A wall slammed down.
Sabine stumbled.
Lucien caught her before anyone else could move.
His hand closed around her elbow.
The chamber burned white.
Memory rushed the other way.
Sabine knew it because his face changed.
He saw Corvyr. The music room shut against winter. Cassian standing bareheaded in the forecourt on the morning she left. Mirelle cutting roses in a dying garden. Sabine at fourteen, sitting alone with estate ledgers while adults in the next room pretended ruin could be delayed by lowering their voices.
Lucien’s grip tightened.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to tell her he had seen.
Maelor watched them with hungry interest.
“Memory bleed,” he said softly. “Advanced compatibility.”
Lucien released Sabine at once.
Too late.
Everyone had seen.
Serast’s expression remained calm, but his eyes had brightened.
“Proceed,” he said.
The second response was more intimate.
Serast spoke.
Blood knows blood. Flesh answers flesh. What is joined must yield to joining.
Lucien’s jaw tightened.
The translation came to Sabine a moment late.
Yield.
The word slid under her skin.
Her mark heated. Not steady this time. Hungry. Pressing.
Serast looked to Lucien.
Lucien answered in High Veyran.
Sabine heard the difference.
She did not know every word, but she knew enough to catch the alteration.
