“Can Sebastian just stay here and we can still tell the Emperor that he’s been kidnapped by the elves?” suggested Anne. “The rebel army does have elves in it.”

Corvina shook her head. “The only way any of this works is if Sebastian is kept in the Sacred Forest. That way, the Emperor can’t send agents to get Sebastian back because they wouldn’t be able to make it past the Sacred Forest’s natural magical barrier, and he can’t take any action to destroy the Sacred Forest’s natural magical barrier because there’s a chance he’d kill Sebastian in the process. The whole point is the double-protection.”

“But we could still tell him that Sebastian’s in the Sacred Forest,” countered Anne.

“You think he’s just going to take our word for it?” asked Corvina. “He’s going to use any means possible to verify where Sebastian is just as soon as he receives word of a kidnapping. The only reason we’re getting away with our lies right now is because he doesn’t care enough to look into them.”

The inner circle (Anne, Corvina, Eva, Agis, Sebastian, Helen, and Ylyndar) were all seated around an empty fire pit in the rebel camp, discussing what to do about their current problem… again.

Agis felt like they had been repeating the same conversations over and over again for the past week.

They’d sent a bunch of messages to Elyon trying to win him over and heard nothing back, and they’d even dispatched a few letters to Zaos, although Agis really didn’t think Zaos would care enough to respond, either.

And since no one would talk to them, all they could do was stand around and have the same few arguments over and over again.

At this point Agis had largely checked out and was just poking at the empty fire pit with a stick.

“For Goddess’ sake, maybe I should just go ahead and wander into the forest on my own and hope an elf finds me and kidnaps me,” said Sebastian.

“I would advise against it, your highness,” said Ylyndar. “The Sacred Forest can be a dangerous place for a human by themselves.”

“I know, I’m just saying,” mumbled Sebastian.

There were still a few glowing embers left in the fire pit from when people were cooking breakfast a short time ago. Agis was sort of pushing them around, seeing if he could put them out by covering them with ash. There was no real reason to do this. It was just something to do.

“Perhaps we could go above the princes’ heads,” said Corvina. “Contact the King of the Elves directly. What do you think?”

Breakfast had mostly been dried venison. A lot of meals at the rebel camp involved dried venison, because it was easy to store. Agis was getting kind of tired of dried venison.

“Agis!”

Agis looked up, still holding the stick he was using to poke at the ashes. Lady Corvina was looking right at him. “Huh?”

“What do you think about us contacting your father directly?” asked Corvina. “Would he help us?”

Agis stared at Corvina for a moment like she had said something truly crazy.

“No,” he said, finally.

“Really?” said Corvina. “You don’t think he’d see how our plan could benefit his kingdom?”

Agis shrugged. “He wouldn’t care.”

“You must understand,” said Ylyndar. “The King of the Elves is very old. He no longer takes a very active role in governance. He’s the ultimate authority and his word is final, of course, but generally he leaves the day-to-day operations of the kingdom up to his two eldest sons and the High Elven Council.”

But Corvina didn’t want to let her idea go. “But if he’s still the primary authority, then maybe we could convince him—“

“Look, my dad barely views anyone other than himself as a person,” said Agis. “Even other elves. Even a lot of his own kids. Humans barely even register to him. They’re like ants. He’s just a selfish old man who can barely see beyond his own nose anymore. And if you tried to interrupt one of his parties to ask him for help, he’d probably just kill you and get right back to his wine and song. He just doesn’t care.”

“Geez,” said Anne. “Why did you keep trying to convince me to go to the elf palace, then, if our dad sucks that much?”

“Oh, um…” Agis suddenly felt super embarrassed. He usually tried not to speak badly of his father. Especially around humans. He was supposed to maintain the pride of an elven prince. But he was bored and annoyed so it was harder than usual to filter his words.

And, if he was being honest, the fact that this mission so closely involved his family was starting to take a toll on him.

“I mean, he wouldn’t actually kill you, cause you’re his daughter,” mumbled Agis. “You hardly even have to see him there, really, as long as you avoid the parties, which is pretty easy to do cause they’re so loud. And there are a lot of nice people at the palace, too… It’s mostly just Dad who sucks.”

