Inside, the interrogation room felt less like a chamber of faith and more like the inside of a wound.
The walls were smooth pale stone, carved in perfect circles that drew the eye inward whether you wanted them to or not. Gold runes had been set into the floor in concentric rings, each one humming faintly as mana moved through them. The light in the room was dim and clinical, not warm like the cathedral halls above. No candles. No stained glass. No saints.
Only polished metal, old scripture etched into restraint brackets, and the low mechanical whine of a device built to drag truth out by force.
Celeste had been strapped into the chair at the center of it.
Leather bands crossed her arms, her waist, her ankles. Sanctified cuffs bit cold around her wrists, chained to ironwood rests at either side of the seat. Above her, a ring of crystal lenses slowly rotated into position around her head and shoulders, throwing fractured halos across the walls.
Wires of braided silver and mana-thread ran from the chair into the floor, where the array pulsed like the heart of some patient machine.
Priests moved around her in a slow, deliberate circle.
Robes whispered over stone. Papers shifted. A censer smoked faintly in one corner, though the incense did nothing to hide the sharp metallic smell of charged mana. Every few moments one of the clergy would stop to adjust a rune dial, check a gauge, or murmur something in clipped ritual language.
They behaved like scholars preparing an experiment.
Celeste felt less like a person than something they had finally managed to pin down.
Arch-Luminar Tamsin Emilio stood nearest to her.
He had removed his outer mantle, leaving only cream-and-gold robes beneath, sleeves rolled back far enough to reveal the old scars crossing one wrist. Up close, without the distance of cathedral ceremony, he looked worse than before.
Not weak.
Not fragile.
Hollowed.
As though something had burned through him years ago and never stopped smouldering.
He watched the preparations with the same distant, stripped-down expression he always wore.
“This was always going to happen,” he said.
His voice was low and rough-edged, as though it had spent too many years being used only for orders, prayers, and funerals.
“You shouldn’t fight it.”
Celeste swallowed.
The mana cuffs had begun to warm against her skin.
“I’m not fighting,” she said quietly. “I just... don’t understand why this is happening.”
One of the older priests gave a dismissive sniff behind her.
Tamsin ignored him.
His gaze drifted over the machine, the runes, the restraints, as if all of it had become so ordinary to him that he no longer really saw it.
“Doesn’t matter if you understand,” he said. “Some roads don’t split. They just narrow.”
Celeste stared at him.
And beneath her fear, something else tugged at her.
Recognition.
Not of his face.
Of the ache.
She had seen that expression before on soldiers, grieving parents, people who had lived too long beside something they could not fix and eventually mistaken numbness for strength.
Her fear flickered just enough for concern to slip through.
“Father Tamsin?”
He glanced at her.
Celeste’s ears dipped.
“Are you... all right?”
The nearest priest looked scandalized.
Tamsin simply stared.
“You don’t seem all right,” she continued, voice shaky but sincere. “You seem... lost.”
Someone behind her muttered that the comment was inappropriate.
Tamsin lifted one hand.
Silence returned.
“You should worry about yourself.”
“I do,” Celeste said. “I’m just worried about you too.”
For the smallest moment, he almost laughed.
Instead he looked away.
“I fought,” he said after a while. “Against law. Against blood. Against the things I was told were inevitable.”
His fingers tightened against the side of the machine.
“I lost.”
Celeste’s breath caught.
Against family.
Against law.
Something clicked against the strange absences surrounding Skye’s past.
“Your son,” she said.
Tamsin’s jaw tightened.
That was enough.
“You mean Skye.”
The room went utterly still.
One priest began sharply, “Do not presume—”
Tamsin raised a hand again.
Celeste leaned forward as far as the restraints allowed.
“He would love to see you,” she said.
Tamsin’s face didn’t move.
“He would want to talk to you. He’s shy, and sometimes he doesn’t know how to say things properly, but he cares. I know he does.” Her words began tumbling faster with nervous sincerity. “You should talk to him.”
Something broke through his mask.
Pain.
Raw, immediate, gone almost before she registered it.
“It’s pointless,” Tamsin said.
The words fell like stone.
