Chapter 59: Interrogation

Chapter 59: Interrogation
The dungeon lay at the very bottom of Aldenmere's royal palace. The air here never circulated properly, stagnant and thick with the smell of damp mold and rust. The deepest cell sat at the end of the corridor, its four walls carved from solid granite blocks without a single seam between them.

The door was forged from heavy black iron, inlaid with sealing runes provided by the Mage Tower. Those runes glowed with a cold blue light in the dim torchlight, ensuring that any wizard locked inside would be unable to channel magic.

Rendell entered the cell first, followed by several soldiers who dragged the dark wizard in and locked him into the iron chair at the center of the room. Thick chains threaded through the chair's armrests and legs, binding the man's hands and feet immovably.

Corvus stood at the cell doorway, refusing to enter. He insisted on remaining outside, claiming the sealing runes' force field required his presence to maintain, lest the dark wizard find a gap. But Rendell knew the mage was acting more out of caution—his research into dark magic had taught him just how insidious and cunning these people could be.

Rendell approached the dark wizard. The man's head hung low, tangled hair obscuring his eyes. Hearing the footsteps, he slowly raised his head. That insane smile had never left his face, and combined with the strange tattoos marking his skin, it created a sinister effect.

"Who are you?" Rendell showed no hesitation, directly demanding answers.

The dark wizard looked at him, his mouth stretching into an even wider grin.

"What do you want?" Rendell took another step forward, his eyes boring into the dark wizard's face.

The dark wizard actually laughed. A sound like air wheezing through a broken bellows escaped his throat, as if Rendell had asked the most foolish question in the world. This reaction made Rendell even more uneasy—the dark wizard must have already accomplished some objective to display such arrogance.

Actually, he didn't need to guess what their goal was.

"The one who vanished," Rendell leaned forward slightly, staring into those mad eyes, "where did he go?"

After this question, the dark wizard finally spoke.

"You're asking the wrong question," he said, his voice hoarse, as if his vocal cords had been scraped with sandpaper, as though he hadn't spoken normally in a very long time. "You shouldn't ask where he went. You should ask who he went to find."

Rendell's hand moved to his sword hilt, his knuckles whitening with the force of his grip.

"Who did he go to find?"

"The girl who should have died," the dark wizard said, a fanatical gleam flashing in his eyes. "Because of that damned prophecy."

Rendell's breathing stopped in that instant.

The damp air around them seemed to solidify. In that second, he understood the full meaning of those words.

"Mia."

"She's lived too long," the dark wizard said, his smile deepening to reveal yellowed teeth. "She should have died long ago. It was written in fate. Every day she continues to live is an affront to that arrangement."

"What arrangement?" Rendell's voice grew colder, his fists clenching at his sides.

"Dark wizards will rule this continent," the man said, his voice suddenly rising with a nearly frenzied pitch that echoed through the narrow cell. "The rifts are the beginning. The monsters are tools. Everyone who stands in the way will die. Those self-righteous old fools in the Tower will die. The coward sitting on the throne will die. And as for your princess..."

He paused, as if savoring something delicious.

"She'll die first."

Corvus suddenly moved at the doorway.

"Rendell," his voice changed, sharp and urgent. "He's gathering energy. Get back!"

Rendell felt it in that instant.

The air around the dark wizard began to distort, like invisible ripples spreading outward. His magic, suppressed by the sealing runes and unable to release outward, was gathering inward instead. The gathering speed was alarmingly fast. The tattoos on his skin began to glow, light crawling across his body like serpents, forming a burning net.

"Damn it!" Rendell shouted while instinctively backing away.

Corvus's hand was already raised. His incantation came twice as fast as usual. A translucent shield expanded from his palm like a massive barrier, covering both himself and the retreating Rendell.

The runes on Rendell's own armor blazed to life in that instant, automatically activating upon sensing the lethal threat and emitting blinding white light.

The dark wizard exploded.

The sound of the explosion was like a roar from the depths of hell, tearing the very air apart. The entire cell was blown open by that blast. The solid granite blocks forming the four walls were ripped from their places by the shockwave, transforming into countless deadly fragments. The iron chair, the chains, the dark wizard himself—all vanished in an instant within a sphere of black light.

The shockwave crashed against Corvus's shield.

The barrier made an unbearable cracking sound under the impact, fractures spreading like a spiderweb, but it held through that critical moment. Rendell felt himself lifted from the ground by that invisible tremendous force, his entire body flying backward and slamming hard against one of the cell's remaining walls.

The impact rang out with a heavy thud.

The runes on his armor blazed to their maximum intensity, absorbing most of the force for him. Even so, he felt as though his internal organs had all shifted position.

When the smoke cleared, the deepest cell no longer existed.

Where the cell had been was now a massive crater blasted into the rock, its edges still dropping debris and exposing the jagged stone layers behind. The entire dungeon corridor was filled with thick smoke, half the torches blown out, the remaining half flickering wildly in the turbulent air.

Rendell leaned against the remnant wall, gasping for breath.

His ears rang with a piercing whine, drowning out all other sounds. His left arm had dislocated again in the impact, the searing pain causing cold sweat to pour down his face. Several runes on his armor had burned black, losing their luster like scrap metal.

But he was alive.

Corvus emerged from the smoke. His shield had shattered, dissolving into scattered points of light. Several cuts on his face from flying debris were bleeding. One corner of his robe was burning, which he patted out expressionlessly with his hand.

"Are you all right?" he said. It wasn't really a question. He was confirming.

"Still alive," Rendell said, attempting to stand straight, but the pain in his left arm made him stagger.

He braced himself against the remnant wall to stand.

"Don't move yet."

Corvus quickly recited an incantation, and a green ring of light appeared, enveloping Rendell's left shoulder.

After completing this, Corvus glanced at the crater blasted into the rock, then back at Rendell.

"He'd rather self-destruct than talk," Corvus said, his voice carrying the gravity of facing unknowable terror. "When I discovered that curse on the child, I already felt this matter ran deeper than anyone imagined."

"And now?" Rendell asked.

"Now I'm even more certain," Corvus said. "That curse, that prophecy, these people willing to die—they're all controlled by the same hand. This is a web, Knight Commander. A very large web."

Rendell didn't respond.

The moment he stood up, only one thing occupied his mind.

The vanished dark wizard.

He had gone to find Mia.

Rendell didn't know where Mia was now. Despite days of investigation, he'd found no crucial leads. Mia hadn't sent word after leaving, and he had no idea of her specific location.

The only thing he could be certain of was that Mia was in danger.

And he himself stood in this destroyed dungeon, wounded and battered.

That sense of helplessness coiled around him like a serpent. He stared at the place where the dark wizard had vanished, at the still-smoking debris, and for the first time felt a profound dread.

He had to take action now.