# Chapter 154: The Siege of the Flagon
The rhythmic clang of armored boots stopped. The silence that followed was heavier, more absolute than any sound. It was the sound of a held breath, the world pausing before the plunge. Then, a low hum vibrated through the floorboards, and the air in the center of the room began to shimmer, distorting like a heat haze on the wastes. Finn cried out, clutching his head as his connection to his Gift flickered and died. The nullification field was active. A moment later, the reinforced door didn't just splinter; it disintegrated, blown inward in a shower of wood and metal. Silhouetted in the gaping, rain-lashed doorway stood a figure in pristine white armor, her crossbow already raised. Isolde. Her eyes, cold and blue as a winter sky, swept across the room, past the desperate defenders, and locked onto Soren with the predatory certainty of a hunter who had finally cornered her prey.
"Now!" Soren's roar ripped through the tavern a split second before the first bolt flew. It wasn't a battle cry; it was a command.
Lyra, crouched behind the bar, yanked a thick rope. A heavy net of scrap metal and broken bottles, strung across the ceiling, dropped onto the first wave of Inquisitors pouring through the doorway. The makeshift trap clattered and clanged, fouling their advance and buying precious seconds. At the same time, the back wall, reinforced with barrels and tables, exploded inward as a second strike team breached the tavern's rear. The air crackled with the oppressive weight of two nullification fields, overlapping and creating a dead zone where Gifts were useless memories.
"Boro, front and center! Finn, with him!" Soren commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos. He was already moving, not toward the fight, but toward the stairs, a vantage point. His body screamed in protest, but his mind was a razor, honed by desperation.
Boro, the hulking fighter, planted his feet, his Gift—a shimmering, kinetic barrier—flaring to life around him. It wavered and dimmed under the pressure of the nullification fields but held. He became a living wall, a bulwark against the tide. Finn, his own Gift of minor telekinesis suppressed, grabbed a heavy iron poker from the fireplace, his face pale but determined. He stood beside Boro, a mortal shield for a Gifted giant.
From the stairs, Soren saw the whole, ugly picture. The Inquisitors moved with chilling efficiency, their white armor gleaming in the firelight. They fought in pairs, one providing cover fire with a crossbow while the other advanced with a short, wicked-looking blade. They were methodical, relentless. This was not a brawl; it was a cleansing.
"Lyra, the rafters! Hit the rear team!" Soren yelled.
Lyra didn't hesitate. She scrambled onto the bar, her Gift allowing her to leap with impossible grace onto a thick ceiling beam. From above, she was a phantom, dropping down behind the rear strike team. Her twin daggers flashed, and one Inquisitor fell with a choked gasp, a blade finding the gap in his armor at his neck. The other spun, his blade a blur, but Lyra was already gone, melting back into the shadows of the tavern's upper floor.
A crossbow bolt thudded into the wooden post next to Soren's head, showering his cheek with splinters. He didn't flinch. He scanned the room, his mind racing. They were being compressed, squeezed from both ends. The nullification fields were the key. They were anchors, limiting the Inquisitors' own Gifts as well, but the soldiers were trained to fight without them. His people were not.
"Torvin, the fields! Where are the generators?" Soren's voice was tight, controlled.
Torvin, his face a mask of grim concentration, was crouched behind an overturned table. "Not generators, you fool! They're living conduits! Two of them, one with each team! Look for the one not fighting, the one just standing there glowing!"
Soren's eyes darted back to the front entrance. Amidst the clash of steel and the shouts of pain, he saw him: an Inquisitor standing just inside the doorway, his hands raised, his body emitting the faint, shimmering hum. He was the source of the nullification. The rear team had one, too, a woman doing the same thing near the smoking hole in the back wall.
"Nyra!" Soren shouted, spotting her near the kitchen doorway, her own Gift suppressed, a short sword in her hand. "The conduit! Front door!"
She understood instantly. While Boro held the line, absorbing blows that would have shattered a lesser man, Nyra moved. She was a blur of calculated motion, using the tavern's furniture as cover. She ducked under a swinging blade, parried a thrust, and closed the distance. The conduit Inquisitor saw her coming, his focus unwavering. He couldn't drop the field without exposing his team, but he couldn't defend himself properly while maintaining it. It was the weakness Torvin had predicted.
Nyra feinted left, then spun right, her sword a silver arc. The Inquisitor twisted, but her blade wasn't aimed at his body. It sliced through the air just above his gauntleted hands. There was no blood, but the man gasped, his concentration broken. The shimmering air in the center of the room vanished.
"Gifts are back!" Finn yelled, a wild grin on his face. The iron poker in his hand clattered to the floor as he raised his hands. A nearby table, laden with empty bottles, lifted into the air and hurled itself into the front line of Inquisitors with the force of a battering ram.
The tide, for a moment, shifted. Lyra dropped from the rafters again, this time armed with a heavy mug, which she smashed onto the head of an Inquisitor trying to flank Boro. The hulking fighter roared and slammed his shield forward, sending two men flying. The air crackled as Gifted power, once suppressed, now surged through the defenders.
But the reprieve was short-lived. The rear conduit's field still held, and the Inquisitors were adapting. A crossbow bolt took Lyra in the shoulder, spinning her around. She cried out, falling hard behind the bar. The front conduit, recovering from Nyra's wound, began to re-establish his field, the air once more starting to hum.
