“Perhaps the people would not be so reluctant to release their faith in their dead gods if members of the church weren’t being slain in cold blood,” she said. “Two years ago you declared the resistance crushed and disbanded. Now a paragon and a magistrate are murdered. Care to explain yourself?”

Gordian slid his feet off the table and sat upright. The attack was the reason for their hurried meeting. The conversion of Thanet’s people was under an incredibly strict timetable, and while they had made great strides since Lycaena’s execution, any rebel resurgence could undo years of work. The people’s faith was proving maddeningly stubborn, and Sinshei suspected the vast distance between Gadir and Thanet was partly to blame. It certainly didn’t help that they couldn’t flood the island with a sudden influx in wealth and trade as was normal procedure, which helped immensely in buying the loyalty of the upper strata.

“I’m also curious what to make of this attack,” Gordian said. “These rebels called out the name of the Lythan family, which while annoying, is predictable. Let them cling to memories of a slain royalty. But I hear stories already of a new hero among their ranks, a man who supposedly killed a paragon in solo combat.”

“Vagrant,” Magus said. He growled out the word as if it hurt to speak it. “And those stories are lies. The assassin had multiple people helping him, several of whom I’ve been aware of for years.”

“Aware of, and yet not captured or killed,” Sinshei noted.

“Try not to gloat too loudly, Sinshei,” the Imperator said. “No one has whispered their locations to your priests in their confessionals, either. If resistance remains upon Thanet, it is because they hold no love for the God-Incarnate.”

“But why would they love him?” Soma asked from beside the door. All three at the table looked his way, their expressions varying degrees of surprise. Soma might be a paragon, and a well respected one at that, but he was certainly out of line to speak at a meeting of the Three Pillars.

“Have things reached such a low on Thanet that even a paragon would speak blasphemy?” Gordian asked.