Chương 111: The Files That Bleed

The forbidden archives did not smell of dust. They smelled of choice. That was worse. Dust belonged to forgotten things. But the archives beneath the human palace had never been forgotten. They had been closed, sealed, watched, protected by priests and mages who knew exactly what they were preventing from resurfacing. Every door said the same thing without speaking: We decided that some truths were less dangerous dead than alive. Maelor walked in front. No one asked him to light a torch. The walls recognized him.

As he passed, lines of blue light opened in the black stone. Seals slowly turned on themselves, then gave way with a sigh. Chains engraved into the floor withdrew like tired serpents. Behind him, the four heroes advanced in silence. Elias first. Lena beside him, hands clasped against her stomach. Jonah two steps behind, jaw locked. Mira, a closed notebook against her chest, which was rare for her. When Mira was not taking notes, it meant she was not sure she wanted to keep what she was about to learn.

Maelor stopped in front of a low door. Not large. Not majestic. Just a simple stone door with five locks. Elias immediately felt that it was the worst one. Large doors were meant to impress the living. Small ones were meant to hide what the dead had failed to carry away. Maelor placed his hand on the stone.

"Before we go in, you need to understand one thing." Jonah replied,"Again?" Maelor did not turn around.

"Yes. Again. And as long as you breathe in this world, there will be more things to understand before you earn the right to strike." Jonah fell silent. Maelor continued,"These records do not show Zayn as he is today. They show the moment when he could still have become several different things." Lena closed her eyes. Elias asked,"Why show us this now?"

"Because you are going to recruit dangerous people to enter an even worse kingdom. If you cannot endure the truth of your own side, you will not endure the lies of theirs." The door opened. The air that came out was not cold. It was still. The room beyond was round, windowless. At the center, five crystals floated above a metal table. Each one contained a recorded memory. On the wall, one name was written. ZAYN VEYLOR — ANOMALY SUBJECT 5 Lena flinched backward.

"They gave him a number." Mira murmured,"Not just a number. A category." Maelor made a gesture. The first crystal lit up. The room changed. They were not transported. But the memory opened around them. A white chamber appeared. The summoning circle. The priests. The soldiers. Their own faces, younger by a few months, still lost, still terrified. Then Zayn. Not the Zayn of the rumors. Not the man with the half-mask. Not the monster from the reports. A boy standing in the middle of a light that had not wanted him.

Elias felt his throat tighten. He had forgotten how ordinary Zayn had looked. That was the most horrible thing. Not weak. Ordinary. A being you could have pushed into a crowd without noticing him. The memory moved on. Status windows appeared. Theirs shone. The chamber reacted. Relief. Tears. Praise. Prostrations. Then came Zayn's. Silence fell over the memory like a blade. The exact words were blurred, censored by a seal. But certain fragments still pushed through. Candidate... King... Demon...

A priest stepped back. A soldier raised his weapon. Zayn, in the memory, looked around him. No one stepped closer. Not them either. Lena raised a hand to her mouth.

"I had forgotten..." Jonah answered, hard,"We had just been summoned. We didn't understand anything." Mira murmured,"That's true." Then, after a silence:"But neither did he." The memory went dark. No one spoke. Maelor activated the second crystal. The sealed room. Zayn sitting on a bed that was too clean. Maelor facing him. A black crystal between them. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Zayn's voice, lower, more wary:"So what am I? A prisoner?"

Maelor's voice, in the memory:"An anomaly under observation." Elias slowly turned his head toward the real archmage. Maelor did not look away from the scene. In the memory, Zayn gave a small laugh.

"That's a very noble way of saying prisoner." Lena cried without sound. The memory continued. Question after question. Answer after answer. Zayn tried sarcasm. Then aggression. Then silence. Then being too calm. Every reaction was noted by invisible hands. Defensive hostility. Resistance humor. Growing distrust. Limited social contact. Risk of symbolic contamination. Jonah murmured,"Symbolic contamination?" Mira replied,"That means they were afraid someone might see him as a person."

The third crystal lit up before anyone had time to breathe. A corridor. Zayn surrounded by guards. A priest was saying:"He must not be seen with the heroes." Another answered:"It would disturb the public narrative." The public narrative. The words entered Elias like a nail. He saw the ceremonies again. The songs. The children carrying flowers. The walls painted with their silhouettes. Four heroes. Not five. Never five. The fourth crystal showed Lena. She had not expected that.

In the memory, she stood in front of a door, hesitating, hands trembling. Zayn's room. She had come. Two minutes. Maybe less. Zayn, on the other side, had looked up. Surprised. She had tried to speak. Badly. He had smiled. Not kindly. Not cruelly either. Like someone who no longer knew what to do with a visit that had come too late. The real Lena began to cry for real.

"Stop." Maelor did not move.

