The personal effects of Lelka were being combed through one at a time by Koralo with the intention to provide certainty she wasn’t being tracked somehow. With the restraints negating her energy they didn’t sense anything being transmitted, but it would be foolish to assume.

They had considered simply tossing everything she had. However, most of it was too valuable not just from the perspective of material cost or the like, but also the insights it could provide into the enchantment style of the Citadel of Exalted Light.

Alva was watching Lelka herself, who seemed to be meditating to pass the time. She couldn’t gain any benefits without access to her energy, but with no way to entertain herself just passing time more quickly might be valuable.

Durff had returned to consciousness, and was carefully examining his severed arm and the mechanical arm Chikere had left behind.

Velvet was piloting the ship, nominally at least. It only needed input every time they reached a new system, unless something went wrong.

“Why?” Durff asked, holding up the arm.

“That’s a big question,” Velvet said. “Why couldn’t we complete our mission? Why did Chikere remain behind?”

Durff shook his head. “Why leave her arm to me? We barely knew each other. Also it’s the wrong arm.”

“Maybe a whim. Not everything she did was part of a well thought out, viable long term plan. Sometimes, she just wanted to cut a planet in half.”

If Chikere had been left behind on a planet full of a trillion sword cultivators who wanted to kill her, then regardless of what Alva had seen Velvet wouldn’t necessarily believe she was dead. However, the state Chikere had been in before the end and the unsuitable combat environment indicated that perhaps she really was.

“May I look at the arm?” Velvet asked.

Durff tossed it over. “It has a lot of weird little holes.”

“They’re to replicate pores. Chikere found it quite useful for her style.”

Velvet held the arm in her hand. It still felt… sharp. Like it might try to cut her to pieces at any time. But it wasn’t the same as Chikere herself. More like a remnant. Could they do something with this? Was it even valuable to modify it to fit Durff’s left arm? That one was the most suspect, because he still had his other arm. Whenever Durff wasn’t messing around with it, they were doing their best to preserve it. It was actually quite likely they could reattach it eventually. They had both technological methods and those based around cultivation.

Maybe the arm didn’t mean anything. If it did, Velvet certainly couldn’t figure it out. She tossed it back to Durff, who let it clatter on the floor next to him.

“I don’t know if I could use it,” he said. “I respect Chikere’s intent and the strength she had, but it’s too light. It just doesn’t fit.”

Velvet nodded. “It doesn’t have to. It might have just been a foolish idea.” Velvet let silence reign for a time, then continued. “Good job, by the way. You did the best anyone could expect. You actually almost knocked it into the sun.”

Durff hung his head. “If only I could have hit it harder. Especially earlier, when it was defenseless. I could have shattered it.”

“Sure. Or any of the rest of us could have had another century of training. Or we could have found a way to sneak a capital ship deep into enemy territory. Maybe figure out antimatter. But none of that was true. I invited you, and you did great.”

“I’m going to grow strong enough to smash it,” Durff gripped his own wrist tightly.

Velvet didn’t intend to belittle Durff’s ambition by saying it was unrealistic or something. Sometimes, unrealistic goals were the best for cultivators, ironically becoming possible from their very pursuit of what should have been impossible. Besides, Durff had a certain sort of talent. He might even reach Augmentation soon, which would be an excellent time to focus his will onto a particular goal like that.

Velvet hoped that everything had gone well with the main body of the Alliance. Chikere seemed to have thought so, at least. Something about Chidi injuring Zaur? It was unclear, but something had damaged the Citadel that wasn’t related to anything local. Of course, it also hadn’t resulted in the complete destruction of the Citadel, so that meant Zaur was probably alive and most likely still dangerous. He might even be controlling the course of the war. There was no way to find out in a reasonable time frame.

-----

Sometime later, Velvet sat with Lelka intending to interrogate her. Not that it would be particularly in depth or reliable, but she might as well figure out what she could. “How much of what you said was true?”

“About what?” Lelka asked. “Pretty much everything was true, to a greater or lesser extent.”

“It made your word more genuine,” Velvet nodded. “I couldn’t read you. But… about Zaur and your sect.”

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“I see,” Lelka nodded. “The Citadel of Exalted Light and Zaur in particular have not treated me like any other Augmentation cultivator. I was content to remain disconnected from core operations, but I was given no choice. And yet, I gained no real authority to fulfill my duties. Perhaps I was supposed to slaughter people to get others to listen,” she shrugged. “But I could have seen that resulting in my termination either way. Likewise, Zaur’s appreciation for my sister seemed to me to be little more than show and posturing. Otherwise he would have gone against Everheart instead of the Scarlet Alliance.” She paused briefly, “I hope you were successful in the war. The first time was a miracle due to Ratna, but if your alliance was not competent you wouldn’t have survived to that point. Seeing your results on this end, I would prefer if you did it again.”

“Why?” Velvet asked.

