Page 112 of Kingdom of Dance

“I didn’t do it,” he said urgently. “It wasn’t me.”

Zinnia’s eyes were drawn to the dragons. Reka and Dannsair were both tensed, their muscles standing out as they watched the drama unfold. The third dragon was also watching intently, his expression unreadable, but Idric was still reclined, almost lazily. How had he gotten away with intervening so powerfully without the other dragons noticing?

“We must act.” Reka’s gravelly voice cut across the silence caused by the freezing enchantment.

“We cannot,” said the third dragon, his deep, slow voice marking him as a male. “We do not interfere with human-cast enchantments. No matter how dire.”

Another whimper escaped Zinnia’s lips. Was this dragon in on Idric’s schemes, or did he truly not know the enchantment had come from the beast beside him?

She took an involuntary step toward the newly married couple, Amell frozen in place with his arms outstretched in front of an unmoving Aurelia. Even as Zinnia shifted forward, Obsidian stiffened, his gaze flicking to the back of the room, where the commoners were standing frozen.

“There’s another enchanter back there,” he muttered. “Someone active. I can feel their power. I think that’s where the freezing enchantment is coming from.”

Zinnia followed his gaze, but her vision was so blurred by the pain, she couldn’t make anything out for certain. She tried to drop the sword from her grip, but her hand wouldn’t release it. Her mind screamed at her to do it, to attack the royals who were so defenseless, and it took every ounce of the willpower she’d so painfully developed to fight it back, second by second.

Just one moment at a time, she told herself.Just resist for one more moment, then one more.

But there was no end plan in that approach, and she didn’t know how long she could hold out. It wasn’t just the pain—it was the unyielding, mind-warping pressure. There were no words for it.

“You can fight it,” Obsidian said, his voice suddenly intense. “You’re strong, Zinnia. The strongest person I’ve ever met. Stronger than any magic. Stronger than a dragon.”

Zinnia gave a hollow laugh at the empty compliment. Stronger than a dragon? No human was stronger than a dragon. They were as weak as dry grass compared to the all-powerful beasts.

And as she laughed, she moved another step toward Amell and Aurelia. She sent a pleading glance toward Obsidian, and without a word, he reached out and grasped the hilt of the sword in her hand. Again her muscles had an unnatural strength as she resisted his attempt to tug it from her. But, reaching into his pocket, Obsidian muttered something, and an invisible force delivered a sharp zap to Zinnia’s hand. With a little cry, she released the sword at last, and he pulled it fully from her grip.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Zinnia tried to shake her head reassuringly, but her muscles wouldn’t respond to her instructions. She expected Obsidian to cast the sword out of reach, but to her unease, he raised it before him, his gaze passing from the blade to the couple on the dais.

Zinnia could see the raging conflict in his eyes. The sensation was all too familiar, and a new kind of fear lanced through her.

“Obsidian!” she gasped. “How is he controlling you? You’re not under a compulsion enchantment.”

“Lorne has my mother,” Obsidian grunted, looking like every word cost him effort. “If I don’t do my part, he’ll kill her.”

Zinnia’s eyes widened in horror, her throat suddenly so thick she could barely speak.

“What are you going to do?”

The words came out as a whimper, as pain slashed so viciously through her stomach that she thought she might be sliced in two. She bent double from the intensity of it, but her eyes darted back up to Obsidian’s as he spoke.

“What am I going to do?” Obsidian’s dark eyes were nearly black, his expression twisted almost unrecognizably. For a moment, the silence stretched out, broken only by Zinnia’s ragged gasps as she continued to fight the compulsion. “I’m going to do what my mother would want me to do,” he said at last.

The same fear once again encompassed Zinnia’s mind. She thought of every time she’d seen darkness lurking in Obsidian’s haunted eyes. Even now she could see his anger, his frustration at being so powerless, his fear of himself—all of that seemed reflected in those obsidian eyes. But even as she watched, the storm calmed. The pain remained, but the anger seemed to ebb away.

“It’s the second time,” Obsidian said, his voice so broken it made Zinnia’s heart ache. “The second time I’ve lost a parent without even the chance to say goodbye.”

“Obsidian.” Tears were pooling in Zinnia’s eyes, and she made no effort to hold them back. They ran down her cheeks, her sympathy at Obsidian’s pain mingling with the agony still gripping her body. “You are a good man, and a good son. You’ve been backed into a corner no one should ever be in, but you can’t blame yourself. I know how it feels to be powerless, to have no choice, and—”

“I might be in a corner,” Obsidian interrupted unexpectedly, his voice growing more steady. “But I do have a choice. That’s the point. And I know my mother would agree.”

In a swift motion, he threw the guard’s stolen sword away from him. It clattered loudly in the silent space as it skidded all the way down the long aisle. Without pausing, he divested himself of several more blades, hidden in places Zinnia would never have consciously guessed. Then he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Zinnia in an unyielding embrace, pinning her arms to her sides and stopping her from moving farther toward the dais.

“There’s always a choice,” he said simply.

There’s always a choice.

As she slumped against him, the words ripped through Zinnia like searing flame. She let out another cry of pure agony. If she had a choice, how was Idric controlling her like this? Why did her own body fight against her mind, and her mind against her heart? Why did her fingers inch toward the sword in the hand of the nearest frozen guard, while her mind screamed at them to stop? Even worse, why did some part of her mind beg her to just do it, end the agony?

---