Chapter 15: The Chains

They didn't need a sack this time.

I walked down the forty-one steps on my own feet, with a gold spear in my back and my chin up.

Last time I'd kicked.

This time I counted.

The door at the top was new, raw oak still pale from the saw, hung that afternoon with fresh iron bands.

Phaedon had been busy while I was winning in the Council.

The Vault was lit tonight.

Lamps burned in niches along both walls, and a brazier glowed by the far end, so the round roof flickered gold.

The ring Theron had torn out was back in the wall.

The mortar round it was still dark and wet.

Phaedon stood by the chains in a white robe with his sleeves pushed up.

Ismene stood beside him.

She held a wide silver cup in her black hand.

"Sweetheart," Phaedon said to me. "You came."

"Your guards were very persuasive."

"They're good men. They'll be better paid than his."

Two guards pushed me back against the stone.

Phaedon took my left wrist himself and closed the cuff on it.

The gold lining was cold, and then it wasn't.

"You took one of your cuffs to my father," he said. "So I've lent you one from the other set."

He closed the blank cuff round my right wrist.

Then my ankles, one and two.

He laid his palm flat on each lock in turn.

Each one flared white under his hand, noon-bright, and I smelled hot metal.

"They open for the hand that sealed them," he said. "Mine. Or when you're dead. Those are the only two ways."

"I know," I said.

He tipped his head at that.

"Do you?"

I didn't answer.

He waved the guards out.

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