It took the day for them to carefully escape the city amidst the chaos. Law enforcement was interrogating everyone in the vicinity. With the Kult still at large and their motives unknown, they couldn’t risk being caught. They made sure to reach the edge of the undercity before hiring a cab to Cassum. Once they made it, though, they rented their same room from before and settled in for a restless night of anxiety and confusion.

  Ayela laid there on the pullout with Kacyn beside her, the two of them wide awake and unable to get their minds off of what happened. “You felt a dark presence… I have to ask, do you know anything about cults and secret societies?” She asked. She glanced over at Kacyn, who seemed lost in her own thoughts.

  “I know of the Kult of Salom’Sileyu from your own memories… And from other things. But that’s not a tale for right now,” she answered. Ayela became suspicious, glancing over at her with a furrowed brow and flattening her lips.

  “Why not, exactly?” She asked.

  “It’s not time for you to hear that.”

  “As Majjai, I command you to tell me-”

  “No, Ayela. You’re not acting as the leader of the Tribes ought to act. There are things that I’ve seen that need to happen before you’re ready for that. There are ways that you need to grow… Using a title and position to extort knowledge is… Wrong,” Kacyn protested. Ayela paused and contemplated her statement. She was right. If she were going to be better than the Kult, she needed to enter a role of leadership with humility. If the divine logicians were to return to the world in any fashion, they needed to be trustworthy, not abusive. Her glancing and giving into distrust the that way she did was unbecoming of herself. She’d learned not to take everything at face value, but she also needed to learn where to draw the line and respect people’s boundaries.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t right for me to do.”

  “It’s okay, Majjai,” Kacyn said with a smile. “You will know soon enough…”

  Ayela could hear it in her voice. There was a slight tone that betrayed the regret she felt in her heart. There was a burning sensation in her chest that told her Kacyn wasn’t entirely truthful about where she’d come from. Certainly, the accent was thick enough and natural enough to feel like she was a native Songrivan, and she had enough knowledge of their people and leaders. But she could have been hiding a very dark past that intertwined with the Kult somehow. Ayela was apprehensive, but she reminded herself that if Kacyn wanted to turn her in to the Kult, she’d have done it by now. There was no reason to help them get as far as they did…

  She hoped…

  Her eyes grew heavy, and she didn’t resist the urge to close them and let her consciousness drift into the void before dreams filled her unconscious reality. There was a lot that had happened, and she wasn’t sure what their next step was going to be, except to take their files to the capital. Her objective in mind, she coursed through her subconscious and entertained dreams of a day when the empire was no longer a threat to society…