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that were there the night it happened—discover what information has been hidden from the people about her so-called death.”
    Ivan searched Adam’s face, but he couldn’t decipher an a nswer.
    “Who all agrees?” Adam finally boomed across the table.
    Ivan smiled triumphantly as he watched the nodding heads—all except Vin who looked like he’d swallowed a lemon.
    “It is settled. Ivan, begin your search. Meeting’s adjourned.”
    Ivan was amazed his plan had worked. Galen caught his eye as they rose together and followed the others up the stairs.
    When the group of men reached the landing, they waited in line while Garren opened the door every few minutes, so that they could leave alone or in pairs. This precaution had to be enforced, no matter how irksome it was. They were a rebel group, formed by Adam Thain and Cian Raghnall. The two men had been acquain tances for many a year before the Kellen Royal Family’s tragic deaths. But it was five years after Salir Romore had taken the throne that Adam and Cian had first discussed the idea of a rebel group. Times were turning dangerous and they didn’t see any of that changing in the near future. Ridiculous laws had passed, taxes had increased to the point of thievery, and those who spoke out were beaten or thrown in the dungeons.
    When Salir Romore had taken the throne, Lenzar had been in a state of uncertainty and despair. Their king and queen were dead. And then shortly thereafter, the little princess had succumbed to a fever.
    It was hard to pinpoint when exactly the changes started. First came the new laws. For safety, the people could no longer visit the catacombs beneath the castle’s floors. They were too dangerous, King Salir had explained. Bosc Bell Tower, a common retreat for the people with its spellbinding view of Bosc and the ocean, was prohibited after a castle servant jumped to her death shortly after the little princess died. A knight was stationed outside its circular stairway night and day.
    Then the taxes increased and the knights began refusing to pay for food or drink, saying they would take what they wanted as payment for their service to Lenzar.
    The months and years passed, with the knights becoming bolder. Fights began in alleys, where the knights often left their victims bleeding on the cobblestones. The king was seen less and less. Instead, Illius Molick, the captain of the knights, took the reins, or at least, that was what the people suspected.
    The people supposed that the knights had finally reached a point where they knew no one could stop them. In a horrible di splay of where the power now lay, the knights smashed and crushed each statue of King Sebastian and Queen Amara in Bosc. They removed paintings of them from shops and homes, only to rip and burn them in the streets. In hurt and anger, writings appeared—Patrick Falk, a very well respected voice in Lenzar, leading the charge—criticizing the new wave of violence. The pamphlets were circulated across the country, the people’s voices rising in rebellion. But then the knights came and searched all the homes in Lenzar. They burned every copy and threw the printer and as many of the writers they could find in the dungeons. Patrick Falk was beheaded, thanks to a new law that any ill word against the king or knights was treason, and punishable by death. The streets of Bosc were silent as Falk’s head was displayed by gleeful knights. The silence grew as the head was transported to all the towns and cities of Lenzar.
    But not all of Falk’s pamphlets had been destroyed. Some very few had been hidden successfully during the burnings and were heavily guarded by their owners.
    After five years of torture, it was time to act.
    Adam and Cian carefully sought out people that would be i nterested in a rebellion. This had to be done painfully slowly, for the knights—as greedy and barbaric as they were—still had eyes and ears.
    There had already been many poorly planned skirmishes b