The same list he had given before Junior’s interrogation.
Her eyes traced it once, twice. She caught the difference immediately.
Only one of the “additional” questions had been formally grafted on:
- Could your team have fabricated the report together, to protect someone?
The other was gone. 'Did you trust your team leader?' had vanished without a trace, as though it had never been pressed into Junior’s skull.
Her jaw tightened. The first trap had already sprung, because its absence would damn her more than its presence. They would assume she invented the question herself, a reckless improvisation.
Her hand drifted toward her pocket, brushing the cool edge of Kion’s coin through the fabric. Anchor. Proof she was still herself.
Caustic didn’t wait. His hand lifted, palm out, ushering her inside with no words spared.
So she moved.
Crossing the threshold was like stepping into thicker air. Pressure bent along her ribs, subtle but deliberate, as if the walls themselves pressed in.
Caustic did not claim the usual seat at the table. He stood instead, flanking Caedern.
Because the chair across was already taken.
The Veiled sat there, every fold of fabric an assertion, the Quill woman at her shoulder like a shadow stitched in place.
Another weight landed on Writ’s ribs. She straightened, but the constriction did not ease. Each time she told herself it was only theater, a ritual of presence meant to unsettle. And each time, she failed to believe it.
The Veiled’s presence could mean the report carried heavier consequence. Or it could mean nothing, that her other duties had ended, leaving her the leisure to attend. Writ couldn’t decide which possibility tightened her chest more.
The veil did its work well. Expression erased. A blank surface where judgment hid.
“Silent Writ,” Tiran’s voice cut across the stillness, even, resonant. “Start your report.”
Writ inclined her head once. She filled her lungs carefully, as though each second bought steadiness. Then she began.
“Subject’s designation: nine-seven-five-nine-one-zero. Tactical liaison, Verdict Wings. Operative since second moon, twelve-twenty-four.”
Steady. Always steady. Anything less would betray Junior.
“Access level and permissions: maps, layouts, hazards. Briefed on pod placement, memory traps, demolition. No outside intel.”
Her pulse was climbing, but her tone did not.
“Target interactions: only teammates. Followed Harbinger and Verdict leads. No civilians.”
Keep it flat. Keep it clean.
“Unexpected hazards: memory trap triggered. Subject acted as planned. Helped disarm. Guarded unconscious teammates. No negligence.”
No tremble. No accident blamed where it shouldn’t be.
“Awareness of protocols: confirmed. Aware of handling unknown threats, civilian exposure, and operational discretion.”
“External communication: none. No unverified contact.”
“Decision-making around unknown threats: placed mission and safety first. Waited for right conditions. Judged risk, held impulses down.”
“Teammate safety and mission continuity under duress: supported leader with trap. Guarded until recovery. Kept mission intact.”
These were truths. Enough of them, at least, that the lies she had threaded wouldn’t stand out.
“Susceptibility to external influence: fear and inexperience noted. But priorities stayed in place.”
The Veiled’s pen scratched.
“Understanding of disciplinary consequences: confirmed. Accepted any consequence for failure or compromised operation.”
Her throat caught. She forced herself to continue.
“Trust in team leader: acknowledged team leader experience and decision-making authority.”
A smirk from Caedern, thin and sharp as a blade’s edge. Of course it had been his hand that added that one.
“Possibility in record fabrication: confirmed report accuracy; denied fabrication with teammates.”
Writ lifted the page, feigning diligence, confirming the list with her eyes. Annoyance pricked at her temple. They wanted her to stumble on omissions. She would not.
“Additional observations: nerves still faint. Tremor in hands, small vocal hitch. But answers clear, precise, minimal hesitation. Technical knowledge steady. Growth visible. Reliability intact.”
She prayed they wouldn’t decide to dig further. She prayed they wouldn’t drag Junior back into this again.
“If conclusion has to be taken: subject followed protocol, met objectives, handled hazard. Fear noted, but did not compromise mission or team safety.”
Her breath slowed, visibly marking the end of the checklist phase. Mask still fixed, expression emptied.