"You need to see it to the end." In the memory, a guard had reminded her:"Time's up." Lena had left. Zayn had remained seated. After she left, he had murmured:"Two minutes. Impressive." Then he had laughed. That laugh had nothing to do with the black scythe from the reports. It was the laugh of someone who was still trying not to beg. The crystal went dark. Lena backed away until she reached the wall. Elias wanted to place a hand on her shoulder. She shook her head. No. Not now. The fifth crystal remained dark.

Maelor stared at it for a long time. Mira asked,"That one?"

"The departure for Rhel-Fosse." Jonah straightened.

"Show it." Maelor answered,"No."

"Why?"

"Because it is not a complete memory. It is a cleaned file. And I refuse to show you a lie just because it has been stored in the official archives." Elias clenched his fists.

"Who cleaned it?" Maelor replied,"A lot of people. That's the problem." He turned toward them.

"Now you know enough. Not everything. But enough that the raid is no longer a story about heroes entering the demons' kingdom to kill a monster." Jonah looked up.

"That doesn't change what he did."

"No." Maelor stepped toward him.

"And that is precisely why I'm showing you this. Truths that do not change the facts are the hardest ones to bear." Jonah said nothing. Elias looked at the name on the wall. ANOMALY SUBJECT 5 Then he said,"Open the lists." Maelor nodded.

"They're already open." The first recruit refused to come in through the door. He came in through the window. Not because the door was locked. Because he wanted everyone to know he could. The selection room was in a lower wing of the palace, far from heroic ceremonies, far from public eyes. A long table. Files. Seals. Guards. Maelor seated at the far end, like a judge who had already read the lies of the accused before they arrived. Elias, Lena, Jonah, and Mira waited. The window exploded inward.

A thin man rolled across the floor, got back up smiling, and dusted off his black coat. Two curved daggers hung at his hips. A guard shouted,"On your knees!" The man raised his hands.

"Technically, I was invited." Jonah sighed.

"Is this a joke?" Maelor said,"No. This is Soren Vale. Former royal assassin. Former state criminal. Currently alive only because three neighboring kings died before they could testify against him." Soren bowed.

"Hurtful description, but efficient." Elias looked at him.

"Why join the raid?" Soren smiled.

"Conditional pardon. Debt erased. And the chance to kill something even the priests can't name properly without trembling." Lena stared at him in disgust.

"You're talking about a person."

"I'm talking about a potential target. The difference is usually discussed after survival." Jonah, despite himself, almost seemed to appreciate the honesty. Elias did not. But he noticed one thing: Soren was not trying to be liked. That already made him less dangerous than those who pretended to be. The second recruit entered through the door. A woman in her forties, dressed in a gray robe with no visible religious symbol. Her black hair was cut very short. Around her neck hung a broken metal ring.

The priest present in the room immediately stood.

"She has no place here." The woman smiled.

"Still as warm as ever." Maelor said,"Ivara Solenn. Former theologian of the Clergy. Condemned for consulting and annotating suppressed texts on the black cycles." Mira finally opened her notebook.

"Black cycles?" Ivara looked at her.

"What the Church calls superstition when it does not want to admit it burned the notes of its predecessors." The priest turned red.

"Heretic."

"Yes. And yet here I am, called before you to prevent your apocalypse. Divine pedagogy is fascinating." Mira wrote immediately. Elias asked,"What do you know about the Demon King?" Ivara lost her smile.

"Not enough. But more than those who pretend it is simply a monster appearing every thousand years." The room grew colder. Maelor said nothing. Ivara continued:"Something returns. Not always in the same way. Not always with the same face. But the oldest texts speak of continuity. The Church removed that word." Elias felt a chill.

"Continuity of what?" Ivara looked at him.

"That is precisely why I want to enter the demonic kingdom." The third recruit was brought in chained. A massive mercenary, red beard, one ruined eye, armor worn but carefully maintained. His wrists bore shackles engraved with anti-violence seals. His name was Garron Tels. Officially: captain of a free company. Unofficially: pillager, survivor of three forbidden campaigns, likely responsible for two village massacres during a border war. He smiled when he saw Elias.

"The hero is younger than expected." Elias answered,"And you're more alive than your file deserves." Garron burst out laughing.

"Good. He bites a little." Lena murmured,"Why him?" Maelor replied,"He knows the war routes of the Marches. He has already survived a demonic incursion. And he has no illusions about courage." Garron shrugged.

"Courage is useful. But a well-prepared retreat is worth three heroic songs." Jonah asked,"Your motivation?"

"Money. Partial pardon. And I'd rather fight the Demon King while he's still far from my cellar." Mira noted:"Honest, at least." Garron smiled.

