Chapter 8: The Inquisitor

POV: Neoma

I sat in the darkness for what felt like hours before he came.

The interrogation chamber was silent. But it wasn't empty. The air felt thick. Heavy. Charged with the psychic residue of everyone who had screamed in this chair before me. I squeezed my eyes shut. Hard enough to see stars. I tried to block out the whispers I’d heard in the holding cells.

“The Decaying King,” a one-eyed Tabira had muttered through the vent. “They say he doesn’t sleep. They say you can hear his veins pulsing from across the room.”

“The Corpse God,” another had whispered back. “He eats Lycans to keep the rot at bay. He cracks them open like walnuts.” I had dismissed them as Dregs superstition. Myths created to make the boogeyman scarier.

But now. Strapped to this cold obsidian chair. The silence pressing against my eardrums like water pressure. Those whispers felt terrifyingly real. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs—thud, thud, thud—painful. Erratic.

I wasn't just waiting for a king. I was waiting for a monster.

Then—the heavy iron door groaned.

When Lugal Nergal entered the room, the temperature dropped ten degrees. The shadows seemed to detach themselves from the corners. Oozing toward him.

I was strapped to a chair of cold obsidian. My wrists bound by Barzil-infused cuffs that hummed with a headache-inducing frequency. It vibrated in my teeth. The interrogation chamber was circular. Lit only by a single, harsh spotlight centered on me. But even that light seemed to dim.

The King of the Shattered Cosmos stepped into the circle.

He didn't look like the propaganda posters.

In the pictures, the Lugal was a golden-skinned god. Eternal. Ageless. In the flesh, he was... wrong.

He was tall. Towering over the two Uruk guards who flanked him. But his skin was translucent. Papery. Like wet parchment stretched over bone.

Beneath the surface, black veins pulsed with a slow, sick rhythm. Thump... thump... Like oil moving through an engine. He wore robes of heavy crimson silk. But they couldn't hide the scent that clung to him.

It hit the back of my throat. Bile rose instantly.

It was the smell of a grave that had been opened too soon. Decay. Sweet, cloying rot. Masked poorly by the sharp, electric tang of ozone and crushed lunar flowers.

"Leave us," he commanded.

His voice was layered. Echoing slightly inside my skull. As if two people were speaking at once—one human, one beast. The sound grated on my nerves.

The guards bowed. Retreated. The heavy iron door sealed with a hiss.

Nergal drifted toward me. He didn't walk; he glided. He stopped inches from my chair. His eyes—milky white with only pinpricks of gold in the center—dissected me.

"A Null," he murmured. A skeletal finger reached out. Tilted my chin up. His touch was freezing. Dead flesh. "Or so the census says. Yet you broke a Vanguard Commander's ribs with a thought."

I jerked my head away. Skin crawled where he touched me. "I didn't ask to come here."

"None of us ask for our destiny, child. We simply... endure it."

He circled behind me. His hand trailed along the back of the chair. I couldn't see him, but I could feel the cold radiating off him.

"I have searched three centuries for a vessel like you. The Scentless One. The Void."

He snapped his fingers.

Snap.

The sound was wet. Wrong.

A section of the floor to my left slid open. A metal pillar rose. Shackled to it was a Lycan.

He was young. Maybe barely out of his teens. But his eyes were already bleeding the tell-tale red of Stage 3 Feral Rot. He snarled. Straining against his chains. Drool dripped from his fangs, hitting the floor with a heavy splat.

"He is starving," Nergal whispered in my ear. His breath was cold. "His mind is dissolving because he lacks the energy to sustain his form. Feed on him."

I stared at the boy. My stomach twisted. "What?"

"Drain him," Nergal commanded. His voice hardened. "Pull the corruption from his blood. Take his energy. Show me what you are."

"No."

"No?" Nergal paused. Came back around to face me. He looked amused. A rictus grin stretched his thin skin.

"I am not a weapon," I spat. My voice shook. "And I'm not a parasite. I won't hurt him."

"You misunderstand, Neoma. You are not a weapon. You are a battery."

He reached into his robe. Pulled out a small, jagged shard of black crystal. It wasn't Barzil. It was something else—something that seemed to drink the light in the room.

He pressed it against my temple.

White-hot agony shattered my skull.

I screamed.

It wasn't a sound I chose to make. It was ripped from my throat. Raw. Animalistic. The pain wasn't physical; it was neural. It felt like he was pouring acid directly onto my brain stem. My back arched off the chair. Every muscle locked rigid. Bones creaked under the strain.

"Drain him," Nergal said calmly. Over my screams.

"Go... to... hell!" I gasped. Air wouldn't come. Lungs paralyzed.

He pressed the crystal harder.

My vision went white. Tunnel vision collapsed. I tasted blood—warm, copper—where I'd bitten through my tongue. The Void inside me woke up. Roaring in response to the pain. Desperate to lash out. To feed. To stop the agony.

Let me out, it screamed. Let me eat.

But I clamped down on it. I wouldn't let him win. I wouldn't become a monster for him.

Nergal pulled the artifact away.

I slumped forward. Gasping. Retching dryly. Sweat dripped from my nose onto the obsidian floor. My body trembled so hard the chair rattled against the bolts.

"Impressive," Nergal mused. "Most break in seconds. Your will is... durable."

He tucked the artifact away. "But durability is not immunity. Everyone has a breaking point. We simply need to find the right pressure."

He waved his hand at the far wall.

The stone dissolved into a holographic projection. The image was grainy. Distorted by the atmospheric interference of the Dregs. But the subject was unmistakable.

A young man with messy silver-blonde hair sat in a cage of rusted rebar. His face was bruised. Lip split. But he was alive.

"Kaine," I whispered. The name tore out of my throat. Raw.

My brother looked up. As if he heard me. Though I knew he couldn't. He was terrified. I could see the tremor in his hands.

And then I saw it.

A tiny, unblinking red dot centered perfectly on his chest.

"He is currently being held in Sector 4," Nergal said. His voice smooth as silk. Poison. "I have a sniper positioned three hundred yards away. A Vanguard marksman. He never misses."

I strained against the cuffs. Ignored the pain in my wrists as skin tore. "Don't you touch him! He's nothing! He's just a Null!"

"He is your brother," Nergal corrected. "Which makes him valuable."

He leaned in close. His rotting breath washed over my face. I gagged.

"The test is simple, Neoma. You will serve me. You will become the Tether for my Vanguard. You will do exactly as I command."

He gestured to the screen. Where the red dot moved slightly, tracking Kaine's breathing. Rise and fall. Life and death.

"Cooperate," Nergal whispered.

"Or he dies before his body hits the floor."