The moment his fingers touched her, cold ran through the mark.
Her body rejected him before her mind formed the thought. The dark lines along her palm tightened, burning inward, not with heat but with aversion.
Maelor’s grip remained clinical.
“Reactive,” he murmured.
Lucien moved.
Barely.
One step.
Serast’s gaze flicked to him.
Maelor lifted the blade.
“Hold still, Lady Sabine.”
Sabine did.
The cut was quick, precise, shallow across the heel of her palm.
Pain opened bright and immediate.
Blood welled dark against the mark.
Lucien’s breath changed.
Sabine felt it through the bond as clearly as if his lungs had become part of hers. A sharp intake. A surge of anger. The violent instinct to cross the space and take the blade from Maelor’s hand.
He did not move.
Maelor tilted her hand over the chalice.
Sabine watched her blood fall.
Three drops.
Four.
Five.
Then Maelor released her and turned to Lucien.
The same blade. Uncleaned.
Sabine’s stomach tightened.
Lucien extended his hand.
Maelor cut him.
The mark on Sabine’s arm flared before Lucien’s blood even hit the chalice.
Heat and pain tangled under her skin. She felt the slice across his palm as an echo across her own, felt the controlled fury he buried behind his still face, felt something older beneath it, a room of black water, a woman’s voice laughing over a tinny music box, mud sucking at boots in a place where rain fell like iron filings.
Then Maelor tilted Lucien’s hand.
