# Chapter 336: The General's Doubt
The air in Grak's forge was thick with the ghosts of heat and the metallic tang of spent power. Soren held the emitter, its surface cool against his palm. He looked from the device to Cassian's troubled face. The prince saw not a weapon, but a suicide pact. "There is no other way," Soren said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. He met Cassian's gaze, his own eyes like chips of flint. "The Synod does not fight with honor. They fight with control. We cannot break their control by playing by their rules." He raised his left arm, the emitter catching the forge light. "We fight fire with fire. Even if it burns us to ash." A low hum began to fill the room as Soren channeled the barest trickle of power into the device. The air around his forearm began to shimmer and warp, a visible distortion in reality itself. A sharp, stabbing pain lanced through Soren's chest, and he gritted his teeth, but his eyes never left Cassian's. The choice was made. The die was cast.
The hum intensified, a thrumming vibration that seemed to resonate in the bones. The shimmering air coalesced around the emitter, forming a wavering, translucent sphere of grey energy that bent the light from the forge's embers, making them dance and stretch like taffy. The scent of ozone, sharp and clean, cut through the smoky atmosphere. Soren's jaw was a rigid line of granite, the muscles in his neck standing out like cords. On his arm, the Cinder-Tattoos flared with an internal, sickly light, the intricate patterns of ash and sacrifice glowing a brilliant, furious orange before dimming, the color leaching out to a faint, ashen grey, as if a piece of his very life had just been scraped away.
Grak watched, his face a mask of grim satisfaction and profound sorrow. He had forged a miracle and a curse in the same breath. The device worked. It was drawing on Soren's life force, just as he'd calculated. The proof was there in the flicker of the tattoos and the barely suppressed tremor in Soren's stance.
Then, the humming stopped. The sphere of distorted air collapsed in on itself with a soft *implosion* of sound, leaving only the faint smell of ozone and the ringing silence of the forge. Soren lowered his arm, his breath coming in a ragged gasp. He swayed, a fleeting moment of weakness that he quickly mastered, straightening his back and forcing his expression into one of impassive resolve.
Cassian had not moved. He had watched the entire display, his initial hope curdling into a cold, hard dread. He saw the cost, not just in the fading light of the tattoos, but in the way Soren's eyes held a new, deeper shadow. This wasn't a tool. It was a leash, and the other end was tied to Soren's soul.
"Soren," Cassian began, his voice low and strained, the voice of a man trying to reason with a force of nature. "Look at what it did to you. In just a few seconds."
"It did what it was designed to do," Soren countered, his voice rough. He ran a hand over his face, the gesture betraying a weariness that went deeper than bone. "It's a weapon, Cassian. Weapons have a price. This one is just… more direct."
"Direct?" Cassian took a step forward, his princely composure cracking to reveal the raw anger beneath. He gestured wildly at the emitter, now dormant on Soren's arm. "This isn't a price, it's a ransom! You're trading your life for a single shot. How is that a victory? How can we build a future on a foundation of self-sacrifice?"
"The future doesn't matter if we're all dead in the next week!" Soren's voice rose, the first true flash of emotion he'd shown. The void-wound in his chest throbbed, a cold, sharp reminder of his fragility. "Valerius is out there. His Inquisitors can nullify any Gifted we send against them. They can walk through our defenses like ghosts. What is your strategy, Cassian? Honor? Will you throw Lyra at them? Master Quill? Me? We already know what happens when a Gifted faces an Inquisitor without an answer. They are broken. They are erased."
He stepped closer, his presence filling the small space of the forge. The scent of ash and dried blood clung to him, a stark contrast to Cassian's clean, leathery scent of a commander who had not yet seen the true, personal cost of this fight.
"You speak of principles," Soren continued, his tone dropping to a dangerous, quiet level. "I speak of survival. My mother and brother are in a Crownlands prison. My people are huddled behind these walls, waiting for Kaelen's legion to break them down and for the Synod to purify what's left. Principles are a luxury for people who aren't fighting for their very existence."
