Page 23 of The Emerald Dragon Prince
“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 soldierto 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!”
Chapter
Seven
Emmerich
After a burst of activity once the warring soldiers around us lurched back into motion, finishing sword swings, completing their roars, and tipping off-balance when they realized they weren’t where they’d been standing seconds before, at least to their minds, everything dropped into confused silence.
It was more than simply the pausing spell breaking and sending the world into motion again. Whatever spell had pit Osric’s forces against each other had broken as well. It left Osric’s men dizzy and confused. The battle cries turned into moans of pain and muttered curses and questions.
“What happened?” one soldier shouted, summing up what everyone must have been thinking.
“You have to take charge,” Rumi whispered by my side, one hand pressed to his belly. “These men need a strong leader, especially with what you’re about to tell them. Theyneed someone who will give them hope that we can still win the war.”
My omega was right. Another blast of magnified sound came from Freslik’s camp, saying, “You’ve lost! Lord Osric is prisoner of King Freslik now! All who supported the traitor will be dealt with harshly.”
The confusion among Osric’s men doubled. Panic started to spread as the soldiers looked this way and that, trying to find Osric in their midst.
“No! It can’t be true,” Nikkos said, stumbling out of the position he’d been frozen in for so long. “Osric can’t have surrendered. We need him!”
“It’s alright, Nikkos,” Hellis said, walking over to put her arm around the omega’s shoulders in comfort. “We’ll fight. We’ll get him back. The war isn’t over yet.”
Nikkos burst into tears, lowering his head and hiding his face in his hands. Something about the gesture made me deeply uncomfortable. I almost felt like the omega was laughing instead of crying.
I turned to Rumi, intending to ask him to stand by my side with what I was about to do, but my mate was watching Nikkos with a frown. The suspicion I felt came straight from him.
“Is something the matter?” I asked, reaching through our bond to see if I could feel my way around his emotions and learn more.
As Hellis led Nikkos of to the side and sat with him, Rumi let out a breath and turned to me, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
His answer wasn’t reassuring. I glanced at Nikkos and Hellis, then around at the lost and anxious soldiers, many of whom were wounded. Something had to be done.
