# Chapter 15: The Interrogation
The first thing Konto registered was the cold. It wasn't the damp chill of the Undercity or the biting wind of the Upper Spires, but a sterile, pervasive cold that seemed to emanate from the very walls. He was sitting on a hard, metal bench, the kind designed to be uncomfortable for prolonged periods. The air tasted of recycled oxygen and a faint, antiseptic cleaner that did little to mask the underlying scent of old fear. His head throbbed, a deep, resonant ache that pulsed behind his eyes with every beat of his heart. The psychic backlash from neutralizing the creature had left him feeling hollowed out, his mind a raw, exposed nerve.
He was in an interrogation room. A classic design. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. A single, harsh light panel in the ceiling cast shadowless illumination, erasing any sense of depth or time. There was no window, no clock, only a steel table bolted to the floor and the bench he occupied. His worn leather jacket felt out of place, a smudge of grime and rebellion in this pristine, oppressive space. He flexed his fingers, the joints stiff. The data slate was gone. So was Liraya. He was alone.
The silence stretched, thin and sharp. He knew this tactic. Isolation. Sensory deprivation. Let the mind fill the void with its own fears. He closed his eyes, not in surrender, but to retreat inward. He focused on the faint, almost imperceptible thread of connection he still shared with Liraya. It was a fragile thing, spun from desperation and raw power, but it was there. A tiny point of warmth in the suffocating cold. She was alive. She was close. That was enough.
The door hissed open, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room. Valerius stepped inside, his Arcane Warden armor polished to a mirror sheen. He carried no data slate, no weapon. He closed the door behind him, the lock engaging with a heavy, final thud. He didn't sit. He stood on the other side of the steel table, his posture rigid, his face a mask of controlled conflict. The scent of ozone and polished metal clung to him.
"Konto," Valerius began, his voice level, devoid of emotion. "We need to talk."
Konto remained silent, his gaze fixed on the Warden-Commander. He saw the tension in Valerius's jaw, the slight narrowing of his eyes. This wasn't a simple interrogation. Valerius was under pressure.
"I have a dead councilman, a city block that looks like it was chewed up by a god, and a data slate detailing an illegal black-site project that operates under the nose of the Magisterium," Valerius continued, pacing slowly, the sound of his boots a steady, rhythmic click on the floor. "And I have you. An unlicensed Dreamwalker with a history of bending the rules until they break. You see my problem."
Konto offered nothing. He knew the game. Give them nothing. Let them build their case on air. His silence was his only shield now.
"You're not talking," Valerius said, stopping his pacing to lean over the table, his hands flat on the cold steel. "That's fine. I can talk enough for both of us. The official report is going to be a nightmare. A rogue magical entity. A gas main explosion. Something the public will swallow. But the internal report... that's where things get interesting. The Council wants answers. They want someone to blame. And right now, you are the only someone I have."
He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "So let's make a deal. You tell me who you're working for. You tell me who gave you the slate, who set you up to be at that lab. You give me the architects of this mess, and I can make things... easier for you. You're a weapon, Konto. A dangerous one. But even weapons can be repurposed."
The offer hung in the air, a lure baited with a sliver of hope. Konto almost scoffed. Repurposed. A collar and a leash, more like. He thought of Elara, of the promise he'd made to himself to escape this life, to never be a tool for anyone else again. He thought of the way Liraya had stood between him and Valerius's rifle, her defiance a brilliant, defiant spark. He had chosen a new path. He wouldn't turn back now.
Valerius straightened up, his expression hardening. "Fine. Have it your way." He turned and walked to the door. "But you should know, Analyst Liraya is in the room next door. And she doesn't have your... resilience. The Council is very interested in why a Junior Analyst from their own ranks was found at the scene of a Level-4 magical containment breach, consorting with a known fugitive."
The threat was clear, sharp, and cruel. The door hissed shut, leaving Konto alone again with the cold and the throbbing in his skull. But a new emotion cut through the fog of his exhaustion: a cold, sharp anger. Valerius was trying to use Liraya against him. He had underestimated the Warden-Commander's capacity for ruthlessness.
***
In the adjacent interrogation room, an identical sterile white box, Liraya sat perfectly straight on her metal bench. She was not afraid. She was furious. The cold didn't bother her; she was used to the chill of the Council's upper echelons, a cold that came from power, not from temperature regulation. Her fine, Council-issued blouse was wrinkled, a small but satisfying act of rebellion against the oppressive perfection of the room.
The door opened, and Valerius entered. He looked weary, the lines around his eyes deeper than before. He sat opposite her this time, the steel table a formal barrier between them.
"Analyst Liraya," he said, his tone formal, almost weary. "Let's start with your presence at the Blackwood district facility. You were not assigned there. Your clearance does not grant you access. By all accounts, you were trespassing on a secure Magisterium asset."
Liraya met his gaze, her own expression a carefully constructed mask of bureaucratic indifference. "Warden-Commander. I was acting on information that suggested a severe breach of Council protocol. My mandate, as per Article 7, Section 4 of the Internal Security Charter, allows for unsanctioned investigation of potential Omega-Level threats. The activity at that facility qualified."
Valerius raised an eyebrow. "An Omega-Level threat? Based on what information?"
"A confidential source," she replied smoothly. "The identity of which is protected under Clause 11 of the Whistleblower's Accord. I am not at liberty to disclose it."
Valerius leaned forward, his frustration barely contained. "A confidential source that led you to team up with Konto? A psychic mercenary with a warrant for his arrest stretching back three years? You expect me to believe that?"
"I expect you to follow protocol, Warden-Commander," Liraya countered, her voice sharp as ice. "Konto possesses a unique and specialized skill set that was essential for the containment of the threat. I deputized him under Provisional Authority 9-B, which is fully within my purview when investigating potential existential risks to the city."