Anne reached over to pat Agis on the back a couple times.

Corvina sighed and stood up. “We’re clearly not getting anywhere today, either. Let’s give it one more day to see if we hear back from Prince Elyon, and if we don’t, we may have to consider abandoning this plan altogether and finding a new course of action.”

Agis stayed seated as the others began to get up and move away. The mood around the camp in general was pretty tense and antsy, but for some reason Anne and Corvina, who had been arguing about what to do just moments before, were now standing unusually close to each other, chatting and laughing about something.

Eva was standing a few feet away from them, smiling her usual smile. But Agis had known Eva for long enough to tell there was some sort of edge there.

Ah, well, thought Agis, with a sigh. If something important is happening, they’ll tell me eventually.

Then Helen sat down next to him and he forgot all about any of that.

“Hey,” said Helen, leaning over to knock into his shoulder with her shoulder.

“Hey…” said Agis, blushing.

“Can I ask you something?” asked Helen.

Usually when she talked to him, Helen’s deep brown eyes were lit up with a mischievous smile, but right now they looked dull and worried. Agis could tell this must be something serious.

“Yes, of course,” said Agis. “What is it?”

Helen grabbed Agis’ arm and looked at him with a desperate expression. “Will you teach me how to shoot?”

“What!?” asked Agis, taken aback.

“The other day, my lady’s life was in danger,” said Helen, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “And I couldn’t do anything to help her. Instead, I just got in her way, letting the bad guy take me hostage and everything. I don’t want anything like that to happen again!”

“Okay, but… couldn’t you learn sword-fighting or something?” asked Agis. “You know plenty of people who could teach you that, right?”

“I’ve put a lot of thought into it, but—“ Helen sat back in her seat, and lifted her hand to her neck pensively. “I can’t forget the memory of that person’s knife on my neck. I don’t think I could stand to fight someone close up. But if I was an archer I could support Lady Corvina from a distance. Please, you have to help me! You’re the best archer I know!”

“Well, when you put it that way,” said Agis, blushing again and sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah, of course I’ll teach you!”

“Oh Agis, thank you, thank you!” said Helen, throwing her arms around Agis.

Agis tried to hide a smile.

Okay, he thought to himself, Maybe this whole situation isn’t all bad.

Sebastian was pretty sure it was all bad.

He had to spend all his time in this uncomfortable camp where everyone visibly hated him. He was pretty sure that if Ylyndar didn’t stick by his side most of the time, someone would have tried to kill him by now. And he missed his comfortable bed in the palace.

And, yeah, he was never really all that happy at the palace, either. But it was hard to use shallow comforts to distract you from your misery in a place so fundamentally uncomfortable.

And now it was looking like all his noble self-sacrifice was going to be for nothing…

When he was feeling particularly down, Sebastian tended to wander over to where the horses were kept.

“Hey, how are you holding up?” asked Anne, walking up to him.

“A bit better now that I’ve got a horse to pat,” said Sebastian, patting his horse on the neck.

“That’s good, then!” said Anne, with a cheerful smile.

Anne always made a point of it to talk to Sebastian whenever she was in the camp for any reason, and Sebastian did appreciate that. After all, it was for the sake of their friendship that he was even there in the first place.

“Um, Anne…” said Sebastian, nervously.

“Yeah?” said Anne.

“Do you think I could go back to the city if we don’t hear back soon?” he asked. “After all, part of the point of this was to save me from assassins, right? But it seems like you’re the one being targeted by an assassin, not me. So wouldn’t it be okay if I went home?”

“Um…” said Anne. “Well, the thing is, we probably changed fate a bit just by coming here. And if you go back to the city now, we don’t know if fate will change back and you’ll end up being targeted again.”

Sebastian sighed. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” Then, he thought of something, something much more fun to talk about. “So, Anne…” he said, giving her a knowing sideways look. “It looks like you and Corvina are getting along well these days.”

“Ha ha, is that what it looks like?” said Anne, grinning. “It’s true, since we made up from our fight we’ve been closer friends than ever! It’s nice.”

“Just friends, huh?” said Sebastian. He raised a meaningful eyebrow. “Tell me, Saintess, are you in love with my sister?”

