Chapter 10: The Chain in the Hall

Theron went up the forty-one steps three at a time.

I came after him with the lamp.

The door at the top was oak, a foot thick, banded in iron.

He put his shoulder into it once, and the whole stairwell shook, and it didn't move.

"Save your shoulder," Phaedon said through the wood. "My father's court sits at dawn. I'll let you out in front of them."

"Let us out now," I said.

"And waste it? No. I want them to see where I found you."

His footsteps went away across the throne room.

Theron stood with his palm flat on the oak.

Then he turned and went back down the stairs past me without a word.

I heard iron scream on stone below, again and again, a long ugly grinding.

When he came back up, he had the iron ring from the Vault wall in his fist.

It was as big as a dinner plate, with a length of chain still hanging off it.

Stone dust was in his hair.

"Stand back," he said.

I stood back.

He swung the iron ring into the door beside the lock.

It boomed.

He swung again.

Splinters jumped off the oak.

He swung it all night.

I sat on the top step with the lamp between my knees and watched him do it.

Sometime after that I fell asleep against the wall, and woke with his cloak over me.

He was still swinging.

His knuckles were bleeding into the iron.

"You could stop," I said.

"No."

"Why not?"

He swung.

"Because I'm not leaving you down here," he said.

Not us.

You.

The lock gave just as grey light showed under the door.

It went with a crack, and the door swung out onto the throne room.

The court had already gathered.

Fifty gods in their morning robes stood on the gold floor before the dais.

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