She was bluffing, of course. Provisional Authority 9-B was a dusty, obscure clause meant for wartime emergencies, not for rogue investigations. But she was gambling that Valerius, a man of the field and not the archives, wouldn't know the exact limitations. It was a high-stakes game of bureaucratic chicken.
"Deputized him," Valerius repeated, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "You deputized a fugitive to investigate a secret program that the Council itself authorized. Do you have any idea what you've stumbled into? This isn't about some rogue mage in the Undercity. This goes all the way up."
"Then it is even more critical that my investigation continues," Liraya said, pressing her advantage. "The data slate we recovered contains the full scope of 'Project Somnus'. It details the creation of weaponized dream entities. The creature in the Undercity was a field test. There will be more. The people behind this are still out there, and they are operating with the full sanction of the Council. The real question, Warden-Commander, is not why I was there. It's why you are protecting them."
The accusation landed like a physical blow. Valerius flinched, a flicker of something—fear? indecision?—in his eyes. He stood up abruptly, his chair scraping harshly against the floor.
"You're playing a very dangerous game, Analyst," he warned, his voice low.
"The game was already in motion long before I arrived on the board," she shot back. "I am simply trying to stop it from destroying Aethelburg. You can either help me, or you can get out of my way. But know this: if you try to bury this, if you try to sacrifice Konto and me to protect the guilty, I have contingencies. Information is already queued for release to neutral press agencies and rival city-states. The truth will come out. The only question is whether the Arcane Wardens will be on the right side of history when it does."
It was another bluff, a desperate, all-in gamble. She had no such contingencies. But she saw the doubt in Valerius's face. He was a soldier, bound by a code of honor. The idea of being complicit in a conspiracy that endangered the city was anathema to him. He was torn between his duty to the Council's hierarchy and his duty to the people he had sworn to protect.
He stared at her for a long moment, the silence stretching, taut with unspoken conflict. He was a man caught between two worlds, and the choice he made would define him. Without another word, he turned and strode out of the room, the door hissing shut behind him.
Liraya let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Her hands were trembling. She had won the round, but the fight was far from over. She had bought them time, nothing more. She leaned her head back against the cold wall, the adrenaline beginning to fade, leaving a profound and chilling exhaustion in its wake. She had no idea what Valerius would do next, and for the first time, she felt a sliver of true fear for their future.
***
An hour passed. Then two. The oppressive silence in Konto's room was broken only by the low hum of the ventilation system. He had no way of knowing how Liraya's interrogation had gone, but the continued silence felt like a bad sign. He was running scenarios in his head, his mind, though battered, still methodically plotting escape routes and contingency plans. He could try to overload the door's locking mechanism with a focused psychic pulse, but it would drain the last of his energy and trigger every alarm in the facility. A dead end.
The hiss of the door opening pulled him from his thoughts. It wasn't Valerius. A new figure stood in the doorway, a man who radiated an aura of cold, absolute authority. He was older than Valerius, his face a roadmap of harsh decisions. His Warden armor was a different cut, darker, with silver insignia that marked him as a Senior Warden, a rank that answered only to the Council itself. He moved with an unnerving stillness, his presence instantly sucking the air out of the room.
"Konto," the man said, his voice devoid of any inflection, a flat, emotionless statement of fact. "You are to be released."
Konto stared, his mind struggling to process the words. Released? It made no sense. He was the key, the leverage. Why would they let him go?
The Senior Warden stepped aside, and two Wardens entered, their movements precise and synchronized. They didn't manhandle him. They simply gestured for him to stand. As Konto rose on unsteady legs, the Senior Warden spoke again, his gaze boring into him.
"There is no record of this evening's events. The creature was a gas main explosion. The data slate was corrupted beyond recovery. You and Analyst Liraya were never here. You will be escorted from the premises and you will not speak of this to anyone. Is that understood?"
It wasn't a question. It was a command. This wasn't a release. It was an erasure. The Council wasn't protecting him; they were protecting themselves. They were sweeping the entire incident under the rug, and he and Liraya were the loose ends they were tying up and discarding. The realization was more chilling than any threat Valerius had made.
The Wardens led him out of the room and down a stark, white corridor. They stopped outside another identical door. It hissed open, and Liraya was ushered out by two more Wardens. She looked pale but composed, her eyes locking with Konto's. A silent question passed between them. *What is happening?*
They were escorted in silence to a mag-lev lift that ascended with unnerving speed. The sterile white of the lower levels gave way to the familiar polished granite and brass of a Warden headquarters. They were marched through a bustling lobby, past uniformed officers who didn't even glance their way. They were ghosts, already erased from the system.
They were led out the main entrance and onto the wide, rain-slicked plaza of the Spire District. The night air was cool and clean, a stark contrast to the recycled air of the facility. The Wardens turned and walked back inside without a backward glance, leaving them standing alone under the glare of the city's lights.
Liraya turned to Konto, her confusion warring with a dawning horror. "They just... let us go. Why?"
Konto looked at the towering, monolithic structure of the Magisterium Council building, its peak lost in the low-hanging clouds. "Because we're not the threat," he said, his voice raspy. "We're the evidence. And they just decided to lose the evidence."
He could feel the fragile thread of connection to Liraya's mind, and through it, he felt her own dawning understanding. This wasn't a victory. It was a dismissal. They had been deemed insignificant, a minor inconvenience to be handled quietly. The real power, the true conspiracy, was still operating within the highest levels of the city, and it had just shown them how effortlessly it could crush them. They were free, but they were more trapped than ever, pawns in a game whose rules they didn't understand, played by opponents who could erase them from existence with a single word.