Hard. Brief. Desperate enough that Sabine felt it in her chest.
Then he pulled back with visible effort and stepped away before either of them could forget where they were.
“The next trial will come fast,” he said. “Serast will want control back. Stay close to Elara. Do not let Maelor corner you alone. And do not surrender the music no matter what they threaten.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth once, then away.
He left.
Sabine stood in the shadowed stair with her lips still burning from his mouth and the mark still flaring from the grief she had felt through the bond when he spoke of Isolde.
Lysa was waiting when Sabine returned to her chamber.
“Elara sent word,” Lysa said quietly. “She traced the protective administration order.”
Sabine stopped with one hand still on the door.
“Who signed it.”
Lysa’s face told her before the answer did.
“Queen Mother Ilyra.”
For a moment, Sabine saw the conservatory again.
White moths. Warm glass. Sugared fruit. Ilyra pouring tea as if kindness were another form of etiquette.
We want you to succeed.
No.
We want you to continue.
Sabine crossed to her travel case and opened the false lining.
Cassian’s letter lay beside Isolde’s music and the copied trial notes.
Her house.
The dead bride.
The court’s own words.
One threatened the living. One named the dead. One proved the palace had said the quiet part aloud.
Ilyra had smiled like a mother while signing the order that made Corvyr’s survival dependent on Sabine remaining useful.
It had not been protection.
It had been ownership.
Sabine placed the papers back into the lining with careful hands and locked the case.
The Trial of Names had taught her a new rule.
If the palace could name every weakness she carried, then she would start naming theirs.
And she would begin with the woman who smiled gently while signing orders to dismantle her family.
