Cold stone leached the heat from Soren's bones, dragging him back to consciousness against his will. His eyelids weighed more than armor as he forced them open, blinking against the dim light of a single guttering torch mounted on the wall outside his cell.

The chains around his wrists had left raw circles of flesh, crusted with dried blood where he had struggled against them during the interrogation.

'You survived,' Valenna whispered, her voice distant as if calling from across a vast chasm. The shard against his chest felt wrong, muted, its customary chill dulled to barely a whisper of cold. 'Their chains... bind more than flesh.'

Soren tried to sit up, every muscle screaming in protest. The stone bench beneath him had all the comfort of a grave marker. His throat burned with thirst, his shoulder wound throbbing in time with his heartbeat. How long had he been unconscious? Hours? Days?

Through iron bars, he made out an identical cell across the narrow corridor. Veyr Velrane sat on a matching stone bench, his posture unnaturally straight despite the chains binding his wrists.

The heir's face was pale but composed, those intelligent eyes already scanning their surroundings with methodical attention. Unlike Soren, he looked almost refreshed, as if he'd spent the night in contemplation rather than unconsciousness.

"They'll come soon," Veyr said, his voice pitched just loud enough to carry across the space between them. "The preliminary questioning is complete. Now comes the... demonstration."

Soren licked cracked lips, tasting blood. "Demonstration?"

"The Church requires more than confession. It needs spectacle." Veyr's gaze flicked to the corridor beyond their cells, then back to Soren with pointed significance. "They'll show us the difference between what they consider blessed and what they deem corrupted."

The shard pulsed weakly against Soren's chest, Valenna stirring with what felt like concern rather than her usual sharp assessment. 'Be careful,' she murmured. 'The fire that burned in that chamber... it seeks what lies within you.'

"What happens if—" Soren began, but the clang of a distant door cut him off.

Footsteps approached, not the soft whisper of Inquisitors' slippers, but the deliberate, rhythmic sound of armored boots against stone. Six black-robed figures appeared, flanked by Cathedral guards whose polished breastplates gleamed even in the dim light.

The lead Inquisitor, the same marble-faced man who had conducted the questioning, unlocked Soren's cell first. "On your feet," he commanded. "It is time to witness the Church's chosen."

Two guards hauled Soren upright when his legs threatened to buckle. Across the corridor, Veyr rose with that same unsettling composure, extending his chained wrists as if offering a gift rather than submitting to constraint.

"How generous," Veyr remarked, his tone carrying just enough edge to make the Inquisitor's eyes narrow. "A demonstration before judgment. One might almost think the conclusion was predetermined."

The Inquisitor's winter-cold eyes fixed on Veyr with faint disapproval. "The truth requires no predetermination, Lord Velrane. It simply is."

They were marched through a labyrinth of stone corridors, ascending from the dungeon depths toward levels where the air grew marginally warmer.

Soren tried to memorize their path, left at the junction with the carved scripture, right past the chamber where hooded figures knelt in silent prayer, up a narrow staircase with twenty-seven steps, but exhaustion and pain kept fracturing his concentration.

Finally, they emerged into a long gallery that seemed to stretch the entire length of the Cathedral's eastern wing. The ceiling soared overhead, supported by arches that resembled ribs of some massive beast.

Between each arch, stained glass windows filtered the morning light into shards of color that painted the marble floor in fragmented rainbows.

But it was what lined the walls that made Soren's breath catch in his throat.

Swords. Dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, displayed on velvet-draped pedestals or mounted on ornate brackets. Each weapon rested as if in state, surrounded by votive candles and small offerings.

Some were ancient, their blades pitted with age; others gleamed as if forged yesterday. A few, those nearest the far end of the hall, glowed with faint internal light, auras flickering around their edges like banked embers waiting to ignite.

"The Hall of Blades," Veyr murmured beside him. "Every significant sword wielded in Solmir's name for the past four centuries. Some say the metal remembers the hands that held it."

