux’s jaw moved once. No sound came out.

Kael’s eyes moved from Emma to Lux. The calculation behind them was running at full speed and the output was a revised threat assessment that had just doubled in complexity because the woman who had been trying to crack Guinevere’s memory loss was the daughter of their main suspect.

"Your daughter," Blair repeated.

"Yes. Are you dumb? That’s what I just said."

"How old are you?"

"You never ask a woman her age, Blair. Didn’t your mother teach you that? She didn’t. Because she died when you were young. Consider this a favor."

"Keep my mother’s name out of your mouth," Blair snapped.

"Can I just say," Emma continued, ignoring Blair’s warning and turning to Lux with a grin that carried warmth and condescension in equal measure, "you have been very slow to connect the dots on what you are. You were making progress for a while there. On the ice continent. The research was good. Getting closer. Then you stopped looking." She tilted her head. "Why did you stop looking, Lux?"

The question hung in the air with the energy of a therapist.

Lux said nothing. Her chest was moving in shallow, controlled breaths that had nothing to do with control and everything to do with the fact that her body was fighting a war her magic had already surrendered.

Emma glanced at her daughter with the soft, pitying smile of a woman returning a lost dog. "Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the villain here. I’m the context you were missing. Everything that didn’t make sense about you? Your magic, your instincts, the way you could read dark signatures no one else could touch? That was me. In your blood. This whole time. You’re welcome." She gave Lux a Blair-level once over. "It’s a shame you don’t look like me."

Emma turned back to Blair. "Sorry about that. Family stuff. You know how it is."

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