Dark indigo over white. Silver at wrist and collar. A fall of fabric precise enough to look sacred from a distance and restrictive enough to remind the body what the ceremony expected of it.
Kneeling. Answering. Yielding.
Sabine looked at herself in the mirror.
She would not kneel.
The hidden letter sewn against her underlayer rested warm near her ribs. Isolde’s testimony. The dead bride’s warning carried under living skin. Beneath Sabine’s sleeve, the mark spread in dark branches past her wrist and forearm, higher now than any priest had intended to see before the Vow Chamber.
Lysa adjusted the sleeve so the edge covered more of it.
“That will not hide it if Maelor looks closely,” she said.
“Then Maelor should learn not to look closely at things that dislike him.”
Lysa’s mouth shifted, but the expression did not become a smile.
She was frightened.
That, more than anything, told Sabine the morning had teeth.
On the desk sat a small tray. A silver cup. A folded cloth. A glass bottle stoppered in wax.
“What is that?” Sabine asked.
“Restorative cordial.” Lysa crossed to it. “For steadiness before the final sequence.”
“Who sent it?”
“Bride wing authority.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.” Lysa picked up the bottle and examined the wax seal. “Kitchen staff brought it. I watched them pour from the sealed bottle.”
“Who sealed the bottle?”
Lysa’s fingers paused on the glass.
“Temple stores.”
Sabine looked at the cup.
The liquid inside was pale gold. Harmless-looking. Expensive. The kind of thing a bride was meant to drink because everyone before her had been told to drink it, and obedience became safer when repeated often enough to feel routine.
“I will wait,” Sabine said.
Lysa set the bottle down with more care than necessary. “Good.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Not official. Soft. Uneven.
Lysa moved first, opened it a hand’s breadth, then stepped back.
Brinna stood in the corridor in a pale robe over her trial shift, her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked younger with it unpinned. Almost girlish. Her eyes were red, and her mouth trembled with the effort of holding itself steady.
“Lady Sabine,” she said. “I am sorry. I know it is nearly time.”
