“You are not intruding.” Sabine crossed to her. “Come in.”
Brinna stepped over the threshold, clutching something in one hand.
Lysa closed the door and checked the corridor before turning back.
“What happened?” Sabine asked.
Brinna opened her hand.
A tiny brass key lay in her palm. Delicate. Old. Its bow shaped like a treble clef.
“I found this on my pillow when I woke.” Brinna’s voice thinned. “It was not there when I slept. I checked. I check every night now. I know that sounds mad, but I do. I check the pillow, the mirror, the drawer, the window latch. It was not there, and then this morning it was.”
Sabine took the key carefully.
Music box key.
The thought arrived before she could stop it.
Isolde.
Brinna’s breathing hitched. “I do not want to die here.”
The words stripped the room down to its stone.
Lysa went very still.
Sabine closed her hand around the key. “You will not die here.”
“How do you know?”
Sabine looked at Brinna’s face, the exhaustion under the fear, the body already half-broken by trials designed to call breaking proof.
“Because I am done letting this palace take women quietly.”
Brinna’s eyes filled. “Do you think any of us were ever meant to become queens?”
Sabine had no gentle answer.
She had only the truth, and Brinna looked too fragile to survive more of it.
Before Sabine could speak, Brinna turned slightly, one hand going to the desk as if to steady herself. Her fingers closed around the silver cup.
Lysa moved.
“Wait.”
Sabine reached too.
Too late.
Brinna had already lifted the cordial and swallowed.
For one second, nothing happened.
Then all the color left her face.
The cup slipped from her fingers and shattered against the floor. Pale gold liquid spread through the cracks between the stones.
