Solam still left. After immobilizing Serilef, he departed without the slightest hesitation.
By the time Serilef returned to normal, Solam was already far from Athkatla. She hesitated for a long time but ultimately did not chase after him. After all, even she did not know on what grounds she could pursue him, or what she should say if she caught up. Solam had already made up his mind to leave. What could she possibly say? Force him to return? How could that be possible? No matter how naïve Serilef was, she knew she had no right to demand that Solam do anything for this city.
So Serilef could only return dejectedly to the Order of the Radiant Heart and find Makelele, recounting everything Solam had told her. She hoped Makelele would give her a different answer, prove that Solam had been talking nonsense, or perhaps come up with a good solution.
But after Serilef told Makelele everything, he did not give her an answer different from Solam's, as she had hoped. Instead, he sat in his chair with a grim expression, not saying a word.
Seeing Makelele like this, Serilef knew that Solam seemed to have been right.
Makelele paid no attention to Serilef's emotions. He was only regretting it—regretting that he had not thought of this sooner. Like many others, Makelele had fallen into a mental blind spot. They had never considered that driving Solam away would lead to such consequences. At the time, all they had thought was to send away Solam, that walking disaster. They did not want to cause any more casualties.
They had never considered that what they were doing was actually a form of weakness. They wanted peaceful days too badly. What had happened in Athkatla over the past few years had deeply frayed