“Because I would hope to be given a chance to change my allegiance. I understand your trepidation, of course. Nobody likes a traitor. That is why I hope to convince you we weren’t really enemies to begin with. If you need further incentives, I have a great number of secrets of the Citadel of Exalted Light… and others throughout the Exalted Quadrant.”

“We have all of your writings,” Velvet pointed out.

“The important stuff is in my head. Obviously,” Lelka said. “Too risky to have anything like that written down. Given some time to prepare, I could have had more though.”

Velvet narrowed her eyes. “When did you make your decision to swap allegiances?”

“The moment your group was noticed. Obviously, you had to be successful to some extent.”

“We would have been more positively inclined had you aided us.”

“Was the tour not enough?” Lelka raised an eyebrow. “Trust me, you would not have found my combat prowess to be significantly persuasive.”

“You are an Augmentation cultivator, though. It’s not like there were a ton of us.”

Lelka shrugged. “My goal was to survive. Just because I believed you had a chance didn’t mean I thought it was high enough probability to take that risk. I’m not asking to be inducted into your core circle. I just wanted the opportunity to get out, and I judged that the circumstances warranted it. Besides, my information on your alliance indicates that you would be willing to cut me a deal in exchange for willingly offered information instead of that obtained through torture or extraction techniques. It is much more reliable.”

“If we can trust you.”

“Much of the information is easily enough verified, once you know it,” Lelka shrugged. “I’m fine with being imprisoned for a decade while you figure things out. I have the feeling my lifespan would be longer there regardless.”

“Why? If you had stopped us…”

“That might have been a viable route. But I’m not confident that would have been better.”

Ultimately, Velvet couldn’t find any lies in what she said. But that had been true earlier, when she had uncovered their plan and might have been on the verge of having them killed. So clearly, she was adept at hiding her complete intentions. Still, Koralo hadn’t found anything indicating she was a spy just yet. They’d have to be careful when they got to Scarlet Alliance territory, though.

-----

The most suspicious incident came when they arrived in the next system, though tying it in any way to Lelka was… difficult. When they dropped into real space they just happened to be in the path of another ship, and having just come out of subspace their stealth systems were not fully operational.

The chances of such an occurrence were astronomically low. Velvet didn’t know if it made more sense that it would have been planned somehow or was entirely accidental. Either way, she found it difficult to believe that Lelka could have predicted precisely when and where they would come out over a week ahead of time.

It also helped that the enemy ships looked quite surprised to clip something invisible. It took Velvet a moment to figure out the situation, by which point all of the handful of ships flying together were ready for combat. Velvet fed her power into the ship, their weapons systems taking out the others in a matter of moments. But it was too late, as a call of alarm had gone out. They were members of the Citadel, obviously. This was still their territory, so even if it was suspicious it was also the most likely at the same time.

That was when the chase began. The only reason Velvet didn’t toss Lelka’s head out the airlock at that moment was because Alva mentioned Lelka had looked quite surprised and concerned when she felt the chaos of battle. It could have been a ploy, of course, but Velvet had to go with what they could read from Lelka.

Trusting her was a bit difficult, but Velvet went with her instincts, the same one that had allowed her to come along to begin with instead of killing her after the restraints were on. If she was being manipulated… she’d survive and learn. Perhaps deep in enemy territory was not the time to test herself, but that was how things worked out sometimes.

They only remained briefly around the local star to recharge. From then on, they did their best to skip over unnecessary systems, charging the ship with their own energy despite how inefficient it was outside of combat.

Citadel ships were scouring the nearby systems, appearing in large numbers. No matter which route they went, they kept running into more. However, there was nothing they could do but press on and hope they could avoid further notice. It was uncertain if the enemy had verified their identity or not, but it seemed likely that any hint of troublemakers after an attack on the core sect would result in the same response.

Though they were constantly avoiding detection, there were also longer periods in subspace. That gave more time to question Lelka. “What do you think of this situation?” Velvet asked.

“From what I felt,” she said. “I could have handled the search more efficiently. If anyone would have listened to me.”

“Is that all?” Velvet asked.

“I have less information than you do,” Lelka shrugged. “I might be able to tell you which elder or elders are coordinating things if you are able to provide more details than the energy that passively reaches me here. Otherwise, I trust in your abilities to get out with as much finesse as you arrived.”

That was a nice vote of confidence from her, perhaps. Unfortunately, it was somewhat dampened by the fact that the next system they dropped into had an unexpectedly powerful formation, as well as numerous ships from the Citadel of Exalted Light… and the Worthy Shore Society. Obviously not those from Ceretos, but the greater sect that they had been planted from and perhaps any that had ascended before the split.

Most relevantly, they seemed to be responsible for the formation- one that their ship hadn’t picked up on the way in. “Koralo!” Velvet called for their own formation master. Hopefully, he could get them out of this without too much fuss. At that point, it hadn’t quite struck Velvet which system they had ended up in, though she would later find it worthy of adding another curse to Everheart’s name.