Page 20

Chapter

Ten

Rumi

O bi shouted for joy and even Misha burst into tears of relief as Osric stepped out of his cell looking ready for battle.

“Where is Freslik now?” he asked, striding up the long row of cells toward the dungeon stairs.

His progress was interrupted by cries of, “Help us! Help us, please!” from the ragged men in the other cells.

Osric stopped and surveyed the men in the cells immediately around us. “Are these noblemen who helped plot against Freslik?” he asked.

“They must be,” I replied, my heart aching for the prisoners.

No, it wasn’t my heart that was aching and it wasn’t just the prisoners who made me feel miserable. My egg felt like it was growing with every second that ticked by, quickly getting too large for either of our health. And my heart was heavy because my bond with Emmerich was still dark and cold.

I didn’t realize that I’d stopped again and hunched into one of the walls separating cells until Osric glanced back at me with concern. “Rumi, are you well?”

“I—” If I was honest, I wasn’t well at all.

“He’s half-bred,” Selle answered for me in a quiet voice. “And his mate and ours are prisoners of the evil sorcerer Nazeing.”

“Nikkos is Nazeing,” Obi rushed to add, his eyes large and his face flushed. “The enemy really has been in your camp the entire time.”

Osric scowled as if furious. “I knew I should have checked,” he said, mostly to himself. He shook his head, took in a breath, then looked back at us. “There will be time to right all our wrongs later,” he said. “For now, we need to move quickly to end this war.”

“But how?” Tovey asked, catching up to Osric as we marched on toward the stairs. “Nazeing has all of our mates in his grasp. We don’t know what happened to your army.”

That caused Osric to stop and turn back to us again. “They aren’t still in the field?”

I shook my head. “We came up with a plan to make doorways into the castle so that we could reach here before our father. The main doorway led straight into the Great Hall, but as soon as the six of us and our mates walked through it, Nazeing must have closed it before any of your men could follow us.”

“There were other doors, though,” Selle remembered, excitement lighting his expression. “Bronnen and Hellis and some of your other lieutenants were planning on taking troops into the gardens so that the castle would be surrounded inside and out. ”

“But did those doorways close when Nazeing took over our mates?” Misha asked in a quiet voice.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Osric said.

He raised a hand, dissolving the bars of all the cells in the dungeon. Cries and moans of relief echoed off the thick stone walls as the captive noblemen and merchants rushed out of their cells.

Osric continued forward, the six of us following him. “We have to hope that my men were clever enough to go through the other doorways when the one leading into the Great Hall closed,” he said as we headed up to the corridor.

“Will they know what the doorways are?” I asked. “How much experience with the magical world do your men have?”

Osric turned to grin at me as I flanked him, Leo marching on his other side. “More than you might expect,” he said. “It’s been known in my inmost circle that I am a dragon from the very start.”

“But how?” Obi burst, catching up and wedging his way between me and Osric. “How is it possible that you’re a dragon living in this world? I know you said your family has been here for generations, but aren’t dragons only allowed in the magical world?”

The castle was relatively quiet, though the freed prisoners were dashing through the halls, looking for a way out, so Osric stopped and pulled us all into an alcove off to one side.

“Obsidian dragons have lived outside of the magical realm in more places than just this world for generations,” he explained quickly.

“As you might imagine, we are shadow dragons. We move in secret and keep out of the way of the magical community. My great-great-grandfather settled the family in this world when he was young. His brother settled in an entirely different world.”

“Does that mean there are more dragons in this world?” I asked. “More than just you?”

Osric smiled, then laughed and rested a hand on my shoulder. “My dear cousin, there are secret dragons everywhere. Some of them have been closer to you than you might have realized.”

“What does that mean?” Misha asked, glancing around worriedly, as if one of those dragons might pounce on him at any moment.

Osric smiled broadly. “Have you ever wondered why the six of you make such perfect mates for dragons from the magical realm? Why they were drawn immediately to you?” He looked at me in particular, as if he must have known Emmerich found me before any of his brothers claimed my brothers.

“We have something to do with the dragons of this world, don’t we,” Selle said, seemingly delighted by the possibility.

Osric grinned and nodded at him. “You come from dragon stock.”