"And what happens when you win?" Cassian shot back, his own voice rising to match Soren's intensity. He wasn't backing down. The general in him was asserting himself, challenging the commander. "What happens when you've burned yourself to a cinder to save us? Who leads then? What do we tell the people we saved? That their freedom was bought by the life of the man who gave it to them? That's not a foundation, Soren. That's a martyr's pyre, and it will consume everything we've built."
The words hung in the air, heavy and damning. Grak shifted uncomfortably, his gaze fixed on the anvil, wishing he could melt back into the stone. This was a conflict he had not forged, but one his creation had now ignited.
Soren stared at Cassian, a long, silent moment stretching between them. He saw the prince's point. He understood the logic, the nobility of it. But it was the logic of a world that no longer existed. It was the logic of men who had not watched their fathers consumed by ash, who had not felt the cold dread of a debt contract hanging over their family's head.
"You still don't understand," Soren said, his voice losing its heat, replaced by a chilling finality. "You think this is a choice. It isn't. Every one of us is already paying a price. The soldiers on the wall pay with their fear and their fatigue. Lyra pays with the weight of command. Finn pays with his sanity. I am paying with my life. The only difference is that my payment has a receipt."
He turned his back on Cassian and faced the forge's heart, the glowing coals a reflection of the fire raging within him. "You want to lead, Cassian? Then lead. But you cannot lead an army that is dead. You cannot protect a people that have been cleansed. To do that, we need to break the Synod's greatest weapon. This," he said, tapping the emitter on his arm, "is the only way we have."
"So we become them?" Cassian's voice was laced with disbelief and a profound sense of betrayal. "We win by embracing the same callous disregard for life that they preach? The Synod teaches that the Gifted are tools, to be used and discarded. By strapping this thing on, you are proving them right. You are turning yourself into a disposable weapon."
Soren spun around, his eyes blazing. "No! I am choosing my own purpose! They would use me for their glory, for their control. I am using this for *us*. For the chance to be free. There is a difference."
"Is there?" Cassian challenged, taking another step until they were barely a foot apart. The air crackled with the tension between them. "Or is that just the lie we tell ourselves when the cost becomes too high to bear? I followed you out of the Ladder. I believed in a world where the Gifted could be more than gladiators, more than weapons for the powerful. But this… this feels like we're just building a new arena, with higher stakes and a shorter lifespan."
The accusation struck Soren with the force of a physical blow. He saw the genuine hurt and conviction in Cassian's eyes. The prince wasn't just arguing tactics; he was questioning the entire moral foundation of their rebellion. And in that moment, Soren felt the chasm open between them. The pragmatist and the idealist. The survivor and the statesman.
He thought of Elara, her face gaunt in the debtor's pen. He thought of his mother's hands, raw from work in the labor pits. He thought of the Bloom-Wastes, a world of silent grey death that was the future for everyone if they failed. Principles were a fine thing, but they did not put food in a starving child's belly. They did not stop an Inquisitor's blade.
His expression hardened, the last vestiges of uncertainty scoured away by the white-hot fire of his purpose.
"If we do not win, there will be no one left to save," Soren replied, his voice hard as steel. "Every one of us is already paying a price." He held Cassian's gaze, a silent challenge passing between them. "I am simply choosing to pay mine up front."
He turned away from the prince, the conversation over. He walked to a basin of grimy water and splashed it on his face, the cold shock a welcome distraction from the pain in his chest and the ache in his soul. The rift was real. It was a crack in the foundation of their command, a weakness that Kaelen or Valerius could exploit. But there was no other path. He had made his choice.
Cassian stood in the center of the forge, the prince's shoulders slumping in defeat. He looked at Soren's back, at the dark, menacing shape of the Void-Forged bracers, and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the forge's cooling embers. He had followed a leader he believed in. Now, he was forced to follow a weapon he feared. The general's doubt had taken root, and he wondered, not for the first time, what kind of victory they were truly fighting for.