Page 24 of The Emerald Dragon Prince
I was a leader. I always had been since Motherappointed me to the governance of the magical world. Even my brothers stood to the side, looking to me for what to do next.
“Soldiers and friends,” I called out, addressing the field around me. “Yes, it is true. Lord Osric has been taken prisoner by King Freslik and his men.”
A ripple of gasps and murmurs of fear and worry shot through the army as soldiers gathered closer, looking desperately to me for guidance.
“It’s over!” one man called out. “Our cause is lost.”
I held up my hands and shook my head. “The cause is not lost. Osric surrendered himself as a deliberate move to advance our overall plan.”
“How can our leader surrendering himself into Freslik’s grasp advance our cause to defeat the bastard?” another of the soldiers asked.
His question was met with agreement and even more desperate looks from the soldiers.
“If you look, even now, Freslik’s army is retreating,” I said, gesturing to the opposite side of the field from where we were. “Today’s battle is over.”
Every head turned to watch Freslik’s army as it grouped together and limped away toward the king’s city and the castle beyond. I myself noticed how many of Freslik’s loyal soldiers looked wounded or defeated, despite having won the moment. They looked reduced enough that a part of me wanted to turn around and attack again, but instinct told me that despite how things looked, that would be a disaster. I had to stick to Osric’s original plan.
“The war is far from over, though,” I called out, drawing the soldiers’ attention back to me. “Before he handed himself over to Freslik, Osric came up with a plan for our ultimate victory.”
I felt sheepish stating the embryonic idea for a plan Osric had come up with earlier. Though I understood what Osric wanted us to do, he hadn’t had time to flesh out the entire plan before leaving. He must have trusted us implicitly to have his back.
“What plan?” Bronnen asked, striding closer to me. He was one of Osric’s closest advisors and I could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced he should be following a man who had arrived only recently to help the cause, no matter how much Osric had made it clear he trusted me and my brothers. “What are we supposed to do?”
I stood a bit straighter and said, “It’s no secret by now that magic exists in this world. Neither is it any secret that dragons are real and that we walk among you.”
More than a few of the soldiers listening dropped their jaws in shock. Perhaps it was more of a secret than I’d anticipated.
“There are no such thing as dragons,” one of the soldiers nearby said. “Right?”
“I can assure you that dragons are real,” Rumi said, stepping slightly in front of me. “They have been among us, helping us, for far longer than we have known.”
“Dragons are monsters,” another of the soldiers said, though he didn’t seem certain.
Rumi shook his head. “My father is the monster. You have all seen the way he has treated me and my brothers, the way he has treated all of you, his own subjects, whom he should care for instead of send an army to fight, for these many years. But we have and have always had protectors and benefactors from the magical world who have watched for as long as they could and who have finally stepped in to make certain a good king rises up to lead us all.”
I couldn’t help but smile at my outstanding omega. Ifthe cruel world had allowed omegas to be kings, he would have made a magnificent one.
“What do we do, then?” the doubtful soldier asked Rumi. “What plan did Lord Osric leave behind for us to rescue him?”
“The dragons are able to conjure magical doorways to wherever they need to go,” Rumi said. “Once you have all rested and recovered, we will march through one of those doorways and straight into the castle itself. We could secure the castle before my father and his armies return from today’s battle. They will walk into a trap, we will rescue Osric, and my father will find himself overthrown before dawn breaks on a new day.”
Unsurprisingly, Rumi’s words revived the army, giving them energy and purpose again.
“Let us go now,” one of the soldiers said. “The sooner we secure the castle the better.”
“We’re in no shape to fight another battle before recovering from this one,” someone else told him. “And besides, just moments ago, you were more interested in fighting me than the real enemy.”
“That’s right,” someone else said. “I was attacked by some of our own.”
More shouts and cries of indignation followed, and within moments, the entire army was on edge again, friend glaring suspiciously at friend. Even without magic, I worried that the army would attack itself and the war would be lost without fighting another skirmish.
“Magic turned you against yourselves,” I called out. “There is a dark sorcerer somewhere in our midst that enchanted our army during the battle, causing you to turn against each other. But we will not allow that to happenagain. We are brothers! We are comrades in arms. No magical spell can change that.”
I felt a rush of relief from Rumi as my words had the desired effect. Confusion replaced the growing suspicion, and instead of drawing weapons and going at each other, Osric’s soldiers began to question and comfort each other when they realized the truth of how they’d been tricked.
“We still have to find the dark sorcerer,” Rumi said after the soldiers were all ordered to rest and regroup, as we headed to the center of the disheveled camp, where his brothers and mine had gathered. “I don’t for a second believe he’s run off just because Osric was captured.”
I knew my mate was right. Worse still, I could feel prickles down my back as the thought that everything we said and did was being watched and monitored by our worst enemy of all.
