# Chapter 20: The Brother's Burden
The brittle pages of the grimoire felt like a curse in Konto's hands, the alien script seeming to shift and writhe in the dim light of the Undercity overpass. Liraya leaned over his shoulder, her finger tracing a faded diagram of converging ley lines. "The anchor point," she murmured, her voice tight with focus. "It has to be Moros himself. But the text says the ritual can be disrupted by 'severing the dreamer's thread.' What thread? How?" The question hung in the humid air, unanswered. A sudden, sharp click of boots on wet metal made them both spin around. A figure emerged from the swirling mist, the distinctive silver-and-blue armor of an Arcane Warden gleaming under the neon signs. Konto's hand went to the empty holster at his side, a useless gesture. But the Warden raised his hands, pulling off his helmet to reveal a face that was a younger, harder-edged mirror of Konto's own. "Don't shoot, brother," Crew said, his voice strained. "I'm not here to arrest you. I'm here to tell you to run faster."
The world narrowed to the space between them. The rain, a constant drizzle that slicked the overpass's metal grating, beaded on Crew's armor, tracing paths through the grime. The air, thick with the smell of ozone from the ley lines and the greasy aroma of a noodle stall far below, suddenly felt charged with a different kind of energy. Familiar energy. The same stubborn frequency that had fueled a thousand childhood arguments and a decade of stony silence. Liraya's hand instinctively went to the hilt of the kinetic blade at her belt, a sliver of activated metal humming to life. Konto held up a hand, a silent command to stand down. His mind, already frayed, recoiled at this new intrusion. This was not a random patrol. This was personal.
"Crew," Konto said, his voice flat, devoid of any welcome. "You're a long way from the Upper Spires. Lost?"
"Cut the crap, Konto," Crew snapped, his helmet tucked under his arm. His eyes, the same shade of grey as their father's, darted between Konto and Liraya, assessing the threat she posed. He looked tired, the skin under his eyes bruised with a fatigue that went deeper than a lack of sleep. The Warden insignia on his chest plate, a stylized tower within a shield, seemed to weigh him down. "Valerius is suspended. Relieved of command. Effective an hour ago."
The news landed like a physical blow. Valerius, their former mentor, a man of rigid, unyielding principle, was the one thing standing between Konto and a kill-squad. His suspension wasn't a reprimand; it was a prelude to an execution. "Why?" Liraya asked, her voice sharp, cutting through the tension. "What did he do?"
"He tried to follow protocol," Crew said, his gaze fixing back on his brother. "He insisted on a formal investigation into Councilman Thorne's death. He wouldn't sign off on the 'accidental magical overload' verdict the Council pushed. He started asking questions about the other victims. About the purged files." Crew took a step closer, the sound of his armored boots echoing in the sudden quiet. "They didn't just suspend him. They locked him in a psych-ward, claiming Arcane Burnout. He's gone, Konto. Buried."
A cold dread, familiar and suffocating, coiled in Konto's gut. This was the Magisterium's signature move. Discredit, isolate, and erase. Valerius had been a symbol of the old guard, of a system that, for all its flaws, had rules. Now that symbol was gone. "So who took his place?" Konto asked, though he already knew the answer would be worse than he could imagine.
"Commander Kaelen," Crew said, the name tasting like poison in his mouth. "He transferred in from the border patrols. They call him 'The Hound' in the Wardens. He doesn't bring people in for questioning. He brings in body parts for identification. His first order was to issue a 'terminate-on-sight' directive for you. No trial. No capture. Just erasure."
The rain began to fall harder, drumming a frantic rhythm on the metal overhead. Liraya deactivated her blade, the soft hiss of its power cell retracting a small sound in the growing storm. "Then why are you here, Warden?" she challenged, her posture wary. "Shouldn't you be collecting a bounty?"
Crew's jaw tightened. He looked away, out over the sprawling neon labyrinth of the Undercity, a galaxy of artificial stars trapped in a perpetual twilight. For a long moment, the only sounds were the rain and the distant wail of a siren. "Because I'm not a Hound," he said, his voice low. "And because whatever this is, it's rotting the Wardens from the inside out. I've been… looking. Quietly."
He reached into a pouch on his utility belt, his movements stiff, deliberate. He didn't pull out a weapon or a pair of magi-cuffs. He held out a data-slate, its screen glowing with a soft blue light. "Thorne's file. The official one. It's been scrubbed. Not just redacted. The entire digital footprint of the investigation is gone. Backed up, encrypted, and deleted from every secure server I can access. It's like he never existed, except for the hole he left in the city council."
Konto took the slate, his fingers brushing against his brother's gauntlet. The touch was electric, a jolt of shared history and conflicting loyalties. On the screen was a picture of Councilman Thorne, smiling, the very picture of Aethelburgian nobility. Below it, fields of data were replaced with scrolling lines of null code. "That's not just a cover-up," Liraya said, peering at the screen. "That's a systematic purge. They're not just hiding the evidence; they're destroying the very concept of it."