“Oh, well, I mean, yeah, of course I am,” said Anne.

Sebastian covered his mouth with his hands. “You are!?” he said. “I mean, of course you are! You really love her! I knew it!”

“I mean, that’s not important, though,” said Anne.

“What?” said Sebastian, suddenly confused. “What do you mean it’s not important?”

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t come out to you sooner,” said Anne, patting Sebastian on the back. “After you already came out to me and everything. We’ve just been so busy, and… well, it doesn’t matter. The point is that I’m also gay, so you don’t have to feel so alone or self conscious about that anymore.”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” said Sebastian, waving a hand dismissively. “But that aside, why is it not important if you’re in love with Corvina?”

“Oh, because obviously she could never feel that way about me,” said Anne, matter-of-factly.

Sebastian was stunned. “Why are you so sure of that?”

Anne shrugged. “Because no one’s ever liked me that way before, and the few times I’ve tried it with people, well… it didn’t go well. And I realized it’s not really fair for me to impose my feelings on other people, so. Honestly, I’m really happy just being close friends like we are now. I don’t need anything more than that.”

To Sebastian, Anne had always seemed so confident and self-assured. She clearly wasn’t bothered by the same societal hang ups that he was in regards to his sexual interests. And objectively speaking, she was quite the catch. She was both charming and kind, she occupied a powerful social position, and, although he recognized he wasn’t necessarily the best judge of female beauty, she was pretty good looking. And yet she seemed so utterly convinced she was unlovable she didn’t leave any room for argument.

“So you’re really not gonna tell her how you feel?” asked Sebastian.

“Oh my god, no, of course not!” said Anne. “Well… I kind of already told her once, but I was drunk, and I played it off as an elf thing. But… you better not tell her, either, okay! I mean it. I really am happy with things as they are. If you tell her I’ll deny it.”

“Alright, I understand…” said Sebastian.

“Awesome,” Anne patted Sebastian on the arm. “I know this whole thing can’t be fun, but just hang in there a bit longer, buddy. We’ll figure something out. Now I should probably go find Eva. If we’re done here for the day we need to head back to the church. The High Clerics have been asking us to help out with a bunch of stuff since we got back to Longren, and I’d rather get it done early in the day if I can.”

Sebastian watched Anne walk away, still with a smile on her face after saying such devastating things as if they were just naturally occurring laws of the universe that everyone already knew and accepted, and he felt his heart break a little.

That’s it, thought Sebastian.

He marched through the camp until he managed to track down Corvina, who was watching some of the rebel army soldiers run drills in the makeshift training grounds.

“Corvina!” said Sebastian, with a big frown on his face.

“Yes?” said Corvina. “What do you—“

Sebastian kicked her in the shin.

“Ow!” said Corvina, hopping up and down and grabbing her leg. “What was that for?”

“You have to tell Anne you love her already!” said Sebastian.

“Ssssh!” said Corvina, covering Sebastian’s mouth. “Don’t say that so loud! I was planning to, I just—Wait, why do you look like you’re about to cry?”

Before Sebastian could answer, Ylyndar came running up, out of breath.

“My lady,” he said, between gulping breaths. “Your highness, he’s here. He’s come here himself.”

“What?” said Corvina, stepping away from Sebastian. “Who’s here?”

But while Corvina was interrogating the breathless Ylyndar, Sebastian looked behind him, to where an elf on horseback was following close behind.

The elven man was tall, and noble in bearing. He had sharp blue eyes, and short, wispy brown hair parted down the middle. He wore a pair of round spectacles, and a full set of leather armor in shades of brown and green.

Something about him gave Sebastian the impression of a scholar dressed up in a hunter’s clothes. It seemed mismatched, and yet he moved with such confidence that it would be hard to say that it didn’t suit him anyway.

The elf stopped his horse in front of Sebastian and Corvina, and when he briefly made eye contact with Sebastian it sent shivers down his spine.

Wait, what? What was with that reaction? Who was this?

“I greet you, royal children of the Wyernwolf Empire,” said the elf. “I am Elyon Clearshot, son of Thoedas Clearshot, Second Prince of the Sacred Forest and Commander General of the Royal Guard. I believe we have business to discuss.”