“Then the off-record session.”
A tilt of the Veiled’s head. Caedern’s brows rising, hungry.
“My question: ‘Your nerves don’t bother you anymore now?’ Subject answered: ‘No. Thanks to the guidance of my seniors.’”
Flat tone. No echo of Junior’s voice. No softness allowed.
“Subject’s question: ‘I haven’t crossed paths with Four-Oh and Four-One since the split. I assume they were reassigned? Have you heard anything about them?’ My answer: ‘I don’t. Don’t feel the need to ask.’”
The Veiled's pen moved again, scratching like teeth on bone.
“Observation on off-record session: subject stayed composed, credited senior guidance. Expression shifted at mention of peers. Brief disappointment, then back to neutral. Accepted dismissal without hesitation.”
“Assessment: stability held by discipline and seniors. Trace of attachment surfaced, quickly suppressed. Possible bias remains, but contained for now.”
She let the final words settle.
“That will be all.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It pressed at her ribs, a weight waiting for someone else to claim it. Writ kept her spine straight, her hands still. Though her thumb twitched once against the coin in her pocket. She held it.
She had given them the report exactly as written. She had given them what they asked for. But if the questions turned to Junior now, if the traps were buried in the phrasing, she needed to know where they wanted her to stand.
Her gaze stayed on the blank checklist in her hand, not their faces, as she spoke,
“Do you want me to answer as an interrogator, restricted to the report and the knowledge I was given...”
A pause, just long enough for the distinction to bite.
“...Or as his team leader, adding what I’ve seen and experienced myself?”
Only then did she lift her eyes, mask in place, to meet the silence head-on.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
A ripple passed through the table. Tiran, Caedern, and the Veiled exchanged brief glances. The Quill woman’s brows arched high, while Caustic’s lips twitched as if an almost-smile had tried to surface and been buried again.
Tiran shifted his gaze toward the Veiled.
Her voice cut through the quiet, “answer as interrogator.”
Writ inclined her head. “Understood.”
That would be easier.
She had prepared for both possibilities. Twice the rehearsal time, twice the exhaustion. But not once did she regret overpreparing.
She held the breath steady in her chest, waiting. The first question would set the tone.
The Veiled obliged, voice calm but edged.
“Why did you pause upon entering instead of establishing immediate control?”
A fraction of a breath. Then Writ answered, tone even, measured.
“A pause establishes control. It makes the subject aware he’s under scrutiny.”
She drew a silent inhale, letting the air settle low in her chest, smoothing over the flicker of recognition that threatened to surface. They were watching for the hitch, the giveaway pause that might betray attachment. She pressed it flat. She would not give them proof.
The Veiled did not let the silence linger.
“You noted the subject stayed standing. Why didn’t you instruct him to sit immediately?”
Her gaze stayed forward, voice unbroken.
“Standing keeps a subject unsettled, waiting for permission. It serves the frame.”
A deliberate flick of her eyes, just enough to land on Tiran.
“And I thought that was the norm. You’ve never let me sit when I’m on the other side of the table. Not now either.”
The words hung, their weight heavier than the tone she delivered them with.
It had been drilled into her since Treshfold. Sitting before granted could be marked as defiance. Ten years of training carved that reflex into her bones. And Tiran had never once corrected her
A low sound broke the air. Caedern’s chuckle, quiet, barbed, “what if it’s not the norm?”
Her eyes shifted just enough to acknowledge him, then held.
“Then I’ll stand by my first answer. It kept the subject unsettled. And when the subject is Treshfold-made, it confirmed they didn’t overstep without command.”
A soft hum rolled from him, sharp at the edges. Like someone dragging a wire along their thumb. Not enough to cut, just to savor the edge.
No one picked it up. The silence pressed, long enough that the lack of pursuit became its own judgment.
Tiran’s voice cut in at last, steady, clean.
“Why did you ask multiple layered questions about the memory trap instead of one?”
Her answer came without delay.