"That's not the half of it," Crew said, swiping to another file. This one showed a list of names. A dozen of them. All victims of the Nightmare Plague. "I cross-referacted them with city morgue records, hospital admissions, even utility bills. They're all being ghosted. One by one. Their records are being rewritten, their histories erased. It's like they're being retroactively unborn from the system."
The implication was staggering. It wasn't just about hiding a conspiracy anymore. It was about rewriting reality itself, one deleted file at a time. It was Moros's plan made manifest in the mundane, bureaucratic language of data management. The dream-logic was bleeding into the waking world, not just as monsters, but as administrative edits. "How?" Konto asked, his voice barely a whisper. "How can they do that?"
"I don't know," Crew admitted, and the vulnerability in his voice was more shocking than any of his revelations. "But I know who authorized the purge order. It came from the Arch-Mage's office. Direct override. No council vote. No justification. Just a command." He looked at Konto, his eyes pleading. "This is bigger than you, brother. This is bigger than the Wardens. This is a war for the soul of the city, and you're standing on the front line."
The weight of the grimoire in Konto's jacket felt heavier now, its alien script a silent testament to Crew's words. The Oneiros Collective, Moros, the Great Unwinding—it was all connected. The purge was the first wave. "Why are you telling me this?" Konto asked, the suspicion a bitter taste in his mouth. "You turned your back on me. You chose them. Why come back now?"
"Because I was wrong," Crew said, the words torn from him. "I thought I was choosing order over chaos. The law over… you. But this isn't order. This is a different kind of chaos. A silent, controlled chaos. Valerius saw it. And now, so do I." He took another step, closing the distance between them until they were only a foot apart. The scent of rain and stale sweat clung to his armor. "I can't fight it from the inside. Not alone. But you… you operate outside the system. You can see the things they try to hide."
He reached into his belt again, this time producing a small, metallic card. It was a Warden access keycard, but not a standard one. The trim around the edge was a deep crimson, signifying high-level clearance. It was the kind of key that could open any door in the city, from the deepest archives to the Arch-Mage's private elevator. "This is my master key," Crew said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I took it from the command center before Kaelen's lockdown went into effect. If they scan the logs, they'll know I was there. If they find you with it, they'll know I gave it to you. This is my career. My life. I'm putting it in your hand."
Konto stared at the card. It was a tiny, heavy thing, a symbol of absolute trust and absolute betrayal. To take it was to accept his brother's sacrifice, to drag Crew down into the darkness with him. To refuse it was to send him back to a den of vipers, alone and compromised. The burden of the choice was immense. He thought of Elara, lying in her sterile white room, her mind a prisoner of the very nightmare they were fighting. He thought of Valerius, a good man broken by the machine he served. He thought of the millions of sleeping souls in Aethelburg, oblivious to the predator in their midst.
Slowly, deliberately, Konto closed his fingers around the keycard. The metal was cold against his skin. "You do this," he said, his voice low and intense, "and there's no going back. You're one of us. A ghost."
"I'm already a ghost," Crew replied, a flicker of the old, defiant Konto in his eyes. "I'm just choosing which side to haunt." He pulled his helmet back on, the faceplate sealing with a soft hiss, once again an anonymous agent of the state. The brother was gone, replaced by the Warden. "Kaelen will be relentless. He has dream-sniffers, hounds that can track your psychic signature. You can't stay in one place for more than a few hours. You have to keep moving."
He backed away, his movements fluid and practiced. "Whatever this is, it goes to the top. Be careful who you call an enemy." He paused, his gaze lingering on Liraya for a moment, a silent, unreadable message passing between them. Then he turned and melted back into the shadows from which he came, the soft click of his boots on the wet metal growing fainter until it was swallowed by the storm.
Konto stood frozen, the keycard clutched in his fist, the data-slate in his other hand. The rain plastered his hair to his forehead, the cold water a shock against his feverish skin. He was no longer just a fugitive. He was a weapon, armed with his brother's treason. The game had changed completely. The rules were gone. The board was on fire.
Liraya moved to his side, her presence a steady, grounding force. She didn't ask what they were going to do next. She didn't need to. Her eyes were fixed on the crimson-edged keycard in his hand, a new tool, a new risk, a new hope. "He's right," she said, her voice cutting through the downpour. "We can't stay here. Kaelen will be tearing this place apart within the hour."
Konto looked from the keycard to the grimoire peeking out of his jacket. The fragmented text, the purged records, the master key. The pieces were falling into place, a horrifying picture of a city on the brink of oblivion. The waterworks. The Project Somnus archive. It was no longer just a lead. It was the only place left to run. "I know," he said, his voice hardening with resolve. He opened his hand and looked at the keycard, its crimson edge seeming to pulse in the dim light. It was a key to every locked door in Aethelburg. And it was a brand, marking him as a traitor to the only world his brother had ever known. The burden was his now, too.