The Saintess and the Villainess

Chapter 71

"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."