# Chapter 293: Unwelcome Reinforcements
The air in the Hall of Forgotten Saints was thick with the dust of shattered statues and the metallic tang of ozone. Soren's gaze dropped from the cracked keystone to Nyra's desperate face, then to the relentless, grey figure of the Ironclad. Trust. It was a currency he had spent sparingly, but now he had to bet everything on it. He took a deep breath, the dusty air searing his lungs, and raised his hand. The familiar, painful heat began to build in his palm, the cinder-tattoos on his arm glowing a fierce, angry orange. He was about to unleash hell itself. Just as the power reached its peak, a new sound echoed through the hall—the heavy, rhythmic clang of armored boots on marble. From the far end of the gallery, beyond the rubble of the shattered statues, a new figure emerged, flanked by a squad of menacing enforcers. The man was tall and cruel, with a sneer permanently etched onto his face. Kaelen "The Bastard" Vor. "Soren Vale," Kaelen's voice boomed, laced with triumphant malice. "You just had to make this difficult, didn't you?" Trapped. Between the silent, unstoppable wall and the sneering, bloodthirsty rival. Soren looked from Kaelen's gloating face to the Ironclad's implacable advance. A grim, fatalistic calm settled over him. He shoved Nyra hard toward a small, unadorned side door she had pointed out earlier. "Go!" he roared, his voice raw. "I'll hold them both!"
The world seemed to fracture into a series of horrifying snapshots. Kaelen's sneer, wide and triumphant, a predator savoring the final moments of the hunt. The four enforcers behind him, clad in the Synod's black-and-gold plate, their crossbows leveled and unwavering. The Ironclad, a monolith of silent death, its advance unaltered by the new arrivals, its focus locked solely on him. And Nyra, her face a mask of disbelief and horror as she stumbled toward the escape route he had just condemned her to.
"No! Soren, don't!" she cried, her voice cracking. Boro, still gasping for air after his Gift had been shattered, moved to help her, his broad frame a testament to a courage that had just been brutally tested. Inquisitor Isolde, her face pale with a terror far deeper than anything the Ironclad had invoked, scrambled after them, her faith in the Synod's order shattered by the sight of one of its most brutal champions.
Kaelen laughed, a harsh, grating sound that bounced off the marble walls. "Hold them both? Vale, your arrogance is matched only by your stupidity. You're a cornered rat, and I'm the terrier hired to snap your neck." He drew his own sword, a wicked-looking scimitar that glimmered with an oily light, its edge humming with a faint, dissonant energy. "High Inquisitor Valerius sends his regards. He wants your head, but he'll settle for what's left after I'm done. The bounty on your cinder-tattoos alone will set me up for life."
Soren ignored him. His entire being was focused on the two threats converging on his position. The Ironclad was twenty paces away and closing fast. Kaelen and his squad were at the far end of the hall, a good hundred paces, but the crossbows were a more immediate danger. He couldn't charge Kaelen; the Ironclad would be on him in seconds. He couldn't focus on the Ironclad; the crossbow bolts would turn him into a pincushion. The plan to bring down the ceiling was now a fool's gambit. It would take every ounce of his power, every scrap of his concentration, and he would be completely vulnerable. He'd be dead before the first stone fell.
"Go, Nyra! Now!" he yelled again, not turning to see if she obeyed. He had to trust that she would. He had to trust that she understood this was the only way. He shifted his stance, planting his feet firmly on the cracked marble, his sword held in a defensive grip. He was no longer thinking about winning. He was thinking about buying seconds.
The first crossbow bolt flew. It was a black, heavy thing, fletched with raven feathers, and it flew true. Soren didn't try to dodge. Instead, he channeled a sliver of the fire building in his palm, not as a flare, but as a shield. A shimmering wave of heat erupted in front of him. The bolt struck it and disintegrated, its metal head turning to molten slag that fell to the floor with a sizzle. The effort cost him. A fresh line of agony traced itself across his forearm, his cinder-tattoos flaring with a deeper, more painful orange. The Cinder Cost, always demanding its due.
"Persistent," Kaelen noted with a smirk. "Fire at his legs. Let's see how well he shields what he can't see."
Two more bolts whistled through the air. Soren dropped to one knee, slamming his free hand on the floor. A gout of superheated steam erupted from the marble, a desperate, uncontrolled burst of power that obscured his position in a swirling cloud of grey mist. The bolts thudded harmlessly into the stone behind him. But the Ironclad was not fooled. It walked through the steam without hesitation, its grey form appearing like a ghost ship through a fog, its massive fist already drawn back for a crushing blow.
Soren rolled, the air where his head had been a moment before exploding with force as the Ironclad's punch connected with the floor. The marble cracked, a spiderweb of fractures spreading out from the point of impact. He was up in a flash, his sword sweeping low, aiming for the back of the construct's knee. The blade connected, and once again, that infuriating hexagonal pattern of light flared, absorbing the kinetic energy. The Ironclad didn't even stumble. It simply turned, its movements fluid and terrifyingly fast, and backhanded him with the force of a battering ram.
Soren flew through the air, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs. He crashed into the pedestal of a shattered statue, the stone groaning under the force. Pain lanced through his ribs. He tasted blood. He struggled to his feet, his vision swimming. He could hear Kaelen's laughter, a sound that grated on his nerves more than the Ironclad's silent assault. He could hear the heavy footsteps of the enforcers as they began to advance, their crossbows reloaded.
This was it. This was how it ended. Not in a blaze of glory that changed the world, but as a footnote in Kaelen Vor's rise to fame, a sacrifice made so that others might live. He looked toward the side door. It was closed. Nyra was gone. Boro was gone. Isolde was gone. A small, fierce flicker of satisfaction cut through the pain. He had done it. He had saved them.
The Ironclad was coming again. Kaelen and his men were spreading out, forming a semi-circle, cutting off any last hope of escape. The air grew cold, a strange, unnatural chill that had nothing to do with the hall's stone architecture. Kaelen's Gift, Soren realized. He was sapping the heat from the room, trying to weaken him, to make his own fire-based power harder to wield.
"Look at you, Vale," Kaelen called out, his voice echoing in the vast, cold space. "The great hope of the unwashed masses. A gutter-spawn with a spark of power he can't control. You're nothing. You're a beast to be put down." He raised his scimitar, pointing it at Soren. "Any last words?"
Soren spat a mouthful of blood onto the pristine marble. He didn't look at Kaelen. He looked at the Ironclad. He looked at the cracked keystone above it. Nyra's plan. It was still their only way. But he couldn't do it and fight Kaelen at the same time. He couldn't split his focus. He needed a diversion. He needed a miracle.
And then he realized he was the miracle.
He let out a roar, a sound of pure, unadulterated defiance that seemed to shake the very foundations of the Sanctum. He stopped trying to conserve his power. He stopped trying to mitigate the Cinder Cost. He opened the floodgates. The cinder-tattoos on his arm, his chest, his neck, all erupted into a blinding, furious light. The air around him shimmered and warped, the dust on the floor turning to glass. The temperature in the hall skyrocketed, Kaelen's chilling Gift overwhelmed by a torrent of raw, untamed power.
The enforcers cried out, stumbling back, their armor heating to unbearable levels. Kaelen's smirk vanished, replaced by a look of shocked disbelief. "What are you doing? You'll burn yourself out!"
Soren didn't answer. He raised both hands to the ceiling, to the cracked keystone, to the single point of failure in this whole damned hall. He poured everything he had into one final, cataclysmic attack. Not at the Ironclad. Not at Kaelen. At the tons of stone hanging over their heads.
The world turned white.