“You were ordered to search by someone more powerful than you. I do not punish men for being trapped inside systems.” Sabine opened the door. “But if you tell Serast or Maelor that I caught you, or that I know about the hearth channels, I will make sure Princess Elara testifies that you entered my chamber alone at night with intent to steal sacred materials. The temple will sacrifice you to protect itself.”
Olin fled.
The hidden passage door opened.
Lucien stepped into the chamber, his face controlled but his eyes sharp.
“You set bait inside your own room,” he said, “and waited for the temple to bite.”
“And they did.”
“Gods help them, then.” He crossed to her. “What did Olin give you.”
“The location of hidden bride effects. Old hearth channels behind the fireplaces in the bride wing. Isolde may have hidden materials there before the temple could strip her rooms.”
Elara was already examining Sabine’s fireplace. “This chamber is newer construction. But the older bride chambers near the east gallery still have original stonework.”
Lucien’s hand found Sabine’s. The mark pulsed warm where they touched.
“When do you search them,” he asked quietly.
“Before the temple realizes Olin broke.”
“Then you do not go alone.”
“I will take Lysa and Elara.”
“You will take me as well.” His grip tightened fractionally. “You can hunt the palace machinery, Sabine. But you do not walk into hidden places where the temple has already killed women without someone who can fight if the palace decides to kill again.”
Sabine met his eyes.
She saw fear there. And desire. And the particular intensity of a man who had watched one bride die and would burn the kingdom before he let it happen twice.
“Then we go together,” she said.
Later, after Elara and Lucien had left and Lysa had checked the corridor, Sabine stood before her own fireplace and stared at the cold stone.
The palace had been entering her room for weeks.
Leaving objects. Taking notes. Watching her react.
Now she would enter the palace’s hidden bones and take what it had tried to bury.
She had spent weeks being tested by machinery designed to consume women.
The machinery had just failed a test of hers.
And Sabine Corvyr had learned something useful.
Machines could be hunted from inside.
Twenty One
Letters Under the Stone
Sabine waited until the bride wing fell silent.
No bells. No footsteps. No attendants moving linen carts along the corridor. Only the low settling sounds of the palace at night and the faint shift of wind against the high windows.
