The silence was the first thing Riven noticed. It wasn't the true silence of the ruins, but a heavy, pressurized quiet, broken only by the low, omnipresent hum of machinery and the faint, rhythmic beep of a biomonitor. He was lying on a firm, comfortable bed, not a cot. The air smelled of filtered oxygen and antiseptic, a stark contrast to the rain, blood, and ozone of the plaza.
He opened his eyes. The room was small, circular, and windowless. The walls were a smooth, seamless pale grey alloy, softly illuminated from within. There was a door, but no visible handle. He was wearing simple grey DPF-issue fatigues. His own clothes, his tools, his weapons—all gone. The only familiar weight was the pendant, still resting against his chest beneath the fabric. He could feel its faint, warm pulse, a nervous heartbeat in the sterile stillness.
He sat up, his body protesting with a symphony of aches. The gash on his arm was gone, replaced by perfectly healed, pink skin. Advanced med-tech. They had fixed him up, just so they could take him apart in other ways.
The door slid open with a whisper. Mira stood there, her posture rigid, her face a carefully neutral mask. She too had changed into a clean uniform, her silver hair braided tightly back. The gash on her temple was now a thin, pale line.
"Good. You're awake," she said, her voice as sterile as the room. "Commander Voss wants to speak with you."
"Am I a guest or a prisoner?" Riven asked, his voice rough.
"That depends entirely on you," she replied, turning. "Follow me."
The corridor outside was more of the same—sleek, silent, and suffocating. They passed other doors, all sealed, and occasional DPF personnel who glanced at him with a mixture of curiosity and thinly veiled apprehension. He saw no other "civilians." He was the anomaly here.
They entered a command center that took Riven's breath away. It was a vast, circular chamber, its entire domed ceiling a live holographic projection of Aetheris. The planet hung in the blackness of space, but it was marred. Dozens of pulsing, violet scars—rifts—glowed angrily on its surface, concentrated around the major cities. Data streams flowed down the walls like waterfalls of light. In the center of the room stood a woman who could only be Commander Seraphine Voss.
She was older than Mira, with severe features and hair the color of iron pulled into a tight knot. She wore a commander's uniform, unadorned but for a single rank insignia. She didn't look at them as they entered; her eyes were fixed on the bleeding planet above.
"Captain Calen," Voss said, her voice a low, resonant alto that commanded the room without effort. "And our guest. Riven Kaelith."
Finally, she turned. Her eyes were the color of flint, and they held no pity, no wonder, only a cold, analytical intensity. She looked at him the way he looked at a complex relic—as a problem to be solved.
"You caused quite a mess," she stated, gesturing to the holographic rifts. "The incident in Old Ardent. The breach at the warehouse. The crash in Central Plaza. All of them centered on you."
"I didn't ask for any of it," Riven shot back, the defiance a reflex.
"Intent is irrelevant. Causality is not." Voss began to pace slowly around him, a predator assessing its prey. "You possess an object of immense, uncontrolled power. You are the catalyst for a hostile, trans-dimensional incursion. By all definitions, you are a walking, talking Class-5 existential threat."
Riven felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. This wasn't an interrogation; it was a verdict.
"What do you want from me?"
Voss stopped in front of him. "I want to understand what you are. I want to know how your… artifact… works. I want to know why the Demon King's heir calls you 'brother.'" She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping. "And you are going to provide those answers."
"I don't have them," Riven insisted, the lie tasting like ash. "The old man, Marrow, he was insane. He spouted fairy tales. My parents were—"
"—A convenient fiction," Voss interrupted, her voice sharp as a blade. "We've pulled your records. The 'engineers' who supposedly raised you? They never existed. The foster homes? Their memories are inconsistent and hazy. Your entire life, Kaelith, is a palimpsest. A story written over a truth someone tried very hard to erase."
The floor seemed to drop out from under him. The DPF had verified Marrow's story. The last vestiges of his denial crumbled, leaving a yawning, terrifying void.
Voss saw the shift in his expression. "Ah. So the denial is finally breaking. Good. That will save us time." She walked over to a console and brought up a holographic schematic of a human form, with the pendant superimposed over its chest, glowing red. "You will submit to a full bio-spectral analysis. You will allow our scientists to study the energy signature of that pendant. You will help us understand the nature of these rifts so we can close them. Permanently."
"And if I refuse?" Riven asked, though he already knew the answer.
Voss's smile was thin and humorless. She gestured to the room around them. "This is not a prison cell, Mr. Kaelith. It is a containment facility. You are the most valuable, and most dangerous, asset this force has ever encountered. You will cooperate, willingly or otherwise."
Her gaze shifted to Mira. "Captain Calen will be your liaison. You will report your findings, your sensations, any… episodes… directly to her. She is your only point of contact with the outside world. Get used to the view."
With a final, dismissive glance, Commander Voss turned back to the bleeding hologram of the planet, her attention already elsewhere. The conversation was over.
Mira touched his arm, her grip firm. "Come on."
As she led him back to his sterile, comfortable room, Riven looked at the seamless walls. Voss was right. It wasn't a cell. It was a gilded cage. And he had just been told he would either sing for his captors, or they would tear the song from his throat. The hunt was over. The dissection was about to begin.