Page 19 of The Emerald Dragon Prince
“And to find the traitor,” Diamant growled.
I didn’t need to give my brothers until the count of three to begin the spell. Once I started it, the others joined in. Our sixfold magic coursed through me, filling me with power that was almost as overwhelming as my bond with Rumi.
And then a seventh strand of magic joined us. I had a feeling I knew where it came from, especially since it was black. Black but not evil. I hadn’t realized Osric was ready to show his true colors so soon.
“It’s working!” Rumi called out. “Everything has stopped.”
The spell we’d conjured stayed where it was as I opened my eyes to look around. Everything around us was frozen. The air had gone silent as the clamor of battle stopped. Every way I looked, men were completely still, swords held aloft, mouths open in battle cries. It was a perfect, eerie tableau of a battle. Even in the far distance, I could see Freslik and his inner circle paused as well.
“That’s just strange,” Leo said, his expression one of shock as he turned in a slow circle, looking at the motionless world around him.
“What do we do next?” Rumi asked, stepping toward me. “How do we find the traitor and break the spell?”
“The traitor has to behere somewhere,” I said, searching frantically without truly knowing what I was looking for. “My guess is that they will remain unfrozen, thanks to their magic.”
“So everyone who isn’t frozen right now has some sort of magic in them?” Obi asked, turning to Argus.
“That’s generally how these things work,” Argus told him with a teasing, affectionate grin.
Obi almost smiled, but turned to Osric instead. “Then what about him?”
We all turned to find Osric watching us, his movements as free and unencumbered as the rest of us.
“I thought you knew,” Osric said, stepping toward us with a mischievous look of triumph.
I grinned. “I can’t speak for all of my brothers, but I knew. You aren’t just a child of the magical world,” I said, speaking the suspicion I’d had all along. “You’re one of us.”
“Cousin Osric,” Argus said with a laugh. “But of course you are.”
“Cousin?” Rumi asked, turning to me in question.
“But you already knew, didn’t you?” I asked, resting a hand on my mate’s shoulder.
Rumi blushed and said, “I figured out Osric was a dragon months ago, but is he your cousin?”
“All dragons are related,” I said, then glanced at Osric. “But some of them have not kept in touch with the family.”
“My mission required me to be elsewhere,” Osric said. “My branch of the family, the obsidian dragons, have lived in this world for hundreds of years.”
“But that’s impossible,” Azurus said with a frown. “How is there an entire obsidian branch of the family that none of us knew about?”
“Some of us knew about them,” Gildur said, sending me a wink.
Osric smirked and went on. “We left the magical world generations ago because?—”
That was as far as Osric’s explanation was able to go. We were interrupted by movement to one side and all turned to find a woman in ragged clothing stumbling toward us.
“She’s moving!” Leo shouted, bending to pick up his sword. “The spell didn’t pause her.”
“She must be magical,” Rumi said with a gasp.
“She’s more than that,” Selle said, adjusting his glasses and glaring at the woman. “She’s the one behind all this. She’s the sorcerer, or should I say sorceress.”
A moment later, the woman pulled up short and gasped as she found herself in our midst. Selle was right. The woman was the sorceress, or at least she had been.
“Saoirse?” Gildur asked, stepping toward her with a shocked expression. “What are you doing here?”
Sure enough, it was Lady Saoirse, the woman who had tried to usurp Freslik so she could use his army in what would have been a futile attempt to attack Mother’s throne and set herself up as the ruler of all. Mother had taken her powers and banished her to the cruel world, but there she was, looking much the worse for wear, but alive and possessing of some sort of power, since she hadn’t been paused by our spell.
