The next fragment had been written in a smaller hand, as if Isolde had been conserving space.
“If I resist at the wrong moment, the rite will punish resistance. I must time refusal before the vow begins moving or the chamber will consume me. Lucien does not know. I cannot tell him without making him complicit in what I plan.”
Sabine set the page down slowly.
“She was trying to refuse,” Lysa said.
“Yes.”
“She knew what would happen.”
“She suspected.”
“No.” Lysa looked at the papers. “She knew enough.”
Sabine unfolded the final legible page.
“I am hiding copies of everything I find. My rooms are being searched. Someone is watching. If I fail, perhaps the next bride will be cleverer than I was. Perhaps she will refuse before the vow begins moving.”
The room felt colder.
Sabine laid the letters out in order, her soot-stained fingers careful on the fragile paper.
Isolde had known.
She had discovered the missing structure beneath the sacred language. She had tried to warn the next woman. Not the court. Not the crown. Not history.
The next bride.
Sabine felt the weight of that directly, like a hand against her chest.
“We need Elara,” she said.
Lysa’s face tightened. “If you are searched with those, you will not talk your way clear.”
“I cannot leave them here. This room has already been breached.”
“Then take only what matters.”
“All of it matters.”
“No.” Lysa stepped closer. “Everything matters emotionally. Not everything matters strategically. Take the pages that name the Tenth Vow, chamber alteration, and refusal. Leave nothing behind that proves we found the hearth.”
Sabine looked at the packet, then at the cold fireplace.
Lysa was right.
Sabine gathered the letters and wrapped them in fresh linen from the drawer. She slid the bundle inside the bodice of her gown, close against her ribs. The paper was cold through the fabric.
The mark pulsed once beneath her sleeve.
She wanted Lucien.
Not only his mouth or his hands or the heat he brought into rooms designed to freeze women into obedience. She wanted his certainty. His rage. His presence beside her when Isolde’s words made the floor feel unstable.
She closed her eyes for one beat.
Evidence first.
