Chapter 489 — Sevin Terry

Faran Belan and his corps of priests had retreated into the cathedral district and locked its gates behind them—and that panicked, instinctive flight may well have been the stupidest decision of his entire life.

He had surrendered the outer districts without a fight, and in doing so shattered what little cohesion the Yaochen Church still possessed.

Three days passed after that.

The heresy trial that had spiraled utterly out of control, that farce of a trial, ended with the cathedral district sealed shut—and thereafter a strange atmosphere settled over the whole city.

The commoners who had gathered around the pyre platform watched the cathedral gates close, and lingered for a long while afterward; yet in the end no one did anything so reckless as storming the cathedral or striking down the priests. Instead they dispersed, in twos and threes, drifting away—but Amber knew perfectly well that it was only the crowd that scattered. The fire in their hearts had already been lit.

The three days that followed were three days of feeding that fire.

For three days straight, the Cecilian "leaflet bombardment" never once paused. Every morning, noon, and evening, a volley arrived on schedule; the fluttering leaflets rode specially made canisters over Frostgate City, then were scattered and strewn across the whole city by magic.

The leaflets fell not only on the outer districts but on the cathedral district of the inner city as well—and this time, the priests of the cathedral district finally gave up entirely on clearing them away.

They let the leaflets drift everywhere through the city, until they carpeted the cathedral roofs and courtyards; they let the outer districts slip wholly beyond control, as though they had abandoned all thought of restoring order.

The people of the outer districts began openly gathering up the leaflets that fell into the city, and openly discussing the priests in the cathedral. They gathered at street corners and in alleys, passed word from household to household; by day, wave after wave of them came to the plaza before the cathedral district and glared at the sealed gates; by night, countless pinpricks of candlelight moved among the streets, and out of the shadows of those flames came talk that openly attacked the Church.

The curfew had collapsed entirely. The outer districts were sinking into a strange state in which calm and fervor mingled, indifference and madness coexisted. A sweet, bloody reek seemed to have spread through Frostgate City—yet in the cathedral district at the city's heart, everything had fallen into an unnatural, utter silence.

Since Faran Belan had entered the Grand Cathedral, not a single priest or Church knight had seen the bishop come out again...

Night fell on the fourth day. In a hidden stronghold near the plaza, the agents of the Military Intelligence Bureau gathered in a room, a flickering candle lighting the small space. The agent nicknamed "Skinny" stood by the table, reporting the intelligence just gathered:

"The cathedral district gates are still sealed. From the high ground in the outer districts we can see what's happening in the smaller chapel district, but there's no telling what is going on inside the Grand Cathedral. Faran Belan seems to have locked that in as well..."

Another agent rose to his feet. "No sign of any priests fleeing the cathedral district..."

"The commoners have blocked the intersections on their own. We spread word earlier that the priests of the Grand Cathedral were preparing to flee—and it seems that word has done its work."

"Some of the church soldiers stranded in the outer districts have disarmed themselves. They have come out of several of their outposts, bound one another, and gone into the streets to beg food from the commoners—we managed to steer the residents into sharing a little food with those soldiers. Those men are ours now."

Amber listened to her subordinates' reports while quietly turning a dagger over in her hands. She seemed to be waiting for something; her long elven ears quivered faintly in the air, turning sharply toward some direction now and then, her expression distracted.

One of her subordinates finally noticed his chief's state and could not help asking, "Boss... are you listening?"

"I'm listening," Amber said, waving a hand idly. Then her ear twitched again. "But let's pause for now. We have guests tonight."

The agents exchanged astonished glances. Amber flicked her wrist, and the poisoned dagger she had been toying with vanished silently into its sheath—and almost at the same instant, a knock came at the door.

"Go open it—no violence."

The agent standing near the door took Amber's order and went at once to open it—but though Amber had said no violence, the man still rested his hand at his waist, where his short sword hung.

The door opened. A thin, tall middle-aged man in plain linen clothes, with short brown curly hair, stood in the doorway, looking like an ordinary commoner. Behind him stood two others, likewise in coarse cloth, likewise dressed as commoners.

The tall, thin man glanced into the room, a trace of wariness and tension plain on his face. The agents inside regarded the "guests" at the door with equal caution, and almost in unison every one of them tensed the muscles of his whole body:

Though all three at the door wore coarse linen, they could not possibly be commoners—their skin was full and lustrous, and though their expressions were tense, their eyes were bright. Clearly none of them had gone hungry recently, and people with such traits could only have come from the cathedral district!

Just as the atmosphere turned abruptly tense, Amber's voice came from the far end of the room: "Let them in. I knew they were coming."

The agent at the door eyed the three before him, stepped slightly aside to clear the way in, and once they had entered, immediately poked his head out for a swift look at the street. Only after confirming there was no ambush or tail did he duck back in and shut the door.

Under the weight of several fixed stares, the three made their way to Amber. She looked the tall, thin man—plainly their leader—up and down, then after a moment broke the silence herself: "I thought you wouldn't show. In which case I would have had to fall back on the contingency plan."

The tall, thin man gave a faint, bitter smile. "...We have been looking for you a long time. We never imagined you would be hiding this close to the cathedral district—right under our noses."

"The more dangerous the place, the safer; just as the more devout the place, the less faith there is." The offhand remark made the tall, thin man's face twitch. Before he could retort, she pressed on: "Introduce yourself. My people are curious."

"...Sevin Terry," the tall, thin man said after a moment's silence, with some reluctance. "A low-ranking priest, administrator of the western chapel. These two are my friends—Amal Krite and Coleman Ronny."

Amber nodded and explained casually to her subordinates: "This Sevin Terry is someone I invited. I slipped a little note onto him in secret, and arranged for him to come."

The agents in the room were somewhat startled, but everyone here had been trained by Amber's own hand; almost instantly they grasped what these three priests who had fled the cathedral district meant. No one raised an objection. They simply watched quietly to see how things would unfold.

"Honestly, I expected you to come alone," Amber said, turning to the priest named Sevin Terry, a hint of amusement in her tone. "When I heard three sets of footsteps, I very nearly sentenced you to death."

Sevin Terry paid no heed to her veiled threat. Instead he asked, curious: "Why contact me, of all people?"