"Soren Thorne," the central figure intoned, voice distorted by the mask and the roaring flame between them. "You stand before the sacred fire that burns away falsehood. Here, lies wither. Here, heresy burns."

Soren's mouth had gone dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth as he tried to swallow. The heat was unbearable, yet something about the flame drew him closer, called to him with voices he couldn't quite hear.

"We begin with intent," the masked Inquisitor continued. "The root from which all corruption grows."

Another figure moved forward, producing a scroll from which he read in that same ancient, resonant tongue. With each word, the flame pulsed brighter, reaching toward Soren like a living thing hungry for contact.

"You harbor forbidden knowledge," the central Inquisitor accused, the mask rendering his features immobile, inhuman. "You consort with Naeria Veyl, vessel of corruption. You bear within you the taint of heresy."

"No," Soren managed, the word scraping against his dry throat. "I didn't know who she was. I never—"

The chains around his wrists flared with sudden, violent cold that tore a gasp from his lungs. Simultaneously, the flame roared upward, its heat intensifying until the air itself seemed to waver and distort.

Pain lanced through him, starting where the metal touched his skin and racing outward like lightning through water.

"Lies," the Inquisitor said, voice flat with certainty. "The flame reveals what the tongue conceals."

"I'm not lying!" Soren insisted through gritted teeth.

Again the chains flared, again the fire responded, and again that searing pain coursed through his body. This time it lingered, a burning ache that settled into his joints and radiated outward with each heartbeat.

"The heretic Naeria Veyl sought you specifically," the Inquisitor pressed. "Why? What corruption do you share? What darkness do you harbor?"

"I don't know her," Soren repeated, bracing himself for the pain he knew would follow.

It came worse than before, the chains constricting until he felt bones grinding against metal. The flame reached for him across the pit, tendrils of golden fire stretching toward his face like curious fingers.

The shard against his chest pulsed weakly, its presence muted by the strange chains but not entirely silenced.

'Do not break,' Valenna's voice whispered, so faint he might have imagined it. 'Do not name me.'

The questioning continued, hours bleeding into one another as the Inquisitors circled the same points with relentless precision.

Each denial brought fresh pain, each insistence of innocence met with the flame's hungry response. They asked about Naeria's books, about symbols he might have seen, about voices he might have heard.

Through it all, Valenna's presence remained a faint chill beneath the chains' burning cold – not gone, but diminished, as if shouting from a great distance. Her warnings came in fragments, breaking through the bindings only in moments when the pain briefly receded.

'They seek... what they cannot... understand.'

'The flame devours... truth and lies alike.'

'Do not name me.'

Soren lost track of time, lost awareness of anything beyond the alternating waves of heat and cold, pain and momentary relief. His knees had given out at some point, leaving him kneeling before the flame, supported only by the Inquisitors' grip on his arms.

From somewhere beyond the chamber came a new voice, familiar, precise, cutting through the haze of pain with unexpected clarity.

"You waste valuable time with these methods," Veyr said, his tone suggesting bored patience rather than concern. "If the boy harbored true corruption, would House Velrane have placed him in the tournament? Would we risk our standing by elevating a heretic to house Blade?"

Soren turned his head with effort, vision blurring as he sought the source of Veyr's voice. A smaller chamber adjoined the main sanctum, separated by a grille of black iron through which he glimpsed the heir, still bound but standing with rigid dignity before his own panel of Inquisitors.

"Perhaps House Velrane itself requires examination," one of the masked figures suggested, voice silky with implied threat. "If its judgment has grown so... compromised."

"A bold claim," Veyr replied, sounding almost amused. "I wonder if Archon Devren would agree that House Velrane, which has supported the Cathedral treasury for eight generations, suddenly requires such scrutiny? Based on the actions of a recently elevated Blade who simply showed poor judgment in the streets?"

The calculated dismissal in his tone stung, but Soren recognized the strategy. Veyr wasn't defending him as a person, he was reducing the incident to a political inconvenience rather than a moral crisis. Protecting the house's interests, not Soren's life.

The masked Inquisitor's head turned toward the adjoining chamber, considering. The flame pulsed lower, its hungry reach receding slightly. "House Velrane's loyalty has indeed been... constant."

"More than constant," Veyr pressed, his voice carrying the weight of old gold and older promises. "Profitable. The cathedral's eastern expansion, the new scriptoriums, the endowment for the Seventh Ring studies, all funded by Velrane coffers."

Soren's vision swam as the chains' pressure eased fractionally. The reprieve felt like cool water on burned skin, though the underlying cold remained, gnawing at his bones. He could breathe without each inhalation feeling like swallowing glass.

"The boy made a mistake," Veyr continued, his tone suggesting this was obvious to anyone with sense. "A moment's poor judgment, nothing more. Hardly worth straining relations over."

Through the grille, Soren caught glimpses of the heir's pale face, composed despite the chains binding his wrists. Those intelligent eyes met his briefly, not reassurance exactly, but acknowledgment. A reminder that this performance served purposes beyond simple mercy.

"Yet he aided a known heretic," the central Inquisitor insisted, though something had shifted in his voice. Uncertainty, perhaps, or the recognition of larger political currents at play.

"He aided what appeared to be a woman in distress," Veyr corrected smoothly. "A chivalrous impulse, if misguided. The kind of protective instinct we cultivate in our Blades." A pause, precisely timed. "Would the Church prefer house guards who ignore those in need?"

The question hung in the superheated air like a blade poised to fall. Soren felt the flame's attention shift, its golden tendrils withdrawing further as the Inquisitors exchanged glances he couldn't interpret behind their masks.

The shard against his chest pulsed once, so faintly he might have imagined it. But with it came a whisper of Valenna's voice, clearer than it had been since the chains first locked around his wrists.

'The wolf learns new hunters,' she murmured, approval threading through the words. 'Political prey requires different teeth.'

The central Inquisitor raised his hand, and the flame began to subside. Not extinguished, but banked, its roar diminishing to a low crackle. The relief was immediate and overwhelming, Soren's knees buckled completely, leaving him collapsed on the stone floor, gasping.

"The preliminary questioning is concluded," the Inquisitor announced, his masked face turning toward the adjoining chamber. "Lord Veyr's... perspective has been noted."

Two black-robed figures hauled Soren upright, their grip impersonal as they supported his weight.

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