Soren felt the weight of history pressing down on him like a physical force. These were not mere weapons, they were relics, each one representing a champion who had fought and likely died for the Church's cause. Names had been inscribed beneath each display: Ser Thalric the Unbroken, Warden Kelia Flameheart, Lord Commander Valar Lightbringer.

Names that would be remembered long after his own was forgotten. Champions whose devotion had earned them a place in this sacred hall, while he stood in chains, accused of heresy.

The Inquisitors led them to the center of the gallery, where a circular dais rose from the marble floor. The guards positioned Soren and Veyr at its edge, their chains suddenly growing colder, heavier, as if responding to some unseen command.

"Behold," the lead Inquisitor announced, his voice echoing against the vaulted ceiling, "the difference between corruption and blessing. Between doubt and certainty. Between heresy and faith."

A door opened at the far end of the gallery, and all sound seemed to drain from the hall.

The man who entered moved with the measured precision of someone who had never needed to hurry. Taller than any of the guards by at least a head, his form was encased in polished steel plate that caught the colored light and transformed it into something radiant.

Unlike ordinary armor, the metal was etched with scripture that spiraled across every surface, words of holy text rendered in silver against the steel, forming patterns that seemed to shift when viewed directly.

His face, framed by close-cropped golden hair, might have been carved from the same marble as the Cathedral itself, all clean lines and perfect symmetry, utterly devoid of doubt or hesitation.

Eyes the color of burning coals surveyed the hall with serene detachment, taking in the chained prisoners without any hint of emotion.

But it was the sword at his side that drew Soren's gaze like a lodestone pulling iron. The weapon hung from a belt of white leather, its hilt wrapped in the same material, its pommel set with a single amber stone that glowed with internal fire.

Even sheathed, the blade radiated power, a steady, pulsing light that leaked from the scabbard like sunrise breaking through clouds.

"Ser Calvian Merrow," the Inquisitor intoned, "Flamebearer Paladin, Sword of the Cathedral, Chosen of Solmir's Light."

The knight inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the introduction with practiced humility that somehow managed to convey absolute certainty in his own worthiness.

"He stands as living proof of Solmir's blessing," the Inquisitor continued, his voice carrying to every corner of the hall. "A vessel of the sacred flame, untainted by doubt, unmarred by corruption."

Soren felt himself being measured by those burning eyes, weighed and found wanting in the space of a single heartbeat. The shard against his chest pulsed weakly, Valenna's presence stirring with something that felt almost like recognition, or was it fear?

Ser Calvian ascended the dais with unhurried steps, each movement precise as a ritual long practiced. When he spoke, his voice carried the resonance of deep bells, measured and absolute.

"The difference must be demonstrated," he said, drawing his sword in a single fluid motion that seemed to bend light around the blade.

The weapon emerged from its scabbard trailing fire, not the scarlet aura Soren had witnessed in the tournament, but pure golden flame that mirrored the sacred fire in the chamber below. It burned without consuming the steel, wrapping around the blade like a living thing, reaching toward the ceiling in hungry tendrils.

Heat washed across Soren's face, drying the sweat on his brow in an instant. The chains around his wrists suddenly constricted, growing so cold they burned against his skin. The shard against his chest pulsed violently, Valenna's presence surging forward with unexpected strength.

'False flame!' she hissed, her voice clearer than it had been since their capture. 'It is not pure. It is stolen. He is no true vessel, he is a thief who wears what he has taken!'

The golden fire intensified, spreading from Calvian's sword to envelop his armored form in a nimbus of sacred light. The scripture etched into his plate began to glow, each word burning with the same amber radiance as the flame itself.

Pain lanced through Soren's body, starting where the chains touched his skin and radiating outward like lightning through water. His knees buckled, would have sent him crashing to the floor if not for the guards' grip on his arms.

Through watering eyes, he saw Veyr watching the display with studied neutrality, though something in the heir's posture suggested he was not as unmoved as he appeared. When Veyr spoke, his voice cut through the hall with surprising clarity.

"Impressive theatrics," he said, each word precisely chosen and delivered. "The Cathedral has always excelled at spectacle. House Velrane prefers substance, we produce our warriors through breeding, training, and sacrifice, not through... pageantry."

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