He shook his head. “They were far from open about their recruitment, Your Grace. They were careful. They were also smart. Fervent, even fanatical, but not aggressive. They further took time to get organized. By the time they were large enough in number that there were whispers amongst the other priests, they had some hold and their aggression came in other ways. There truly are those priests of Go’Doan who have no idea they even exist. There are others who do who fear them mightily and for reason. And there are still others, like myself, who do something about it.”

“And what do you do?”

“I’m afraid the number who is like me is small. So, I do what I can with what I can discover without getting discovered myself and I, or more importantly, my chosen one and the women I work closely with, finding ourselves targeted which could mean dire things, including the end of our lives.”

Damn it all.

She could understand this was a deterrent.

It wasn’t an excuse.

But it was an understandable deterrent, especially with this man and the way he looked at his Saira.

His hazel eyes intensified. “And the things I do are such as sending anonymous birds to Nadirii queens to warn them their realm is about to be attacked.”

She would credit him for that.

But not much, because of what she asked next.

“And why didn’t you save Melisse?” she snapped.

“I knew they had her, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine that was part of their plan,” he answered. “Not until too late. And then, I could only react, which,” he gestured to the tent he had set up to care for Melisse, “Saira, myself and our group did.”

It remained to be seen if that was enough.

“I cannot offer excuses,” he went on. “And it is with grave remorse I share the fullness of our responsibility, for we were aware that things were well out of hand when King Ares was assassinated by G’Dor, who was one of the priests who had come forward with these desires for the future of our faith. He then left it, presumably at the time, because the others did not see things as he did. When he murdered Ares, we became very aware of just how far this had gone and those higher up who understood the situation was spiraling tried to handle things…” his pause was weighty before he continued, “internally. Clearly, they failed.”

“Clearly, they did,” she agreed crossly.

“And sadly,” he kept on, “we do not know the extent of their operations.”

This did not bode well.

“Are the Go’Doan prepared to condemn this faction and cast them out so they no longer enjoy the resources of the Dome City?”

He shook his head again. “I’m afraid I am not yet a priest of a level that is privy to the discussions of those who speak for our faith and make those kinds of decisions, much less am I invited to be in those discussions. But my understanding is, no. They simply deny it has anything to do with the true Go’Doan faith, condemn any acts made by the extremists and continue to try to stem the tide internally.”