# Chapter 131: The Hunt Begins
The silver light of the ash-choked moon began to creep across the plains, turning the grey dust to a ghostly white. The wind, which had been a constant howl, softened to a mournful whisper, and in the sudden quiet, another sound became audible. It was faint, almost imperceptible, carried on the breeze: a rhythmic, metallic *clink*. It was the sound of a hammer striking an anvil. It was impossible, a phantom noise in a dead land, but it was there, steady and unwavering, a beacon of industry in a world of ruin. It was a sound that promised life, or a lure designed to draw them to their deaths.
***
Miles away, the promise of life was a distant memory. The transport skiff settled onto the cracked ferrocrete with a soft hiss of pneumatics, its engine cutting to a low, menacing hum. The ramp lowered with a hydraulic sigh, spilling a wedge of harsh, sterile white light into the gloom. Four figures descended, their movements synchronized and economical. They were clad in the obsidian-and-silver armor of the Synod's Inquisitors, the polished plates reflecting the wan moonlight like chips of broken star. Each carried a standard-issue shock maul and a sidearm, their faces hidden behind impassive, featureless helms.
The last to emerge was Isolde. Her armor was identical in make but different in bearing. It was less bulky, more form-fitting, the plates etched with faint, silver filigree that caught the light like trapped lightning. She carried no heavy weapons, only a slender, needle-like blade at her hip and a small, intricate device on her gauntlet. Her helm was retracted, revealing a face that was sharp, pale, and utterly devoid of warmth. Her eyes, the color of a winter sky just before a blizzard, scanned the ruined structure before them. It was a skeleton of a building, a pre-Bloom administrative husk gutted by time and the corrosive magic of the wastes. Its steel bones were rusted to a flaky, ochre crust, and panes of shattered glass glittered like frozen tears in the frames of empty windows.
"Fan out," Isolde's voice was a clipped, cold command, carrying no echo in the dead air. "Standard perimeter sweep. I want thermal and arcane signatures on every quadrant. Assume hostiles are present and have prepared this ground."
The three Inquisitors moved without a word, their heavy boots crunching on the gritty ground. They flowed like oil, one taking position behind a crumbling wall, another scaling a collapsed staircase to gain a high vantage point, the third advancing toward the main entrance. Isolde walked forward, her steps deliberate and silent. She ignored the main door, a gaping maw of twisted metal, and instead approached a section of wall that had been blown outward. The edges of the breach were curled and blackened, the stench of ozone and burnt flesh still faint in the air.
Inside, the scene was one of chaos and finality. Two bodies lay sprawled in the debris. They were clad in the white-and-gold armor of the Synod's Templars, the holy warriors who served as the Synod's fist. One was slumped against a shattered support pillar, his chest plate caved in by a blow of tremendous force. The other lay face down a few feet away, a neat, cauterized hole drilled through the back of his helm. A third body, this one in the dark, practical fatigues of a Sable League commando, was crumpled near the far wall, his neck at an unnatural angle.
Isolde knelt beside the first Templar, her gloved fingers tracing the rim of the crater in his chest. The metal was not just dented; it was thinned, almost evaporated at the point of impact. The edges were smooth, not ragged. "Not an explosive," she murmured to herself. "Not a kinetic weapon. This is… erasure. Matter unmade." She knew of only one Gift capable of such a thing. Soren Vale. The Hollow.
She moved to the second Templar, her gaze analytical. She noted the scuff marks on the floor, the position of his body. He'd been shot from behind. A professional's kill. Clean, efficient, without passion. This had the signature of the League. Her eyes drifted to the commando. His death was messier, a close-quarters struggle. A broken neck, but his knuckles were bruised and split. He'd gone down fighting.
Isolde stood in the center of the room, closing her eyes. She did not pray. She did not mourn. She reached inward, to the cold, precise core of her Gift. It was not a weapon of fire or force. It was a gift of perception, of resonance. She called it the Echo of Truth. To the world, it looked like she was simply standing still, lost in thought. In her mind, the room came alive.
The air began to shimmer, not with light, but with information. Faint, ghostly images began to overlay the present reality. She saw the Templars take their positions, their movements stiff and arrogant. She saw the commando's shadow detach from the darkness, a blur of motion. She heard the faint *thwump* of a silenced projectile, the sharp crack of bone. She saw the second Templar turn, his face a mask of surprise under his helm. Then, a wave of distortion, a silent scream of nothingness, emanating from a point near the back of the room. The Echo of Soren's Gift.
