SOREN
He was still talking when the confirmation hit home. The Regent's standing orders. Vetra had been imprisoned for more than a month.
Her authority had been stripped even before the tribunal, a fact known by every legitimate soldier from the capital to the furthest reaches of the frost-line.
No real soldier would invoke her name as a current authority.
Only a fool.
And then there was "sealed directive." That was the specific, pedantic administrative signature Vetra had used years ago to move her loyalists into key positions.
I had reviewed every scrap of parchment she had ever signed while she sat in her cell. I knew her language better than she did.
The confirmation was complete in under thirty seconds. These were not my men. They were a mask Vetra had left behind to haunt the provinces.
"That's enough," I said.
I didn't make a speech.