"No. Just experienced." Then came the fourth. And with him, the silence changed. He entered without a sound. Dark hood. Worn travel cloak. Slim body, not yet fully adult, but his movements had that animal caution of those who had learned never to show their back to a door. A beastman. Young. His ears were hidden under the hood, but not enough to fully deceive anyone. A thin tail, bandaged in several places, remained hidden beneath the cloak.

His hands bore marks of old claws, and his scent made several guards tense. Jonah frowned.

"A beastman?" The young man did not answer. Maelor introduced him without emotion.

"Survivor of the western continent. Declared name: Nahr." Mira raised her eyes slightly.

"Declared name?"

"It is the only one he gives." Elias studied the boy. He could not have been much more than sixteen or seventeen. But his eyes, in the shadow of the hood, did not look like those of a teenager. They looked like embers buried under ash. Elias asked gently,"Why do you want to join the raid?" The young beastman finally raised his head. His eyes were gray. Cold. Broken in a dry way.

"The demonic human is going to the demonic kingdom." His voice was hoarse, as if it had been damaged by old screams.

"I'm going where he goes." Lena stiffened.

"You're talking about Zayn?" The young man's gaze turned to her. Something passed through his eyes. Not recognition. Not yet. Only a hatred so concentrated it seemed to have been repeated a thousand times inside his own head until it became a prayer.

"Is that what he's called where you're from?" No one answered. The young man clenched his fists.

"Where I'm from, he has other names." Jonah asked,"You saw him?" The young man stayed silent. Too long. Then:"I saw what he leaves behind." Maelor was watching him with particular attention. Not simple suspicion. Something deeper. But he said nothing. Elias asked,"Do you want to kill him?" The young beastman gave a joyless smile beneath his hood.

"I want to be there when he understands that some dead still have teeth." The sentence entered the room like a dirty blade. Lena looked away. Mira, meanwhile, wrote very slowly. Soren the assassin smiled.

"I like that one." Garron grunted,"Personal vendettas on a raid end badly." The young beastman turned his gaze toward him.

"Then stay away from mine." Garron burst out laughing.

"All right. I like that one too." Elias did not laugh. He was watching the hood. The voice. The hands. The hatred. He wanted to refuse immediately. Not because the boy was dangerous. Because it was too obvious that someone had already turned him into a weapon. And Elias was tired of meeting weapons the world had begun forging before they were old enough to choose their shape. He turned to Maelor.

"Who brought him?" Maelor answered,"A network of beastman survivors. Officially."

"And unofficially?"

"We do not know yet." Jonah said,"Then we refuse." The young beastman took a step. The guards tensed.

"Refuse, and I'll follow you anyway." Soren applauded softly.

"Very good spirit. Bad discretion, but very good spirit." Elias raised a hand for silence. He looked at the young beastman.

"If you come with us, you follow my orders." The young man replied,"So long as they don't protect the demonic human."

"My orders," Elias repeated. Their eyes met. For a long time. At last, the young man lowered his head slightly. Not submission. A temporary agreement.

"Then give good orders." Jonah let his eyes drift to the ceiling.

"We are seriously going to recruit a vengeful teenager who refuses to even give his real name?" Ivara, the heretic, spoke softly:"You were summoned with a boy they refused to name properly. Maybe this raid begins precisely by learning what that creates." No one knew how to answer. Elias looked at the table. The files. The criminals. The heretics. The survivors. The human and non-human weapons the kingdom was placing before him, asking him to choose which ones were acceptable. Was this what leading a raid was?

Not raising a sword before the light. But deciding which shadows would be allowed to walk behind him. He drew a breath.

"Soren Vale. Ivara Solenn. Garron Tels. Nahr." The young beastman did not move at the announcement of his declared name.

"You are retained for final evaluation. Not accepted. Retained." Soren smiled.

"How bureaucratically heroic." Mira murmured,"I'm really going to have to write faster." Elias ignored her. He looked at each of them.

"If you come with us, this raid will not be a private hunt. Not a free pardon. Not an opportunity to settle all your hatreds while hiding behind our banner." His gaze stopped on the young beastman.

"You included." The boy held his stare. Then, very low:"We'll see." Jonah looked toward the ceiling again. Lena looked as if she were about to say something, then gave up. Maelor, meanwhile, was watching the hooded youth with a concern no one noticed. Except Mira. She wrote a quiet sentence at the bottom of her page: The survivor does not only look like someone who hates. He looks like someone who was taught where to place that hatred. In the deeper archives, Zayn's records remained open.

In the demonic kingdom, Elvarin Soreth had probably just discovered that surviving was not the same thing as being saved. And between those two truths, a team was beginning to form. Not pure. Not beautiful. Not reassuring. But perhaps capable of entering hell without dying at the first lie. That was already more than the human kingdom had any right to ask of heroes. And perhaps less than the world was about to demand of them.