“Papa?” Misha asked, eyes going wide.

“Your papa was the omega son of an obsidian dragon, a distant cousin of mine,” Osric said, looking absolutely delighted to tell us the truth. “All six of you have dragon blood running through you.”

“But that’s impossible…isn’t it?” Leo asked, looking simultaneously delighted and confused by the idea.

Osric shrugged. “No more impossible than my papa, Freslik’s own brother, falling in love and running away with an obsidian dragon.”

“But Father caught your father and had him killed,” I said, trying to remember family history with everything else swirling around me and time breathing down our necks.

“He did,” Osric said, grief momentarily hanging heavy on him. “My father was caught unawares and killed before he could use magic to save himself. He had enough left to cloak my papa with it so that he could make it to my family’s home.”

“But if we have dragon blood,” Tovey said as Osric gestured for us to start moving again, “does that mean we have magic?”

I hadn’t even thought of that. The idea thrilled me. If my brothers and I had any sort of magic at all, we might be able to save Emmerich and the others.

“What do you think?” Osric asked, marching through the castle as if he knew exactly where he was going. As far as I could tell, he was heading toward one of the castle gardens.

“I feel so much more at home in the magical world than I do here,” Misha said.

“Diamant and I had incredible luck when we were fighting against Rottum and my father last year,” Leo said.

“We got away with so much, even though Father kept us locked in our room,” Selle said. “Were we controlling him in some way without even knowing it?”

“You might have been,” Osric said, turning a corner and heading toward an open doorway that led to the garden.

“If we do have magic, how do we use it now?” Obi asked as we all followed Osric through the doorway and out into one of the larger of the castle gardens.

His question went unanswered as soon as we saw what awaited us in the waning light of evening.

The garden was full of Osric’s soldiers, but they all merely stood around, looking as confused and vacant as my brothers’ mates had after Nazeing cast his spell over them.

The doorway the soldiers had come through was gone, but it looked as though at least half of Osric’s army had made it through.

“What’s wrong with them?” Tovey asked, stepping up to one of them and waving a hand in front of his face.

Osric went to examine another of his men. “They’ve been stupefied,” he said. He checked on another of his soldiers and another, then came across Bronnen, who just stood there helplessly. “They’ve all been stupefied. Nazeing is as powerful as ever, it seems.”

“Was he powerful back then?” I asked, uncertain what sort of answer I wanted to hear. “When he was…together with Emmerich?”

Osric walked back to me, an apologetic look on his face. “He must have been,” he said. “Sorcerers don’t become this powerful overnight.”

“How do we defeat him?” I asked, more determined than ever to win my mate back and make Nazeing pay for what he’d done.

Osric looked momentarily uncertain. “Magic like this takes an even greater magic to overcome. We will all need to work together.”

“But how?” Leo asked. “Up until five minutes ago, none of us knew that we possessed any magic at all.”

“Or did we?” I asked, inspiration striking me. I moved closer to my brothers, gesturing for them to gather around. “Don’t we always feel better when we’re all together? And haven’t things been falling apart at an accelerated rate as we’ve all grown and gone our own ways with our mates?”

“Yes,” Selle answered me uncomfortably. “I don’t like the idea of us growing apart because we’ve found our mates, though. ”

“We aren’t growing apart,” Tovey said, putting his hand on Selle’s arm. “We’re just growing. We’re all mated to dragons who are brothers. I have the feeling we’ll remain closer than a lot of brothers do when they go off to marry and have families of their own.”

“And we’ve been through so much together,” Misha added.

“We’re powerful when we stand together,” Leo said, glancing at me with a knowing smile.

“Powerful enough to break a dark sorcerer’s spell and free Osric’s army?” I asked, guessing what he was thinking.

“Do you think we can?” Obi asked, nearly bouncing with excitement.

“We could try,” I said.

I held out my hand. Leo quickly put his on top of mine, and Selle added his hand to the pile. Misha, Obi, and Tovey were quick to join us. As soon as all six of us had joined our hands between us, I felt a rush of something deep and powerful encircle us.

“You see?” Osric said, like he was a teacher and we were his star pupils. “Together, you have more power than you know.”

“Let’s try to break the spell on the soldiers,” I said, closing my eyes.