Tertia could cry as she reaches out to touch her fingertips to Calpernia's. She thinks she might cry. She had, herself, believed in the Elder One once. She had even briefly served him, shortly after her own liberation. But that had been in a division far from Calpernia's oversight, and so she had not been treated as an equal - or even as a servant. Those Venatori had treated her and the other elven Liberati as slaves once more. And so they had fled to join the People of the Silent Plains, a group with blessedly few humans in it.

How different it would have been, if Tertia had been freed by Calpernia herself. Different for the better in some ways, but in others...It would have been worse. If Tertia had been near to Calpernia, she would have tolerated anything. And then she'd never have left, and she'd never have had a chance to understand how the Elder One truly wasn't their best chance at anything. How his care did not extend to people like her.

"Yes, Doctissima. But I'm with the People of the Silent Plains - all Liberati, or almost all. Riftwatch...They wish to see the slaves to rise up. So we work with them."

There's a guardedness in the way Tertia says that. She might be timid, but she's not a fool. The people of Riftwatch are kind enough, but they wouldn't lift a finger for the slaves if it wasn't key to their strategy for winning the war.