“Not just that. All of it.” His eyes finally met hers. “Life. Duty. Blood. A spinning canvas full of errors. Mess after mess after mess.”
There was doctrine in his voice now.
Something grief had fossilised into belief.
“Until the Artist corrects what should never have been painted wrong.”
Celeste felt cold.
Before she could answer, another voice entered the room.
“Beautifully said.”
Every priest straightened.
Maven walked in.
She did not wear the soft ceremonial robes of the others. Her garments were darker, narrower, practical beneath elaborate religious embroidery, her hair pinned severely away from her face. She carried herself with the composure of someone who had never once doubted that every room belonged to her the moment she entered it.
Celeste had seen frightening people before.
Maven frightened her in an entirely different way.
Because she smiled.
“Commander.”
Celeste swallowed.
“Maven.”
Maven’s gaze travelled over the chair, the restraints, the rotating crystals.
Then she looked pleased.
“I thought I should be present for this particular examination.”
She crossed the chamber toward one wall.
Until then, Celeste had assumed the dark recesses set into it were shelves.
Maven touched a rune.
Lights came on.
Celeste stopped breathing.
Jars.
Dozens of them.
Tall preservation vessels lined the wall from floor to ceiling, their glass slightly clouded by old alchemical fluid.
Inside each floated a severed head.
Women.
Some horned.
Some feathered.
Some feline.
Some with scales or gems or remnants of mythic features still visible beneath waxy skin.
Different ages.
Different species.
Different centuries, perhaps.
All dead.
Celeste’s stomach lurched.
Maven walked along the display almost fondly.
“Claimants,” she said.
Celeste stared at her.
“What?”
“Women who claimed to be Motherlight returned.”
Her fingers brushed the rim of one jar.
“This one gathered almost three thousand followers before examination proved her divinity false.”
She indicated another.
“This one manifested light mana during an eclipse and convinced two villages she carried Motherlight’s soul.”
Another.
“This one even produced prophetic visions.”
Maven’s smile sharpened.
“They were wrong.”
Celeste felt sick.
Not figuratively.
Actually sick.
Her throat tightened and she had to look away before her body decided to prove it.
“They’re... all...”
“False,” Maven said.
Celeste looked back despite herself.
The heads stared sightlessly through the fluid.
Each one had once stood somewhere and said I am her.
Each one had ended here.
Maven stopped directly beside Celeste.
“Which brings us to an interesting problem.”
Celeste’s pulse began hammering.
Maven bent slightly so their faces were nearer level.
“Some mythics have begun saying that a certain Knight Commander is Motherlight reborn.”
Celeste’s blood turned to ice.
Tamsin looked away.
The other priests watched with renewed attention.
Maven studied every movement of Celeste’s face.
“I hope,” she said pleasantly, “you are not planning to confirm those rumours.”
Celeste’s eyes immediately filled.
“No.”
Too quickly.
She shook her head.
“No, no, I’m not. I wouldn’t—I mean, people say things, and I don’t know why they say them, and sometimes they call me things and I tell them not to, or I try, but they don’t always listen and I definitely haven’t told anyone I’m Motherlight because I’m not—I’m Celeste, I mean, obviously I’m Celeste, and—”
Her breathing started to go wrong.
“I won’t confirm anything. I promise.”
Tears slid down her cheeks.
Maven watched without sympathy.
“Good.”
She straightened.
“I would hate to need another jar.”
Celeste shut her eyes.
Tamsin’s expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
Maven turned toward the priests.
“Proceed.”
One of them touched the final rune seal.
The confession array awakened.
Mana slammed into Celeste all at once.
She cried out, back arching hard against the restraints as white-gold light surged through the chair and into her spine, ribs, and skull.
It was not like magic.
It was invasion.
Cold.
Bright.
Total.
The crystal lenses blazed.
The runes beneath her began to spin.
Celeste dragged in a ragged breath.
“I have nothing to hide,” she gasped.
A priest adjusted one of the dials.
“I expected the Knight Commander to be more stoic.”
Celeste turned toward the voice, terror naked across her face.
“Please—”
Tamsin did not comfort her.
He stood beyond the ring of light, face carved from tired stone.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
The priest glanced at him.
