Telia was looking down at the three men who were clearly trembling in fear. Her divine power was being forced upon their bodies, making they barely able to look up at her. Because she was their enemy, they knew who she was and how ruthless she was, so this added to their fear.
"Who wants to start speaking first?" She asked, crouching down in front of them.
Of course, none of them answered. How could they? She was a walking disaster in front of them, who would most likely take their life once she got what she wanted. But even if that wasn’t the case, her overbearing power made it difficult to speak in the first place.
"Ah, let me ease the strain off you for a bit." Her powers faded, allowing them to breathe properly.
"W-What is it that you want to know?" The elf asked
"Ohh, we have a smart one here, huh? So, tell me, where is your main army? I know you didn’t ambush my people with your main force."
The elf gulped. "In all honesty, we don’t know. Lord Carliodas keeps them in a secret location that us gtunts don’t know about. Only his trusted advisors know about it."
She nodded. "And where are these advisors?"
"One of them is with the army managing them, another is here, and the final one is currently attacking the capital to claim it in your absence." Upon saying that last part, the elf caught his mouth, but it was too late.
"The capital is under attack?" Telia’s demeanor changed, and she became angry. Her power descended onto the three prisoners like a large wave crashing into a rock.
"Answer me."
"Y-Yes. W-We waited until you were g-gone to attack!" The dwarf replied
"How did you know I was gone?"
The human answered this time. "S-Spy."
"Impossible. I only told my court that I was gone, and there’s no man in my court. So..." Then she realized that the spy, the traitor, didn’t need to be a man. Kai’s words were replaying in her head.
"I will deal with this myself!" She tapped her finger on the ground, and the pressure of her power increased to the point where the three prisoners were crushed to death.
"Kai? Can you hear me? I want to join you right now."
Far away from Telia’s location, Kai heard her speak his name. Listening to her voice and what she wanted, he held out his arm as if he was about to wrap it around a person’s shoulders, and Telia teleported tight into it, Kai looking at her with a smirk.
"Missed me?"
"Maybe." She poked his cheek.
"So, what did you learn?"
She frowned. "My kingdom is being attacked. I wish to go save them."
Kai understood her predicament, but he wasn’t worried.
"It’s okay." He reassured her. "Sasha and Kyana are there. They can handle things. And if they can’t, they’ll call me."
"Are you sure?" She wanted to trust him, but she didn’t know Kyana and Sasha that well, so she was skeptical about trusting her kingdom to them. She only trusted Kai as much as she did because of his divine hood. But she did end up liking him, so it all worked out.
"Yeah, I’m positive. Now, wanna help Yorrigan and me clear out these camps?"
She shrugged. "Why not?"
---
Sagana, Nuela, Kyana, and Sasha were all sitting in the throne room, wondering how and why the Brotherhood of Chaos attacked when they did.
No one knew that Empress Telia would be gone other than them, so they knew that there was a traitor in their midst.
"The question of who it is, however, is difficult to figure out." Sagana sighed.
Ione and Magda weren’t here since Ione was overseeing her hidden sect search through the entire capital to make sure none of the Brotherhood members survived, while Magda was swamped with injured people who needed healing.
"Maybe a woman did betray us. I remember High Servant Kai speaking about this to one of my sect members." Nuela pointed out.
"Could it be the woman whom we caught? The one who tried to frame her servant as the actual spy?" Sagana wondered.
"No, she didn’t know that the Empress was going to be missing for a few days. Maybe one of our sect members?"
Sagana shook her head. "We didn’t inform them of her absence, so none of them could have known."
"Actually, one of them did. The survivor of the trap." Kyana informed them.
"Carlotta?" Nuela asked
"Ohhhh. Her name is Carlotta, huh? Well, I hate to break it to you, but if a person has Carl in their name, you might want to watch them closely, because 9 times out of 10, they are evil and are never to be trusted." Sasha was fully on board with the Carl slander.
Even Kyana was as well. There had only been two people named Carl that they could remember, who were good.
"That’s...Stupid." Sagana blurted out. But just then, Valera appeared out of nowhere to deliver some news.
"Master Sagana! Master Nuela! Horrible news! Carlotta, the survivor of the canyon trap, has killed some of the sword sect members and fled the city!"
Sagana and Nuela stared at each other, then looked at Sasha, who just shrugged.
"Told you."
"I want you to send a search party after her. I don’t care if you destroy her dantian or even cut off her limbs. Just make sure to capture her alive so we can question her." Nuela demanded
"Understood!" Valera vanished into the shadows.
"Believe me about the Carl name now?" Sasha asked
"No. This could simply be a coincidence."
Sasha smiled. "We’ll see."
"We should inform Kai. Since he’s with Telia, he should be able to inform her about this as well." Kyana suggested
"Good idea. But I doubt he’d come back just for this."
"I know, but it’s good to keep him in the loop."
Sasha nodded. "One mental message to Kai coming right up!"