“Layered phrasing checks consistency. A single question can be rehearsed, multiples show cracks. I assumed you’d want to see the cracks in the narrative.”
And she had been making sure Junior still remembered their script. That their agreed version held.
Caedern tilted his head, studying her like a puzzle piece he already knew the shape of.
“Don’t you already know the actual progression of the mission?”
“The audience doesn’t.”
A slight lift of her chin, flat tone unbroken.
“So I needed to make it clear.”
His brows twitched upward, just faintly.
“Who’s the audience?”
Her voice clipped, “I could only see the Judge. I’m not sure who else was watching.”
The words pulled a short quiet across the table, the weight of them circling unspoken.
The Veiled picked the thread, her voice thinner now, “‘Did anyone hesitate?’ That question wasn’t on our list. Why did you add it?”
“Hesitation reveals weakness. It’s standard to test cohesion, and what the subject thought of his team.”
It had been the rehearsed one. Junior had known it was coming. He’d hidden his recognition well.
Caedern leaned forward, elbows brushing the table’s edge, grin a ghost beneath his words.
“Why did you even think to ask that?”
Her reply was quick, pared down.
“Personal experience. You’ve asked me that countless times. I mirrored it.”
Memory flickered, sharp and intrusive. The watchtower nine months ago, drilling that question into him until he answered on reflex. That kind of question had always been the open door, the crack that could turn a team against itself.
Tiran’s voice slipped in, calm but weighted.
“You didn’t correct the subject when he nearly used a personal name. Why not?”
Her answer came without tilt or hesitation.
“Slips show nerves. Allowing it without comment let me observe his recovery. And Verdict Wings using nicknames outside official settings is already a common secret.”
The words pressed against something raw. Before she had ever been “Silent Writ,” she’d never been allowed a name. Only the assigned one, different with every mission. He must have known. He must have realized Verdict Wings worked differently.
Tiran didn’t push further. Instead, his tone cut again.
“Why let him expand on pod detonation theory instead of cutting him short?”
She met his gaze, steady.
“Allowing a tangent reveals what details come naturally under stress. I didn’t cut him.”
That was where Junior shone, technical talent. She had let him speak deliberately. Let them see he was more than a liability. Let them see him as useful.
The Veiled’s tone cooled, the measured detachment sharpening into suspicion.
“Why did you ask if he trusted his leader? Were you sending him signs?”
Her response was immediate, anchored.
“It was written on the checklist I had during the session.”
The Veiled’s head turned, the slightest pivot toward Caustic.
“Can you confirm that?”
Caustic’s answer was flat, stripped of opinion.
“It wasn’t on the official checklist. Check the paper you’re holding.”
The air shifted. Her gaze, though hidden, swung back to Writ. The Veiled masked her eyes, but Writ felt it like the weight of a drawn line at her throat, precise and waiting.
And across the table, Caedern’s lips almost curved. Not quite a smile, just enough to betray amusement, tucked behind his serious posture.
Writ held her breath still, then released it in measured words.
“I noted the discrepancy. Assumed it was an update during the session. The sheet’s still in my room if you want it.”
The Veiled’s voice came colder, “why do you keep it?”
“I used it to write the report. More reliable than memory.”
A pause. “How was it written?”
Her reply stayed precise.
“Verbatim. ‘Did you trust your team leader?’ Written as a full question. Not in instruction format like the rest.”
That answer landed like a stone.
The Veiled’s head turned slowly toward Caedern. Tiran leaned back in his chair, shifting just enough to clear her line of sight. The Quill woman’s hands twitched against her lap, nails catching fabric. Even Caustic’s stare drilled into Caedern’s back, unreadable but unyielding.
The man in question only shrugged, shoulders loose, voice dry, “what? My fault, now?”
The silence dragged, thick enough to choke on.
Writ couldn’t read what it meant. Open hostility? Or part of the theater, staged for her sake? The Veiled had warned him before, subtly. But never this openly.
At last, the Veiled turned back toward her.
“Caustic will retrieve the previous checklist after you’re dismissed.”
