I look over at Erica as if she would know how to handle this, but I see her looking back at me with the same expression through her mask. I look at the maid; she is still looking between us, waiting for an answer, her ears twitching ever so often.
The knights finally catch up to her and kneel before us. The only way to get out of this without raising suspension would be to go. barely got the sound of the "Sh-" out of my mouth when I felt a jab in my side.
Erica reminded me it would be a dead giveaway if we sounded different. So I just cleared my throat to get people's attention, then nodded. The cat girl looked confused that I didn't talk and asked,
"Why aren't you-"
She cut herself off by the glare of her escort knights and followed it up with,
"I'm sorry for questioning you."
and her ears droop lower than they were before. And she looked just like a cat that had been scolded.
We follow her back to the castle-looking building in the center of the walls. I thought it was just tall, but it's built on a bluff, with only one set of stairs leading up to the large wooden doors.
The stairs are lined with lightly armored knights on each side. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more knights than people by this point. The doors to the large gates swing open, revealing more knights, except these are wearing more excellent armor, still lightly armored, but they look like the armor is made for display and not combat out of silver, with gold accents.
We were shown to a room with a glossy wooden table with a large overweight man on one end and two of the "show" knights on either side behind him. Food stains sour his white robes and seem to rip apart as he wears them. He speaks with a low, nasally tone, "Well, finally, you show.
It's not polite to keep someone from the church waiting." As we sit at the table, he speaks again,
"At least glad to see you survived that battle,"
but it's hardly believable.
"Too bad that the whole army got wiped out, but we finally killed that damn "hero" of the people, and now the resistance should be futile. Although we did lose a holy knight in the process, it will take a few months to get another, and it will be expensive to make more armor. He could have at least taken his armor off before he died, that…."
His voice fades out as I start thinking about what he's saying. Was he talking about where we came from? So that dark guy must be the people's hero, and the other must be the holy knight because I couldn't remove his armor. Does the church only care about money and getting what they want?