“They know everything of what the Ellcrys means to us. They know what it means if she is destroyed. But what they really seek is to encapsulate the Elves within the Loden, choose a place and time, and then release them to be destroyed. All of them. A massacre of our people—Culph revealed it all to me before Sim and I killed him.”

“This is the worst load of nonsense I have ever listened to!” Basselin interrupted, almost screaming the words he was so outraged. “Do you expect us to believe any of this? Your lies are transparent!”

“But what is the purpose of offering them up for your consideration if they are lies?” Simralin asked him.

“What is the point in our coming back if all we intended to do is tell you lies? What do you think we hope to accomplish?”

“Culph has disappeared,” Ordanna Frae offered. “No one has seen him since Kirisin and Simralin disappeared from the city. Nor have we heard any better reason for why the demonkind do not attack us than the one offered by the boy.”

“You speak like an old fool!” Basselin snapped. “You seem intent on believing these two!”

“Maybe there is reason to do so,” another minister ventured guardedly. Basselin wheeled back toward the King. “My lord, think what this boy is asking of us! Placing our city and our people inside the Elfstone—if indeed that is even possible—is too dangerous. Entrusting the Elfstone to the boy is suicide! Even if he didn’t betray us—something of which I am not at all convinced—he is still only a boy. How can we even think of doing what he suggests?”

“We had better at least consider it, Basselin,” said the tall, sharp-featured woman the first minister had been talking to earlier. “Our only other choice is to flee this army that surrounds us. Thousands of Elves would perish in any escape attempt. There is no chance that all of us can hope to elude an army of the size and swiftness of the one that threatens.”

“Some would die, yes,” Basselin conceded. “Better some than all. We must make that sacrifice.”

“Basselin is making a hard choice, but it may be the right one,” another of the Council declared. There were murmurs of assent from some of the others. The discussion went on, and Kirisin found himself studying the faces of the men and women speaking, trying to read what was behind their words. As they talked, the King sat stone-faced atop the dais, and although he had said little since his initial outburst, he was clearly unconvinced of what needed doing.

Simralin stepped close. “I don’t like how this sounds,” she whispered, as if reading his thoughts.

“They don’t trust me,” he whispered back. “I don’t blame them.”