The words acted as a key, turning a lock in the deep, dark cellar of Soren's mind.
Suddenly, the grand Tribunal Hall vanished. In its place was a small, stone room that smelled of damp moss and iron.
A six-year-old Soren, small and fragile, was being gripped by the back of his neck. The water in the basin was a slurry of half-melted slush.
He was shoved down.
The cold was not a temperature; it was a physical assault. It felt like needles of glass being driven into every pore.
He couldn't breathe. His lungs burned, screaming for oxygen, but there was only the suffocating, freezing dark.
"This teaches control, Soren," Vetra's voice drifted down through the water, as clear and merciless as the ice itself. "A King must never be at the mercy of his own body's weakness. Again."
