Chapter 20: Soren's POV

Soren's POV

They dragged me into a side chamber and left me under the net.

It lay across my back.

Where the black links touched my skin, they burned, and the burn went deeper each time I breathed.

I knew the sensation.

I knew how long a man could last in iron.

After that his mind went soft, and he stopped wanting to get up.

I did not intend to stop.

I could hear the Moot through the wall.

I could hear Orlan's smooth voice.

Under it ran the low sound of a hall full of people deciding to believe him.

Then, clearly, I heard Orlan say, "Chain her."

I tried to stand.

The iron pressed me down.

Two guards stood over me with their arms folded, and neither of them blinked.

I put my face against the cold stone and I thought, I have claimed nothing yet, and she is in cuffs.

The door opened.

"Out," Neris said.

She was alone, in her white coat, with a long pair of bolt cutters over her shoulder.

"The regent wants the heir brought to the dais," she said. "Alive and standing. You will not like it if he waits."

The guards looked at each other.

"We were told to hold him."

"And I am telling you he is wanted. Go and ask Orlan, if you would like to tell him you disobeyed."

They went.

Neris shut the door behind them and put her back against it.

"Do not speak," she said. "Hold still."

She knelt at my side and set the jaws of the cutters against the first black link.

She was shaking.

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