Origin (Scales 'n' Spells 1)

With a great deal of reluctance, Alric stepped away from Cameron. The mage winked at him and dipped back into Lisette’s room. Alric started for his private office again. Danger lay ahead of them and they desperately needed answers, but Alric felt like he could conquer it all because of Cameron.

Lisette clapped her hands together. “Places, everyone!”

Leaning into his side, Cassie muttered to her brother, “I feel like I’m doing some kind of theater production and I’m a chorus girl.”

“Same,” Cameron muttered back. In truth, though, he was more than a little nervous. None of them had a great deal of magic training under their belt, but for this, they all needed to pitch in.

Today was the day they sent a drone into enemy territory.

A magical drone, of course.

Every mage the clan had was present, all of them cooperating to do the working. Spells over a long distance like this functioned in multiple parts: one part to control the ‘drone’—in this case a shadow cat—another to stream all of what the drone heard and saw back to the castle, and yet a third to display that information in a mirror so everyone could see it. Lisette had tacked on a fourth spell to record everything into a memory crystal in case they wanted to review it again later. Odds were good they would.

Nine mages were arrayed around Lisette’s worktable. Dieter, Alric, Sasha, and Gunter were all nearby, trying to stay out of the way but close enough to watch the proceedings. Baldewin was holding up the door with Ravi, keeping people out, but both of them were watching with intent interest.

Cameron ran his eye over the table once more. Map with precise location to deploy shadow cat, check. Energy stream powered by will o’ the wisp, check. Connection between that and mirror ready, but not in place just yet. That was the last spell to do.

This was interesting for Cameron, in more ways than one, as he’d never worked a spell in conjunction with other mages before. But it was also interesting to see how Dieter and Lisette orbited around each other. She was clearly drawing on dragon magic to do some of her prep spells. Dieter would sometimes come in close, breathe a kiss near her temple, or place a hand at the small of her back, like he was giving her a boost. Then he’d step back, propping himself up against the wall like furniture. Cameron watched this play out from the corner of his eye with extreme interest. So that’s how a dragon-mage partnership performed during a major working, eh?

Dieter wasn’t the only dragon in the room, of course. The spouses of the other mages were present too, and they were also holding up the wall. Ready to lend a hand, but out of the way as their mages worked.

Melissande stood ready over the map. As the person who had driven through the town, she knew it better than anyone else at the table. She was the one actually in charge of navigating the cat-drone. At her side was Elissa, ready to act as support. It would take a considerable amount of magic to do this, even with the spell elements of dragon’s fire, stillness of a moonless night, and black sand. They couldn’t do a typical casting, after all. No simple release here. They would have to cast and maintain then withdraw the spell. It was why every mage’s spouse stood at the ready, nearby to help boost their power if so needed.

Frankly, it sounded like a headache. Cameron felt just as glad he wasn’t over that part.

No, he and Cassie were in charge of maintaining the recording from mirror to crystal. Lisette had had them practice it multiple times, but it was an easy spell. Like pushing record. They could manage this no problem. Halmeoni stood at the crystal to make sure it recorded properly, and to pull in a second crystal if the first one became full.

Lisette herself wasn’t going to actively participate, instead reviewing all of the spells and monitoring them. She’d jump in as support where needed. And axe it all if something went wrong, before it could backlash. No one said that last part out loud, though.

Going from one end of the table to the other, Lisette reviewed it all one more time before giving a grunt of satisfaction. “Eure Majestät, we’re ready.”

“Then begin, please.”

Cameron dared a glance at his lover. Alric looked beyond tense, his body nearly rigid as a plank. He’d been angry with himself ever since the Jaeggi Clan had been discovered. Angry and determined to keep them from re-enacting the same sort of disaster of five hundred years ago. Cameron understood those emotions, he didn’t blame Alric for feeling that way, but he needed to relax at some point. It had been three nights since he’d last slept over with Alric. The sweet man was clearly torn between wanting to please Cameron and worrying about his people. Cameron didn’t mind giving him the space he needed to concentrate on his duties…for now. But that much tension held for too long led to bad decisions. Cameron was afraid he’d snap under the strain at some point.