The chamber was small, lit only by a single torch fixed to the wall. Stone walls sweated with the Furnace's heat. It smelled of ash and old oil — his father's workroom. Here wounds had been cleaned, burns bound, and lives pulled back from the brink with crude knives and fire-heated irons.
Here Archimedes had learned to hold his hands steady.
Now, those hands trembled.
His father stood before him, tall and scarred, his robes singed from years spent at the healing pyres. The elders had permitted Archimedes one night before the Mechanicus took him to the void. One night to be a son, not a vessel.
"I tried to forbid them," his father said quietly. "But the priests of iron do not bargain. They claim who they wish, and the Wardens accept their tithe without question."
Archimedes clenched his fists. "Then I go as chattel?"
"No." His father's eyes burned with weary fire. "You go as one chosen. That is what they tell us. But do not mistake choosing for mercy."
Archimedes looked down at his palms, scarred and blistered from the March, from carrying others through the Furnace. "They tested me. They made me read flesh like it was scripture. They saw something… in me."
His father's jaw tightened. "They are not priests of flesh. They are priests of record. To them, wounds are data. Blood is archive. They covet your gift because you treat flesh as memory. Remember, Archimedes—compassion is not in their creed. The Wardens may use you to preserve their gene-seed, the Mechanicus to preserve their records. But only you can decide if life itself is worth the preservation."
He turned away, rummaging among the tools of his trade. From a drawer of blackened wood he drew something wrapped in cloth. Slowly, he unfolded it.
A scalpel. Its handle worn smooth from years of use, its edge honed to a whisper. A surgeon's blade, humble beside the iron claws of the Mechanicus — yet sharper, cleaner, more human.
"This was your mother's," his father said, placing it across his palms. "She cut deeper than I ever dared. She believed truth lay beneath the skin. I feared her hunger would consume her. I see the same hunger in you."
Archimedes lifted the scalpel, the torchlight dancing along its edge. He felt its weight, not heavy but exact — a blade meant to reveal, not to kill.
"Why give this to me, if you fear what I will become?" he asked.
His father's voice was rough. "Because sharpness is not evil. A scalpel can wound, or it can heal. The hand decides. I cannot follow you into the void, Archimedes. But I can give you this: the tool, and the warning."
For a long moment, neither spoke. The fire hissed. Outside, the chanting of the Mechanicus still echoed faintly across the hive.
At last, Archimedes tucked the scalpel into his sash beside the cloth-bound bone of his lost comrade. Two relics. Two debts.
"I will not waste their stories," he whispered.
His father looked at him, eyes shining in the firelight. Pride warred with sorrow in his expression. "Then perhaps, my son, the Light has not burned all compassion from you yet."
They embraced once — brief, fierce, as though both knew it might be the last.
The next morning, when the Mechanicus came, Archimedes walked to the ramp without faltering. He carried with him the bone, the scalpel, and the vow that bound them both.