Her head inclined. “Noted.”
Tiran drew his chair back into place, the scrape muted but deliberate. The Quill woman exhaled, eyes closing briefly, as though weary of the weight.
The Veiled resumed, voice steady once more.
“When you asked if he trusted his leader, you didn’t press for elaboration. Why stop at a single affirmation?”
“A single affirmation sufficed. Pressing risked defensiveness.”
She didn’t add the rest. That pressing risked her own mask slipping. That the danger was not only his.
Another pause stretched, weight thickening until it pressed at the joints of her fingers.
Caedern broke it, voice cutting through like a scalpel slipped between ribs.
“Why choose that phrasing in the off-record session, instead of testing deeper loyalty or contradictions?”
Her reply was level, controlled. “I noticed his growth since last year. That’s what I asked. And I assumed the off-record was mine to use as I saw fit. That it didn’t have to serve the session’s frame.”
The Veiled’s answer was immediate, clipped, “it was yours, yes.”
A hum under Writ’s skin. That word could cut two ways, a correction or an accusation.
“Why mention it in your report at all?” the Veiled pressed.
She repeated her answer, steady, as though recitation were shield enough, “because it would be asked regardless.”
Caedern’s mouth quirked upward, insolent, “don’t you just love the initiative?”
Even through the Veiled, Writ could almost see the Veiled's annoyance, the subtle dip of her chin betraying restraint. Tiran’s breath slid out slow, faint, not quite a sigh, more like smoke he didn’t want escaping.
But Caedern wasn’t finished, “why answer dismissively when he asked beyond scope, instead of reprimanding him?”
Her tone didn’t shift, “because I don’t care. And don’t know. Even if I asked before, no one would ever answer. Better to save my breath.”
“Cold,” Caedern mused, savoring the word. He leaned in, elbows on his knees, “don’t you care about them?”
Her eyes narrowed, a fraction, enough that light caught at the edge, “should I care about people I’ll never meet again?”
“Most people do.”
“I don’t. You told me not to.”
Something flickered across Tiran’s gaze. Small, quick, a shadow breaking surface. Regret? Or agreement? She couldn’t place it. Behind the Veiled, the Quill woman’s hand curled tight against the edge, knuckles paling.
Another pause, dense.
Tiran cleared it with a measured voice, “any other questions for this part?”
The silence stretched long enough that the air felt brittle.
Until Caedern’s voice slid in again, smooth as oil, “if we thought the subject was still hiding something and required you to conduct a... messier questioning. What method would you choose?”
The Veiled’s glare snapped to him, sharp enough to draw blood if looks could cut. Tiran’s, too, more controlled but no less edged.
Caedern only smiled, smug, and leaned back with the ease of someone who knew he could not be struck here.
Writ kept her tone level, anchored, “if ordered to escalate, I’d apply deprivation methods. Suspension of time, isolation, sensory pressure. Nothing prolonged enough to ruin the data.”
“You think deprivation is messy?” His voice curved upward, probing.
Her head tilted slightly, weighing him as much as the question. The Veiled’s gloved hand lifted, massaging at her temple as if to ward off the headache he brought.
“It is,” Writ said, “internally. Try being on the receiving end in your free time. You’ll understand.”
“Ha!” Caedern’s laugh rang out sharp and delighted, bouncing too loud in the chamber.
“Enough from me.”
Tiran’s gaze slid toward the Veiled, silent question. She gave a small nod, composed again.
Their attention returned to Writ.
“Very well,” the Veiled said. The voice carried no warmth, no edge, just steady weight. “Now, answer as yourself.”
Her ribs tightened once. She had known this would come.
Still, the words fell like a verdict. Writ lifted her chin, drawing her breath into rhythm. If they wanted her, they would have her. But only the self she chose to show.
The panel hadn’t moved, but the room felt tighter.
The Veiled’s stillness, and Caedern’s slight lean forward, told Writ exactly what came next.
'Procedure' was ending.
The next question wouldn’t be about facts.
It would be about her.