"They're too disciplined!" Torvin yelled, firing a pistol he'd kept hidden. The shot went wide, ricocheting off an Inquisitor's breastplate. "They'll sacrifice one team to crush the other! Isolde is holding back, waiting for us to overcommit!"
As if on cue, a new figure stepped through the front doorway. Isolde. She moved with an unnerving calm, the chaos of the battle flowing around her like water around a stone. She didn't draw a weapon. She simply watched, her cold blue eyes assessing, calculating. She was the conductor of this violent orchestra.
Soren felt a chill that had nothing to do with the rain. This was her test. She was letting them expend their energy, learning their tactics, identifying their strengths. She was a predator playing with her food.
"Nyra, with me! Torvin, keep Boro and Finn alive! Everyone else, fall back to the stairs!" Soren ordered, descending the steps two at a time. He met Nyra at the base of the staircase. They stood back-to-back, a small island of defiance in a sea of violence.
"Plan?" Nyra asked, her breathing heavy, her sword slick with blood.
"We make our own nullification field," Soren said, his voice low and intense. "We bring the roof down on them."
He raised his hands, the Cinders-Tattoos on his arms beginning to glow with a faint, dangerous orange light. He could feel the familiar, agonizing pull, the Cinder Cost demanding its price. He ignored it, focusing the raw, untamed energy of his Gift. Not into a weapon, but into the structure around him. The old wooden beams, the rusted nails, the weakened mortar. He sought the fractures, the stress points, the memory of a thousand nights of settling and decay.
Nyra felt the change in the air, the subtle vibration. She understood. Her own Gift was one of manipulation, of seeing and influencing the flows of energy and probability. While Soren prepared to shatter the tavern, she would guide the pieces. She reached out with her mind, not to attack, but to feel. She found the load-bearing beam directly above the main group of Inquisitors. She found the weakened joists supporting the second floor. She whispered a single word, a thread of her power weaving into the wood. "Now."
Soren unleashed his power. It wasn't a blast or a flare. It was a deep, resonant thrum that shook the very foundations of the Rusty Flagon. Dust rained down from the ceiling. A loud, groaning crack echoed through the room as the main beam above the front entrance splintered. The floor above it sagged, then gave way with a deafening roar. Wood, plaster, and furniture crashed down, burying three Inquisitors and their conduit under tons of debris.
The shockwave of the collapse threw everyone off balance. For a precious moment, all fighting stopped. The front of the tavern was a wreck of shattered timber and dust. The rear strike team, still under their nullification field, stared in disbelief.
Isolde didn't even flinch. She simply stepped over the rubble, her eyes never leaving Soren. She saw what he had done. He hadn't just used his Gift; he had used his mind. He had turned their environment into a weapon. He was more dangerous than she had been led to believe.
"Fall back!" she commanded, her voice cutting through the dust and confusion. Her remaining Inquisitors disengaged, pulling back toward the doorway, their formation unbroken despite the chaos. They were professionals.
But Soren wasn't done. The collapse had created a new problem. The tavern was dying. The entire structure groaned, threatening to come down around them. The rear strike team, seeing their advantage, pressed their attack, sensing victory.
"Torvin! The rear conduit! Take her out!" Soren yelled, his voice hoarse from the effort.
Torvin didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled from behind his cover, a look of pure hatred on his face. He charged the woman maintaining the rear field, not with a weapon, but with his bare hands. She turned, her eyes widening in surprise as the former Inquisitor closed the distance. She tried to raise a blade, but he was inside her guard. He slammed into her, his momentum carrying them both into the wall. The nullification field flickered and died.
The moment it did, Boro roared. Freed from the suppressing energy, his Gift exploded outward. His kinetic barrier pulsed, a wave of pure force that sent the remaining rear Inquisitors flying like ragdolls. One crashed through a window, another was slammed against the far wall and lay still.
Silence descended, broken only by the creak of stressed timber and the patter of rain through the new holes in the roof. The Unchained had won. They had repelled the assault. Lyra was wounded, but alive. Finn was pale but unharmed. Boro stood panting, his barrier fading.
And then, Isolde clapped. It was a slow, deliberate sound, utterly devoid of emotion. She stood alone in the wreckage of the front entrance, her white armor dusted with plaster. She was smiling, a thin, cruel curve of her lips.
"Impressive," she said, her voice carrying clearly in the sudden quiet. "You've turned a rabble into a pack of wolves. I see why Valerius is so interested in you."
She took a step forward, then another. The remaining Inquisitors behind her raised their crossbows, but she held up a hand, signaling them to hold.
"But you've made a critical error, Soren Vale," she continued, her eyes locking onto his. "You thought this was about surviving the siege. You thought if you just held out, you would win." She gestured around the collapsing room. "This was never about killing you. It was about breaking you. And you have just handed me the perfect weapon."
Soren's blood ran cold. He looked at Nyra, saw the same dawning horror in her eyes. The tavern wasn't just their fortress; it was their tomb. And they had just sealed it themselves.
"You've brought the roof down," Isolde said, her smile widening. "Now, let's see if you can dig your way out."
She raised her crossbow, aiming not at Soren, but at the main support pillar for the remaining section of the ceiling. The one thing holding the entire, devastated structure up. The shot would be the final death knell. It wouldn't just kill them; it would erase them. The siege was over. The execution was about to begin.