The vision was chaotic, a storm of conflicting energies. But Isolde was a master of her craft. She filtered the noise, focusing on the threads she needed. She followed the commando's path back to his entry point, then traced the trajectory of the projectile that killed the Templar. It had come from a high angle, from a catwalk that had since collapsed. She walked over to the rubble, her eyes now open, seeing the world with a preternatural clarity. She knelt, her gaze sweeping the dust and debris.
Her Gift was a double-edged sword. It showed her the truth, but it also showed her the cost. Every violent act, every moment of intense emotion, left a stain on the world, a psychic residue that she could feel like a physical pressure. The air in this room was thick with it: the Templars' shock, the commando's grim resolve, and Soren's agonizing, uncontrolled power. It was a symphony of violence, and she was its sole audience.
Her eyes narrowed. Something was wrong. A flicker. A discordant note in the symphony. The commando's shot had been perfect, but there was something else. A secondary impact, almost simultaneous. A tiny, almost imperceptible spark of energy that had embedded itself in the wall near the Templar, a microsecond before the killing blow had struck him from behind. It wasn't an attack. It was a marker. A tracer.
She focused her will, and the world around the tiny point of impact seemed to magnify. The grey dust, the rust flakes, the microscopic crystals of shattered glass—it all became a landscape. And there, nestled in a hairline crack in the ferrocrete, was the source of the flicker. It was no bigger than a grain of sand, a tiny shard of crystal that pulsed with a faint, internal light. It was Sable League tech, no question. A high-end surveillance and tracking device, designed to adhere to a target on impact and relay their position. But why tag a dead Templar?
Isolde's mind, a razor honed by years of Inquisitorial training, sliced through the possibilities. It wasn't for the Templar. It was a mistake. A miscalculation. The commando had fired two shots in quick succession. The first was the tracer, meant for Soren. The second was the kill shot, meant for the Templar. But Soren's Gift had gone wild at that exact moment, a chaotic burst of energy that would have interfered with the tracer's programming. The commando, adapting instantly, had switched targets, tagging the Templar by accident before eliminating him.
It was a mistake. A tiny, insignificant error. But for Isolde, it was everything. It was a thread. And she knew, with absolute certainty, who had been on that catwalk. Nyra Sableki. The little sparrow who thought she could fly in the Synod's skies.
She produced a small, magnetic-tipped probe from a compartment on her gauntlet. With the delicate precision of a watchmaker, she teased the microscopic tracer from its crack in the wall. It adhered to the probe's tip, pulsing with a soft, blue light. It was still active. It was still transmitting. And it was tied to a specific League network signature.
Isolde straightened up, the tracer held delicately between her thumb and forefinger. The three Inquisitors had completed their sweep and returned, standing at attention, awaiting her report. "The targets are Soren Vale and Nyra Sableki," she said, her voice devoid of any emotion. "They were aided by a single League commando, now deceased. Vale is severely weakened. Sableki is leading him. They are on foot, heading east into the deep wastes."
One of the Inquisitors, his voice a synthesized baritone through his helm's vocoder, asked, "Orders, Inquisitor?"
Isolde did not look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the tiny, glowing crystal in her hand. It was a key. A direct line to the Sable League's most clandestine operations. She could use it to track Nyra. She could use it to backtrack the signal to its source, to uncover the League's entire network in this sector. She could dismantle their spy ring piece by piece.
But first, the hunt. The personal satisfaction of it. The absolute necessity of it. High Inquisitor Valerius wanted Soren Vale brought in, preferably alive. He wanted the anomaly contained. But Isolde wanted more. She wanted to break the one person who had ever made her feel like she was less than perfect. Nyra Sableki, with her noble birth, her easy charm, her infuriating competence, had been Isolde's rival at the academy. Isolde had always been second best, always the shadow to Nyra's light. Not anymore.
"The commando's gear," Isolde said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. "Did you find a comms unit?"
"Affirmative, Inquisitor. Standard League issue, encrypted."
"Bring it to me. And prepare the skiff. We're not waiting for the full purification squad. We're pursuing now."
She turned her back on the bodies and the ruin, walking toward the waiting transport. The wind picked up again, whipping her dark cloak around her. She held the tracer up to the faint moonlight, the tiny crystal a star in her palm. It was a promise. A guarantee of the chase to come. The cold fire in her eyes was not just a reflection of the moon; it was the banked fury of a lifetime of resentment, now given a single, perfect focus.
"The hunt is on, little sparrow," she whispered to the wind, the words meant only for herself and the ghost of her rival. "And I never lose my prey."