Chapter 122

“I understand your concern, but there are two things wrong in that logic,” she said, putting up a finger to make her point. “First, if the Delrose must form a reinforcement now, it would be a surprise to everyone, Delrose, and Yester alike. So how would the monsters know and prepare an attack?”

She raised her second finger, violet eyes shining.

“Second, let’s assume there is a group of monsters or someone else intending to attack now. If there is no Delrose reinforcement, they will meet only the Delrose army that just finished fighting an army of monsters.”

She didn’t need to elaborate on the disadvantage to such an army. She lowered her hand and continued.

“Of course, I don’t think Den will get hurt,” she said. The Duke of Winter, with the weather of Biflten in the palm of his hand, stronger than any other Duke in history, would most certainly be fine. The strong man that could twist even the future she saw, that wouldn’t sway no matter how much she leaned on him.

“But I don’t want other Delrose knights to get hurt.”

For all his power, Aden was only human. Unless he could heat the entire battlefield at the first inkling of an attack, it was only natural there would be casualties amongst the Delrose knights.

“Emil,” she said staring straight into this most loyal yet suborn of the knights. “I don’t care if you don’t believe in my foresight. But please don’t ignore the likelihood of the danger that’s coming to the knights.”

***

The sortie could be entirely in vain. It could be some misreading of the dream by Ilyin – if there was in fact anything to be read in it at all, which Emil still would not wholly admit – and the whole exercise would be nothing but a pointless march of their remaining knights through the worst of April’s winter. But for all that, the fact that she spoke of her concern for Delrose moved him, and whatever he believed, he could not deny her sincerity nor her logic.

“Den is not a fool,” she said as they sat together at the table. She gestured to the maid behind her, and she opened the map brought in from the other room – a large map of the region’s winter landscape.

“Around here,” she said, “this open land is Elo’s normal battlefield – and meet in combat. He knows this well and would have journeyed through himself. If the Yesters’ hidden troop was moving anywhere through here, he would have noticed.”

She pointed at another area of the map, one that carried many scars of scratches and old pen marks. The familiar grounds, the areas between Elo and the mansion.

“The Yesters’ goal still seems to be to bring down Elo,” she said. She pointed at Elo’s stronghold on the map. Close by, relatively, but still some distance from the mansion. “Then if Den and Delrose were reinforcing Elo while the Yesters were attacking, the Yesters would have to attack two targets instead of one – Elo, and the Delrose knights. It puts them at a disadvantage, so of course, they prepared hidden troops.”

She knew this from the foresight, of course. She had no doubt the Yesters had hidden troops because she had seen them in her dream. She looked at Emil. He still didn’t believe fully in foresight, she knew, but his eyes studied the map carefully.

“As Den went to Elo’s battlefield without noticing the second wave of Yesters, they don’t seem to be hidden there,” she continued, studying the map. “But they couldn’t have hidden too far away since they’ll have to attack Delrose’s quickly to keep surprised, but they also couldn’t be waiting near Biflten without being noticed. That means…”

She pointed to a spot between the Elo and Yesters’ territory.

“Around here, is there a place a large number of troops might stay concealed?” Ilyin asked, glancing out the window at the raging blizzard. “Taking into account the speed of the Yesters in this weather.”

Emil studied the map. He’d attended his share of wars as a Delrose knight and knew well the important points of terrain in the winter region, though not as well as Idith. He pointed to a spot in the area she’d indicated.

“Here,” he said. “There is a road through the mountain range. But it would be buried under thick snow in winter….”

“Yesters almost don’t touch the ground on snow,” Etra interjected. “They run like they’re flying, leaving faint traces only. If it’s truly thick with snow, and that’s where they’re hidden…”

Etra looked to both Ilyin and Emil, her tone solemn, almost forlorn.

“They could flood through this pass quickly and be at His Majesty’s back.”

Ilyin looked to the point Emil had indicated, measuring it out in her mind. The time it would take for Aden to lead the knights to Elo’s territory from Biflten mansion. The distance between Elo and the Yesters’ likely hiding spot.

If Emil was correct, the Yesters were much closer to Elo – and to Aden once the attack began. But the hidden troop would only move once Aden’s army had arrived at Elo so that they could catch him in a rear attack.

“Do you think Den has already arrived at Elo?” she asked.

“Most likely not,” Emil said, shaking his head as he looked outside at the storm.