Valeria's gaze was a physical pressure, the red eye of her neural-dampener a silent promise of oblivion. In the space of a single, suspended heartbeat, Kaelen stood at the precipice. To his right was the golden ring, heavy with a truth that could shatter the world. To his left was Councilor Valerius, a man whose life hinged on the next words from his lips.
He could not hand this memory over. The vision of the Archivist, trapped in eternal agony, was not a state secret; it was the root of the sickness infecting all of Aethelgard. To give it to the system was to feed the very cancer he was beginning to despise.
But he could not openly refuse. Valeria would dampen him on the spot, and the memory would be torn from Valerius's mind by less gentle hands, confirming its importance and dooming them all.
There was only one path forward, a path he was becoming tragically adept at walking. The path of the liar. He had to use the very skill the Archivist prized in him—his ability to sculpt—to deceive his master.
He turned to Valeria, his face a mask of cold, professional frustration he did not feel. "The problem," he stated, his voice devoid of the turmoil raging within him, "is not resistance, but complexity. The subject's mind is a fortress, but one on the verge of collapse. A standard extraction would be like kicking down the doors of a burning building. The primary intelligence—his political secrets and contacts—would be lost in the conflagration."
Valeria's hand did not move from her weapon. "The Archivist requires the Councilor's knowledge of the traitor network. All else is secondary. Your assessment, Sculptor?"
The title was a lash. Sculptor. A reminder of what he had done to Joren, and what he was now expected to do again.
"I must perform a targeted isolation," Kaelen said, the plan forming fully in his mind even as he spoke it. "I will locate the core memory of his treason—the plot, the names—and extract it with precision. To do this, I must stabilize the surrounding cognitive architecture. The peripheral data, including this… 'city's heart' he raves about… will be neutralized. Rendered into unstable, incoherent noise. It will be useless to anyone, including him, but it will provide the stable ground from which I can safely retrieve your priority."
It was a brilliant, terrible lie. He was offering to do exactly what the Archivist wanted—extract the treason—while secretly planning to do the opposite. He would pretend to target the political secret, but in reality, he would perform the most delicate operation of his life: burying the memory of the Archivist's torment so deep and disguising it so completely that it would be dismissed as madness, while making the lesser treason appear to be the grand prize.
Valeria studied him for a long moment, then gave a single, sharp nod. "Proceed. Do not fail."
Kaelen turned back to Valerius. The Councilor's eyes were wide with a confused hope. He didn't understand the game being played, only that his execution had been temporarily stayed.
"This will be… disorienting," Kaelen said, a subtle warning in his tone. He placed his fingers back on the man's temples.
With immense care, he began his work. He approached the dark core not as a thief, but as a preservationist. He pulled threads of inconsequential memories—the taste of a bland breakfast, the sound of rain on a spire window, the tedious text of a minor trade report—and began weaving a cocoon around the terrible truth. Layer after layer, he buried the secret heart of Aethelgard in a shell of utter banality. He wasn't erasing it; he was building a fortress of the mundane to hide it in, ensuring it would be overlooked by any future examination.
Next, he turned to the bright shard of political treason. This, he handled with brutal efficiency. He seized it, feeling the specific guilt and ambition within it, and with a sharp, psychic wrench, he tore it loose from its moorings and channeled it directly into the golden ring. The ring flared with a sharp, guilty light, now heavy with a single, damning memory.
He pulled back.
Valerius gasped, his body slumping. The intelligent, terrified light in his eyes guttered and died, replaced by the familiar, hollow confusion of the deeply cleansed. He would remember nothing of consequence—not his treason, and certainly not the truth that had driven him to it.
"It is done," Kaelen said, his voice rough. He held up the ring. "The treason is contained. The rest is… noise."
Valeria took the ring, her fingers brushing against his. Her touch was cold. She looked from the glowing ring to Valerius's vacant face, her expression unreadable. "Efficient," she stated. "The Archivist will be pleased with the result."
Back in his obsidian cell, Kaelen collapsed. He had done it. He had saved the city's most dangerous secret. But he felt no triumph, only a profound exhaustion. He was piling lie upon lie, sin upon sin. He had stolen a memory of the stars and hidden the memory of a tormented heart. He was building a secret library of truths that could get him killed, and each new volume cost him a piece of his own humanity.
The Echo's voice returned, not as a whisper, but as a clear, cold stream in his mind.
You walk the razor's edge, Librarian, it spoke, its voice now more cohesive, more aware. You hide the heart to protect it. You preserve the light by living in the shadows. But the warden is old, and his grief is a bottomless well. He will look into your eyes one day and see the truths you hold. And on that day, the sculptor will become the clay.
The warning was clear. The Archivist, a man who had lived for centuries powered by his own sorrow, was not a fool. Kaelen's deception had a time limit. He was no longer just hiding from the system; he was hiding from the agonized, god-like being at its center, who was slowly, inevitably, beginning to suspect that his new, most valuable tool had a mind of its own.