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“She’ll have to go back to the magical world,” Gildur said, glancing at Selle as if getting his agreement. Selle nodded, and Gildur went on with, “We’ll take her to Mother to see what she wants to do with her, since she’s clearly violated the terms of her previous punishment.”

To all of our surprise, Saoirse burst out with, “Yes! Take me to Queen Gaia! Take me back into the magical world. I don’t care what happens to me there, at least I’ll be safe from Nazeing.”

A shiver passed down my spine as Gildur and Selle stepped forward to grab Saoirse’s arms and help her to her feet. If someone like Lady Saoirse was that enthusiastic about wanting to return to the very person who had punished her by taking her power, then Nazeing was someone to be feared indeed.

“What do we do now?” I asked Emmerich as Gildur created a doorway to take Saoirse back into the magical world.

There was a sudden, bright light as the doorway opened.

For half a second, I felt calm and content.

I wanted to rush through the doorway into the magical world so I could return to the castle, birth my egg, and live in peace and accord for the rest of my days.

But the doorway quickly closed, leaving all of us in the same confused and conflicted state we were in before.

“We have to find a way to end this battle immediately,” Osric answered me.

Emmerich and I both turned to face him as he shifted to sweep all of us with a look.

Osric glanced past us to his frozen army as well.

Everyone within sight was still paused, their bodies stretched and extended in battle poses.

Even those closer to us, like Bronnen and Nikkos, were as still as statues, looks of concern and panic on their faces.

“Now that we know Nazeing is fighting on Freslik’s side, it changes everything,” Osric went on, his voice heavy with defeat. “That bastard has already turned my army against itself. If we let the battle continue, good men will die needlessly. It has to end.”

“What can we do to end it but fight?” Leo asked, looking like he was ready to continue and win the war all by himself.

“We can surrender,” Osric said in a low voice.

The effect of his words was immediate and strong.

“What? No!” Obi shouted, his eyes wide. “We can’t just give up.”

“I’m ready to fight if you are, cousin,” Argus said, still managing to find humor in the situation as he smirked at Osric.

“Are we certain surrender is the best option?” Azurus asked. “Surely, there are other things we can try.”

A flicker of movement where there shouldn’t have been any caught my eye. I turned to seek out what it might have been, but all I saw was the statue version of Nikkos with Bronnen and a few others behind him.

I narrowed my eyes and studied Nikkos more intently. He was breathing. I could see the gentle rise and fall of his chest, even though the rest of him was frozen completely. As I continued to stare, he blinked.

I caught my breath and glanced at Emmerich, wondering if he’d seen the same thing. If Nikkos wasn’t completely paused, it had to mean he had some sort of magic in him. He could be another magnifier for Nazeing.

Another thought struck me. Nazeing was an omega.

If he was powerful enough to turn an entire army against itself and to use someone who had lost their magic as a magnifier, maybe he could disguise himself so completely that not even someone like Emmerich, who had known him in the past, would recognize him.

I glanced back at Nikkos, who was still breathing. A surge of excitement laced with panic swirled around me. Was it possible the darkest sorcerer of all time, the traitor in our midst, was actually in our midst at that moment and had heard our entire conversation?

“Whatever decision we make,” Rufus was saying as my attention turned back to my brothers and their mates, “we have to make it now. The pausing spell is already breaking.”

My excitement deflated a bit. Rufus was right. All around us, the soldiers were beginning to twitch and breathe and blink. There was nothing special or suspicious about Nikkos. Everyone was moving ever so slightly now.

“You cannot surrender,” Diamant said, as if continuing an argument that had begun when I wasn’t paying attention. “What good would it do?”

“It would stop this battle,” Osric answered right away. “It would spare the lives of good men who have been tricked into turning against each other.”

“And it would convince Freslik that you believe yourself to be defeated,” Emmerich said. I felt a sense of cleverness and cunning from him through our stretched bond that told me he sensed something deeper in Osric’s plan.

Osric grinned at him. “Precisely,” he said.

Another sweep of surprise hit the rest of us.

“You intend to allow yourself to be captured so you can find a way to fight against Freslik from the inside,” Argus said, nodding sagely.

“It’s too risky,” Tovey said, shaking his head. “Father will have you thrown in the dungeon and guarded.”

“He’ll put a chain around your neck, like the one he used with Argus, because you’re…you’re a dragon, right?” Obi asked, gazing at Osric in awe.

“He likely will,” Osric said. “But fortunately for me, I have strong allies who will remain united apart from Freslik and his pet sorcerer. You can follow shortly behind me, find a secret way into the castle, and both rescue me and bring an army to subdue Freslik with you.”

Nikkos twitched, which was even more of an indication that the pausing spell was failing.

“There isn’t time to debate it,” Osric said, starting forward through his men. “I will walk into Freslik’s camp before this spell breaks. He’ll be surprised to see me there, offering myself for surrender, and he’ll order the battle to stop.”

We launched into motion, following him through the softening soldier statues. It felt strange to walk through the unfinished battle.

“Can we turn some of these men away from each other so that when they unpause they will attack air instead of each other?” I asked Emmerich.

My dragon smiled at me. “That’s a good idea.” He spoke up so everyone else could hear and said, “If Osric is intent on doing this, the rest of us should do whatever we can to stop the awakening soldiers from doing each other any more harm before the spell is broken.”

Osric stopped and turned back to us. “Yes,” he said. “Do that. I need to forge ahead and surrender on my own in any case.”

None of us wanted to let Osric submit himself to whatever punishment my father was bound to give him.

There was as much a chance that Father would kill Osric on the spot as take him prisoner.

Osric had to know that, and as we watched him walk beyond the edge of the battle and across the short, empty space of field to where my father’s command center stood off at a distance, I hoped he had enough magic to prevent himself from being senselessly killed.

“I don’t like any of this,” I confided in Emmerich a few minutes later, as we set to work shifting frozen soldiers away from each other so that the blows they’d been about to land would miss their marks. It was harder work than it looked.

“I don’t like it either,” Emmerich said, the emotions coming through our bond strange and confusing.

We finished moving an already wounded soldier to the side so that he wouldn’t be stabbed by his attacker and I paused to study my mate with slightly narrowed eyes. “You know more than you’re saying, don’t you,” I said. “You know who Nazeing is.”

I felt the distant rush of shame through our bond, but it only made me more restless. “I do,” Emmerich said, his face turned down a bit.

“You knew him before he turned into a dark sorcerer,” I said rather than asked, repeating what Azurus had said earlier.

Emmerich sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “I did,” he said. “It was a colossal misunderstanding.”

Those simple words made me even more curious. I had my suspicions about what had happened, about what Emmerich and Nazeing the talented omega had been to each other, but I wanted Emmerich to tell me before I guessed aloud.

“Yes, I will admit it,” Emmerich said, letting his shoulders drop. “Nazeing and I were?—”

Before he could finish, the roars and cries of battle suddenly sounded again as every soldier around us rushed into motion once more. I had to dodge the man we’d just moved to avoid a hammer blow and ended up pressing myself tightly into Emmerich’s arms.

The spell was broken and everything around us turned to chaos once more.

For a moment, I felt like I was in serious danger of being smashed from behind until a trumpet sounded from the direction of my father’s camp, followed by someone’s magnified voice shouting, “Hold! The war is over! The traitor Osric has surrendered! King Freslik has won!”