Tavar said:
Plus have access to an actual dispel.
Though, what about two royals combining their talents? Where would they lay?
Broadly speaking, the Royal Combination Technique is more akin to Dragonblooded cooperative Charms, rather than accessing a higher level of effect, strictly speaking. The advantages lie in the fact that they can pump more power into a spell, and they use the highest ranking of the mages involved, and the fact that they can combine elements in a way that normal mages can't.
For example, Wardes, as a square-level wind mage, can tear the lightning-within-flesh, wrapped in their breath, out of everyone within a hundred metres
[1]. Even if Wales and Henrietta worked together as a Triangle Water/Wind pair, they couldn't do that, because that level of control (over lightning, in particular, but also generally the fine control needed) requires the understanding of a square mage. However, they can also throw enough power at something to create a flesh-flaying hurricane, which Wardes couldn't do, because a) they have more raw power to throw at it, and b) he doesn't have the Water magic needed for that level of weather manipulation, to weaponise the water in the same way (he could still make a tornado, for example, but the Henrietta-Wales pair can make the needed rain-carrying clouds out of
nowhere).
Basically, get some royals working together, and you can solve a lot of problems with brute force. Apart from problems like "Um... maybe we didn't want to flatten the town", and "If we do that, the area damage will hit our own troops, too!" and "Maybe raining flaming meteors down onto the enemy army isn't the best way to persuade the borderlords that we're not power-hungry imperialists".
Only a few times in history have multiple members of royal families taken to the field together. Of those times... well, there was a reason that Tristan was the largest Brimiric nation before the Germani invaded, and it was fortunate for them that Tristan wasn't at its peak. And if the Gallian royal family was less backstabbing and internally politicing, and didn't tend to use murder as the main method for determining inheritance... well, Tabitha's father had
plans, too. If he had survived and been successful, he would have been known as "The Great", and I need not remind people what kings who typically earned that title were like.
I leave it up to your imagination what it was like in Brimir's time.
[1] That is also known as "Fuck you, mortals"