“Father?”
Tamsin’s eyes remained on Celeste.
“It matters not whether she is brave, frightened, or willing. The Weave will reveal what we require.”
Another priest stepped forward carrying a slate.
“We will now ask you questions, Commander Celeste.”
He spoke with the tone of someone announcing liturgy.
“You will answer them.”
Celeste stared at him, breathing shallowly.
“If you refuse,” he continued, “the array will correct your refusal.”
Her fingers tightened against the restraints.
“I told you—I have nothing to hide.”
The priest regarded her clinically.
“You will be shocked until you answer.”
The horror on her face was immediate.
Behind him, the illuminated jars remained visible.
Rows and rows of dead women who had answered the wrong question in the wrong way.
The runes around Celeste flared brighter.
The priest raised the slate.
Maven turned toward the priests.
“Proceed.”
Dawn Prelate Marvin stepped forward.
Until then, he had remained near the main control dais, half-hidden behind rotating crystal lenses and brass-edged rune panels. He looked smaller in the room than he had in the cathedral above, his robes too formal for the machinery around him, his hands moving with practised precision over the equipment.
Not comfortable.
But familiar.
That somehow made Celeste more frightened.
Marvin adjusted one of the crystal dials.
The array answered with a low mechanical whine.
Gold runes pulsed across the floor in sequence, one circle after another waking beneath the chair.
A priest beside him murmured a calibration phrase.
Marvin checked the reading, then frowned.
“There’s instability around the chest cavity,” he said.
Celeste went cold.
Her heart slammed once.
Then again.
Marvin looked toward Tamsin.
“Should we add temporary mana seals? Just in case whatever is inside her becomes unstable?”
Celeste stopped breathing.
No.
Her fingers curled against the restraints.
No, no, no, please don’t touch the rune.
Her mind jumped instantly to the small seal at the base of her neck.
The one thing holding everything in place.
The one thing she could not fix herself.
If they pull it out, I can’t put it back in.
Her throat tightened.
I can’t put it back in.
Tamsin’s eyes moved over the readings.
“No,” he said.
Celeste almost sagged with relief.
Then he added, “Work it into the grid instead.”
Marvin hesitated.
“Into the confession array?”
“Yes.”
Tamsin’s voice remained flat.
“If the core reacts, the grid will contain the response.”
Celeste did not know whether that was better.
It sounded better.
It also sounded like being buried inside a cage and told not to worry because the lock was very well made.
Marvin nodded and began adjusting the lower ring controls.
The runes beneath Celeste’s chair shifted.
Not closer to her rune.
Not touching it.
But aware of it now.
Her chest prickled beneath her uniform.
The warmth there gathered uneasily, like something inside her had lifted its head.
Maven’s gaze slid to Celeste.
Slowly.
With interest.
“Oh.”
Celeste froze.
Maven smiled.
“That look.”
Celeste’s ears dipped.
“What look?”
“The one people get when they are thinking something very hard and hoping no one notices.”
Celeste’s mouth went dry.
Maven stepped closer, delight brightening her pale eyes.
“How considerate of you. We’ll extract that truth in a moment.”
Celeste was sweating now.
A bead of it slid down the side of her face beneath her hair.
“I was thinking about cheesecake cookies,” she blurted.
Marvin paused.
Tamsin looked at her.
Even one of the priests glanced up from his slate.
Celeste nodded far too quickly.
“Yes. Cheesecake cookies. The ones with the crumbly bottoms and little jam middle bits. I’m rather hungry, actually, and when I’m frightened I sometimes think about food because food is easier than thinking about being tied to a chair, which I realise is not very dignified, but it is true.”
The room went quiet.
Maven stared at her.
Then smiled wider.
“How charming.”
She leaned in slightly.
“So am I.”
Celeste blinked.
Maven’s voice softened.
“For the truth.”
Marvin touched the final rune seal.
The confession array awakened.
Mana slammed into Celeste all at once.
She cried out, back arching hard against the restraints as white-gold light surged through the chair and into her spine, ribs, and skull.
It was not like magic.
It was invasion.
Cold.
Bright.
Total.
