Tess is a member of the Eyes of the Serpent, a secret branch of the Second Shadow, which is the black ops/subterfuge part of the main army, the First Shadow. Tess' loyalty is to the king, and indirectly to his superiors. He has never questioned his loyalty to the king, though he has gotten rather disgruntled with his superiors on occasion.

• the Second Shadow has ways of doing a debriefing without you knowing about it (Tess isn't happy that this happened to him, after being jailed when he tried to get to the king to talk to the king about not attacking Alfheim)
• Thora cannot talk about stuff, she was geased voluntarily so she could help out Sodjerfjord. When she spoke to the Shadow Elves, they wanted to kill Phoranin and Tess, or at least take us in for questioning - Thora spoke on our behalf. Tessarael requested that the Eyes of the Serpent ensure that Thora was returned to the party, which they did.