# Chapter 65: The Inquisitor's Duel
Soren's world narrowed to the sterile white of the archive walls and the cold, predatory calm in Isolde's eyes. The oppressive weight of her null-zone was a physical presence, a pressure that made his joints ache and stole the breath from his lungs. The data-slate in his hand felt impossibly heavy, a leaden anchor in a sea of despair. He was broken, bleeding, and utterly outmatched. Nyra stood beside him, her face pale but her jaw set, her mind clearly racing, searching for a weakness in the perfect trap that had sprung around them. Isolde took a slow, deliberate step forward, the shimmering distortion around her hands intensifying, coalescing into something solid and dangerous. "You have nowhere to run," she stated, her voice devoid of emotion. "The Concord will have its due. Give me the slate, and your deaths will be swift." Soren looked from the Inquisitor's cold eyes to Nyra's determined face, and a familiar, stubborn fire ignited within him. He might die here, in this sterile, lightless tomb, but he would not go quietly. He tightened his grip on the slate and shifted his weight, preparing for one last, impossible fight.
He moved first. Not with the explosive power of his Gift, which was smothered under the blanket of Isolde's power, but with the raw, desperate speed of a cornered animal. He feinted left, his boots scraping against the polished floor, then drove his right shoulder forward in a bull-rush. The impact was jarring. He felt the new armor Grak had forged him groan under the strain, the reinforced plates absorbing the brunt of the collision but doing nothing to cushion the force that reverberated through his broken ribs. A white-hot flare of agony lanced through his side, but he gritted his teeth, shoving Isolde backward toward a towering server rack. She was stronger than she looked, her feet planted like roots. The null-zone around her flared, and a concussive force, invisible but absolute, slammed into his chest. He was thrown backward, skidding across the floor and crashing into a metal console. The impact sent a shower of sparks into the air and a fresh wave of nausea through him. The data-slate clattered from his grasp.
"Soren!" Nyra shouted. She didn't charge. Instead, she darted to the side, her movements a blur of calculated efficiency. She snatched a heavy-looking power conduit from a wall panel, the thick cable still humming with latent energy. Isolde's head snapped toward her, her attention divided for a fraction of a second. That was the opening Nyra had been waiting for. She didn't throw the conduit. She swung it, not at Isolde, but at the base of a nearby server rack. The metal housing buckled with a deafening screech, and the entire massive unit tilted, groaning on its foundation. For a moment, it seemed it would hold, then with a final, tortured shriek of stressed metal, it toppled over. It crashed down between Soren and Isolde with a ground-shaking thud, sending up a choking cloud of dust and shattered components.
Soren scrambled to his feet, his lungs burning. He saw the slate lying near Isolde's feet, half-buried under the debris. The toppled rack had created a temporary barrier, a wall of twisted metal and sparking wires. "Get the slate!" Nyra yelled, already moving. She kicked a loose floor panel, sending it skittering across the room to trip up Isolde as she tried to maneuver around the obstacle. The Inquisitor sidestepped it with infuriating grace, her null-zone pulsing. She raised a hand, and the air in front of her warped. A shard of metal torn from the wrecked server rack shot through the air, aimed directly at Nyra's heart.
Soren acted on pure instinct. He lunged, grabbing Nyra by the arm and yanking her behind another console. The metal shard slammed into the console's side, punching through the casing with a sickening crunch of electronics. The acrid smell of burnt circuits filled the air. "She's adapting," Nyra gasped, her eyes wide. "Her Gift isn't just a null-zone. It's kinetic manipulation within the field." She peered over the console. "She's focusing it. The field is weaker at the edges."
"Meaning?" Soren grunted, trying to ignore the fire in his side.
"Meaning we stay out of her direct line of sight. We use the room." Nyra's gaze darted around the archive, a frantic but brilliant assessment of their battlefield. "The power conduits. They're shielded, but the junction boxes aren't. If we can overload one, the EM pulse might disrupt her concentration."
It was a long shot, but it was the only one they had. "I'll keep her busy," Soren said, his voice a low growl. "You do your magic." He didn't wait for a reply. He burst from behind the console, not charging directly, but moving laterally, using the other server racks as cover. He kicked out, striking a smaller auxiliary unit. It toppled over, forcing Isolde to dodge back, disrupting her line of sight on Nyra. The Inquisitor's face tightened in annoyance. She was a predator, used to swift, decisive confrontations. This scrambling, guerrilla fight was chipping away at her composure.
"Your defiance is meaningless," she hissed, her voice sharp with frustration. She thrust both hands forward. The null-zone expanded, a wave of distorted air washing over the room. Soren felt it hit him like a physical blow, a sudden, crushing gravity that drove him to one knee. His vision swam, the edges darkening. The Cinder-Tattoos on his arm, usually a faint, dormant grey, flared with a sickly, dim light, as if struggling to breathe in the suffocating atmosphere. He could feel his own Gift, a caged beast thrashing against the walls of its prison, useless.
