They came for him in the conduit.He had climbed perhaps two hundred feet when the alarm sounded—a deep, resonant
tone that vibrated through the organic alloy of the tube and into his bones, followed by a
voice, cold and precise:
"ATTENTION. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS IN CONDUIT SEVEN-NORTH. ALL
PERSONNEL: CONTAIN AND DETAIN. DESIGNATION: VAEL, HARVESTER THIRD
CLASS, SIGIL 7749-DELTA. STATUS: ROGUE."
He climbed faster. His hands were bleeding on the rungs. The warm pull in his chest
had become urgent, frantic, as though whatever was guiding him had suddenly realized
that time was running out.
They were waiting for him at the top.
Three angels in void-combat armor—white carapaces with gold visors, each one fitted
with restraint clamps and null-dampeners designed to suppress a being's ability to
manipulate energy. They were not Harvesters. They were Wardens—internal security,
the Forge's immune system. Vael had seen them in passing but had never interacted
with them. They moved with the mechanical precision of things that had been built
rather than born.
The first Warden grabbed his arm as he pulled himself over the lip of the vent. The
second locked a restraint clamp around his other wrist. The third pressed a
null-dampener to the base of his skull, and the warm pull in his chest—the thread, the
guide, whatever it was—winked out like a candle in a hurricane.
Vael slumped. The world went gray. Not dark—gray, as though someone had drained
the color from reality, leaving only shape and texture and a dull, flat light that made
everything look like a photograph of itself.
They carried him down.
He was held in a containment cell for three days.
The cell was a sphere of white light, six feet in diameter, suspended in a larger chamber
that he could not see. There was no floor, no walls, no ceiling—only the light, which was
warm and even and completely inescapable. He could not sit. He could not lie down. He
could only stand, floating in the center of the sphere, while the light pressed against him
from every direction like the palm of an enormous hand.
On the second day, a voice spoke from the light. It was not Seraphiel's voice. It was
older, colder, a voice that had been used to delivering verdicts for so long that the words
had been worn smooth by repetition, like stones in a riverbed.
"Vael. Harvester Third Class. Sigil 7749-Delta. You are charged with the following: One,
unauthorized access to restricted areas of the Soulforge. Two, theft and decryption of
classified documents. Three, harboring a designated enemy combatant. Four, failure to
perform the Reclamation on a deceased entity, resulting in the loss of convertible
energy. Five, conspiracy to subvert the operational integrity of the Soulforge. Six,
attempted desertion."
The voice paused."How do you answer?"
Vael opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I answer that the Soulforge is built on the body of a murdered god," he said. His voice
sounded strange in the white light—flat, muffled, as though the light were absorbing the
sound. "I answer that the war is a farm. I answer that every soul I have ever harvested
was murdered, not reclaimed. I answer that the Conclave knows this, and has known it
since the beginning, and has lied to every angel, every devil, and every mortal in
existence."
Silence.
"The accused does not deny the charges," the voice said. "The accused will be brought
before the Conclave for adjudication."
The light went out.