<div class="floatleft">(http://68.media.tumblr.com/e7662fad12f269372b003682baf5ab51/tumblr_nqesr5mzRt1u5hdkbo1_500.jpg)</div>Cassia lets her presence be seen briefly at the sermon, but she does not linger at the front of the crowd for long enough to appear to be trying. She leaves it instead of the priests – who, she thinks, must surely be keen observers – to note her.<br/><br/>She listens intently to what the men say. She herself has found little use for preaching. Faith is a thing to give one purpose, but one cannot be<em>made</em>to believe. And despite the priests' success, she finds her view reinforced. The people they claim are those seeking for something greater than themselves, the poor, the dispossessed, the yearning. Cassia has learned to trust her gut over the years, and right now, it's filled with suspicion. She recalls a story from her youth of a musician who led the children of a village astray, never to be seen again, and the paladin cannot shake the sense that this is a retelling of that old tale.<br/><br/>In which case, something bad is going to happen. It will pay to stay ready. She only hopes that the other women Drake has chosen realize as much. Ember, she trusts with caution. The other two, not so much. They will have to be looked after.