Page 115 of Kingdom of Dance

“She was in a broom cupboard,” one of the guards told his king grimly.

“Mother,” Obsidian gasped, wrenching an arm free from one of his restraining guards.

At a nod from the king, the others released him, and he ran to his mother. She was out cold, but she was breathing, and he could have cried with his relief. Now that he was so close, he could sense the magic coating her, suffocatingly thick, and with an unstable feel to it, as if it could explode with very little provocation.

“Well?” he demanded, turning first to Rekavidur, then to the unknown dragon elder. “Can you sense the magic on her? Can you trace it back to its source?”

It maddened him that Idric still reclined at his leisure, as if utterly unconcerned by any of it. He was overconfident. Surely his illicit involvement in Lorne’s evil magic was about to be uncovered.

“I can, in fact, sense whose magic it is,” Dannsair cut in, an edge to her voice that Obsidian couldn’t identify.

“And?” he pressed, his heart pounding with vicious satisfaction. “Whose is it?”

She stared at him out of unblinking yellow eyes. “Yours, actually.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

For a painfully long moment, Obsidian just stared at her, his mouth open and his mind blank.

“Mine?” he repeated at last. “It can’t be mine.”

But as he turned back to his mother, he realized the dragon was right. The magic was warped, twisted to a purpose Obsidian would never have pursued. But at its root, it was as familiar as his own hands. The horror of it all was unspeakable—his own magic truly had been within a hairsbreadth of killing his mother, as he’d often feared it might.

“Guards,” King Bern snapped, and two men advanced on Obsidian.

“Wait!” he pleaded. “Let me free her first.”

He squinted, reaching out to the magic that was wrapped around his mother’s still form. It fought feebly against him, but without its usurper, Lorne, awake to direct it, the power soon reverted to its first master, responding to his direction. It took him a painfully tense moment to unravel the complex twist of the enchantment, but once he’d done so, the process of lifting it was almost instantaneous.

His mother, free of any kind of magic, blinked at once. Her expression confused, she pushed herself into a sitting position, as her eyes locked on Obsidian.

“Sid,” she said, her whole frame relaxing in relief. “Well, that’s all right, then.”

“Mother.” Obsidian could feel the color draining from his face as his own relief made him weak. He dropped to one knee beside her. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry I put you through this.”

“Don’t fuss, Sid,” said his mother matter-of-factly. “I’m fine. I’m too tough to be rattled by some self-aggrandizing criminal, with or without magic.”

In spite of her bold words, she looked pale, and her hand shook slightly as she patted Obsidian’s arm in a reassuring manner.

“I want answers.” King Bern’s commanding voice rang out across the packed room. Obsidian had to admire his poise—even the dragons crouched improbably inside the ballroom were caught in his wrathful gaze. “Who orchestrated this attack against my family?”

His eyes narrowed as they passed from the unconscious Lorne to Obsidian, then on to Zinnia, whom the guards had released but were still surrounding. Both her brother and her sister hovered protectively inside the guards’ circle.

“Your Majesty,” Obsidian said, inclining his upper body in a bow. “This man, Lorne, is not…is not…” He let out a growl of frustration. Even after everything, he was still under Idric’s silencing magic. He couldn’t name the dragon, or even announce that Lorne had acted as someone else’s puppet.

He glanced at Idric—the dragon’s eyes were narrowed in annoyance at the failure of his plan, but he showed no trace of fear.

And why should he? There was nothing to connect any of what had just occurred to him. The dragon had covered his tracks well. He would simply find a new enchanter to use as a scapegoat, wait for another opportunity, and try again.

Fury swept over Obsidian, wisps of his magic leaking out without direction and drifting up toward the rafters of the massive room.

“Calm down, young man.” The older enchanter who’d helped defend the newlyweds from Lorne’s attack appeared at Obsidian’s elbow, his expression a little stern. “Losing control of your magic won’t help anyone right now.”

“Master Bartholomew,” King Bern greeted the enchanter with relief. “Can you make sense of any of this?”

“I wish I could, Your Majesty,” said the old man. His bemused gaze passed from Obsidian to Zinnia and back again. “These two certainly behaved as though they were affected by magic, but I can’t sense any on them, other than this young man’s rather excessive amount of natural magic.”

“Guards, seize them both,” King Bern said, his brow stormy.

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