As multiple figures advanced out from the portal, Anorah's eyes flickered. She began to analyze.
'Five of them. All resistance mbers.'
She saw their forms even before the bright light dimd. No impostors. All genuine.
When the radiance finally faded and the chamber's eyes settled on them, Anorah suddenly raised her hands and began clapping. There was a brief pause before others joined, until the hall erupted in a wave of cheers.
She stepped forward.
"Welco back, High Synod Mathias," she said, her voice carrying across the room. "You've achieved sothing truly great."
Mathias bowed deeply, his deanor humble. "It was nothing, Saint. I only perford my duty."
"That you did," Anorah replied with a faint smile, though her piercing eyes expressed just how bullshit this situation was.
"And you perford it splendidly."
He bowed once more, but Anorah's gaze was already shifting toward the newly rescued.
They looked drained. Their clothes were torn and their faces weary and pale. Sadness flashed through her eyes. She addressed them.
"You've endured much to stand here again. You are safe now, and what you need most is rest. Take comfort in knowing your struggle was not in vain."
She looked toward One, and when their stares t, countless words passed silently between them.
"See to it that their needs are t," she instructed.
One inclined his head. "Let's go," he said gently, leading the survivors away.
As they left, Anorah's expression shifted. The sadness evaporated from her face, replaced with a sharper, piercing intensity. She turned toward Mathias, her stare weighing on him.
"Why don't we take this elsewhere," she said. "Perhaps you might enlighten as to how you accomplished this great task."
"…of course, Saint."
…
Anorah walked briskly through the grand halls of her Sanctum, One trailing behind her.
"What's on your mind?" One asked.
Anorah didn't answer imdiately. Instead, she increased her pace.
"There's sothing wrong," she finally said.
"We know this already." One shook his head. "But what?"
When Anorah didn't answer, he decided to change his question.
"What did you find out from Mathias?"
As the mories of her eting with Mathias flowed through her mind, her frown only grew.
"He was telling the truth."
"So it's a coincidence."
Anorah narrowed her eyes. She didn't like that word. In the world of gods and stars, the word coincidence shouldn't exist. Everything occurred for a reason.
Still, the eting left Anorah confused. She was coming from her eting with Mathias, where he had narrated all that occurred to her. In everything he said, Anorah hadn't sensed even a shred of a lie.
He had received a sudden tip from one of his planted people, and he had acted quickly to save the captured resistance mbers. There was no plot involved, no hidden motive.
But was this truly a coincidence?
'He's not like that,' Anorah thought, recalling everything she knew about Mathias. Though they sotis butted heads during etings, she knew Mathias wasn't the type that would betray the resistance.
"It's not… I can feel sothing's wrong. I just can't place it."
One nodded approvingly. "I can see your father's lessons haven't gone to waste. Can you rember his teaching about coincidence?"
Anorah's eyes sharpened as she searched her mories. Just like her, One, being her father's closest aide, had also been his student. Well, in a more philosophical sense. Only she had learned Logoth.
Anorah's eyes slowly widened the mont she recalled his words.
"Say the words," One urged.
"Chance is the mask worn by intention."
One nodded. "What's its aning?"
Anorah turned to him. "What looks random is really design. Soone else's design." She frowned. "The intel wasn't random. Soone intended for him to receive it."
"Who?" One asked.
The image of a man lying beneath her feet filled her eyes.
"Kaino."
"And what does that an?"
"He's planning sothing."
"What is he planning?"
Her frown deepened. "Too hard to tell."
One suddenly outpaced her and stood in front of her. He stared at her with a serious expression.
"You have the ans. Make use of it."
Though the words were cold, they didn't hide the truth in them. She wasn't making use of her most powerful weapon.
Logoth.
In the next mont, she slipped into the state of perfect clarity and saw everything for what it was.
"The rescued mbers…" Anorah muttered under her breath,
"They work for him."
She glanced toward One, who regarded her with a smile.
"What are your orders, Saint?"
Anorah paused for a mont. It was another tricky situation. Though she suspected the rescued mbers, she couldn't simply act.
Right now, the eyes of the entire resistance were focused on them. Any rash actions could effortlessly turn them against her.
Especially when the rescued mbers weren't impostors. She had confird this herself earlier. Their faces, heights, weight, and body structure fit what she rembered of them.
Suddenly, Anorah heard Atticus' voice slip into her mind.
This would all end if she simply put them in their place. She let out a breath.
"Watch them."
…
Night quickly descended. The whole of Asterra had been in a celebratory mood since the arrival of the captured resistance mbers.
Since the strict Saint gave the order to celebrate, none of them had held back. Though most celebrated from their hos, the party was focused in the Saint's Sanctum, where resistance mbers from different worlds sward the rescued, urging them to tell the tale of their capture and rescue.
Clusters of people gathered around each mber, and the air was bustling with excitent. Though it was the first ti the Will Guard had ever captured a resistance mber, it was commonplace for the other major factions.
And once captured, none had ever returned alive. Many stared at the rescued mbers like legends.
Soon enough, when it was deep into the night and the excitent dwindled, multiple figures made their way from the Sanctum and into a dark, quiet alleyway.
As they gathered, they nodded once to one another before one man rolled up his sleeve. His will flared, light spilling from his arm, and with a sharp motion, a do snapped into place around them. The air inside grew heavy as their wills were cut off.
"There," he muttered, lowering his arm. "She won't be able to listen to us now."
His eyes scanned the others, a cold glint flickering in his gaze.
"Well? What do you have?"
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