“She haunted the walls,” I said.
“Where else could she go?” Belshazzar asked, addressing no one in particular. “Where could she hide?”
“Hide and manage to live,” Rilen said. “The Rocks are out.”
“The Rocks are too close to the stronghold,” I said. “The pine forest, too.”
“She wouldn’t be able to hide in the south,” Roran said. “The Burning Lands are terrible for hiding. Too flat.”
“The Burnt Woods would reject her,” Rilen said. “And possibly drive her even madder.”
“We’ve already eliminated the Cauldron,” the military man said. “There is no easy escape from those waters, and I’m sure she’s not an accomplished mariner.”
“That leaves two places,” Roran said. “The Elkthorne Forest and the Barren Mountains.”
Aiko clearly cringed and sighed. “And the way to the Barren Mountains from here is through the Elkthorne Forest.”
“Are you going to destroy Niniane?” one of the others asked from the shadows.
“She’s already been destroyed,” I answered. “We are going to save Gwen from her, and if we can remove her crown, we will.”
“She needs to die,” the military man said. “She needs to be destroyed. We are here below the ground because we don’t know when her insane loyalists will attack us.”
“Random attacks?”
The woman nodded. “Yes.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I lost my mate and my oldest child to her first attack.”
“After the second raid, we moved ourselves to the underground,” the military man said. “Those not loyal to Niniane send warnings if they can. But since she left the Stronghold, it’s been hard for them to do so.”
“Who is still in the Stronghold?” Aiko asked.
“Several of the Lord Knights and just one general,” he answered.
“Kane?” Aiko questioned.
The military man agreed. “And Tatano.”
“Georgios?”
“Still alive, but ensconced in Winter Keep.”
“And Illian?”
“Dead,” he assured us. “Good and dead. Kane ran him through with a sword, cut off his head, and threw him on the Rocks.” The man canted his head and stared at Aiko. “How do you know all these generals and knights?”
He glanced at Rilen, who nodded, and I concurred with his permission to state his name. Aiko wasn’t excited to do it, but he did. “Because I am the Lord Knight Aiko Elkthorne.”
At least half of the guns in the small room cocked back, ready to fire. Aiko dropped his sword on the ground carefully and raised his hands.
“I am not a loyalist, and I was not allied with Savion.”
“Your sister was his mistress,” the woman said, waving down all the guns. “You were allied with him for a long time.”
“Not anymore. He killed her, and I realized what I had chosen to support was wrong. That was nearly two centuries ago, my lady.”
“How do we know you’re not a spy?”
“Savion took my sister’s head off?”