But in that moment of expansion, Nyra made her move. She sprinted from her position, a low, fast dash that kept her below the main thrust of the field. She reached a junction box on the far wall, her fingers flying over the manual override levers. The box was designed to be operated by technicians with specialized tools, but Nyra had a mind that saw systems as puzzles, and she had come prepared. She pulled a set of lockpicks and a small, multi-tool from a pouch on her belt. With a series of precise, almost violent movements, she jammed the tools into the console and forced the levers into their emergency positions.
A high-pitched whine built rapidly, climbing to an unbearable shriek. Blue light arced from the junction box, crawling like lightning across the ceiling and down the walls. Isolde, sensing the danger, tried to retract her null-zone, to focus her power on stopping Nyra, but it was too late. The EM pulse erupted from the overloaded conduit, a silent, invisible wave of pure energy. It hit Isolde full-on. She cried out, a raw, uncontrolled sound of pain and surprise. The shimmering distortion around her hands flickered violently and then vanished. She staggered back, clutching her head, her face a mask of shock.
"Now, Soren!" Nyra screamed.
Soren pushed himself to his feet, the sudden release from the null-zone feeling like a gasp of clean air after nearly drowning. He didn't hesitate. He closed the distance in three powerful strides, his pain forgotten, his entire being focused on the woman before him. He didn't use his Gift. He didn't need it. He drove his fist into Isolde's stomach. The air whooshed from her lungs. He followed with a sharp elbow to her jaw, sending her reeling. She was a Inquisitor, a trained fighter, and she tried to recover, her hands coming up to form a guard, but Soren was a storm. He was the survivor of a dozen caravan raids, a brawler who had fought for his life in the mud and the dust. He grabbed her by the front of her uniform, spun her, and slammed her face-first into the unyielding metal of a server rack. She slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Silence descended, broken only by the crackle of damaged electronics and their own ragged breaths. Soren stood over Isolde's still form, his body trembling with a mixture of exhaustion and adrenaline. The pain in his side returned with a vengeance, a deep, throbbing agony that made him want to collapse. He looked for Nyra and saw her leaning against the wall, her face pale. A thin line of blood trickled from a cut on her forehead. "Are you alright?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"I'll live," she said, wincing as she touched the wound. "She got me with a piece of shrapnel when the rack fell. It's nothing." She pushed herself off the wall, her eyes already scanning the room. "We have to go. The overload would have triggered a base-wide lockdown. And that silent alarm she mentioned... it's not silent anymore." As if on cue, a new sound echoed through the archive. A heavy, rhythmic clang. It was coming from the door. The sound of armored boots on the other side, and the distinct, metallic scrape of a bar being lifted.
Soren's blood ran cold. They were trapped. He scrambled over to where the data-slate had fallen, his fingers closing around its smooth, cool surface. He had it. They had won. But the victory felt hollow, fleeting. The heavy door to the archive began to grind open, the mechanism groaning in protest. Light from the hallway spilled into the dusty, wrecked room, cutting a sharp, bright rectangle across the floor. It wasn't a squad of guards. It wasn't more Inquisitors.
A single figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. He was tall, clad in immaculate white and gold robes that seemed to drink the surrounding illumination. His presence filled the room not with sound, but with an absence of it, a profound and chilling silence that smothered the crackle of the fires and the hum of the damaged servers. The air grew cold, a deep, penetrating cold that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with pure, oppressive power. Soren felt his Gift, which had just been freed, recoil in terror, shrinking deep within him. The Cinder-Tattoos on his arm went dark, as if terrified of being noticed. The man stepped forward, his features resolving from the shadow. He was older, with a severe, handsome face and eyes the color of a winter sky. It was a face Soren had seen only in wanted posters and propaganda broadcasts.
High Inquisitor Valerius.
His gaze swept over the room, taking in the wrecked servers, the unconscious Isolde, and finally, coming to rest on Soren and Nyra. There was no anger on his face, no surprise. Only a deep, profound disappointment, as if a teacher had found his two most promising students had vandalized the school. He ignored the data-slate in Soren's hand. He ignored their weapons. He looked at them, and Soren felt as if his very soul was being weighed and measured.
"An impressive effort," Valerius said, his voice calm and resonant, yet carrying an undeniable authority that vibrated in Soren's bones. "Truly. To bypass the outer security, to defeat one of my most promising acolytes. You have both exceeded my expectations." He took another step into the room, the door sliding shut behind him with a final, deafening boom. They were sealed in with him. "But the test is over now."