That landed like a blade laid flat on stone.
Heskar bowed his head.
“Privilege acknowledged,” he said.
Corvek’s mouth tightened.
Maelor smiled no longer.
Lucien turned to Heskar. “Execute it.”
Sabine was escorted from the bride wing while everyone watched.
The corridor filled without seeming to. Doors opened. Attendants paused with linen in their arms. Brides appeared in thresholds, half-dressed for a final sequence that might no longer happen at all.
Yselle stood near the entrance to the withdrawing room, her face unreadable, her eyes hard and bright.
She understood.
Of course she did.
She understood that Lucien had saved Sabine from quiet removal and given Serast a louder accusation in the same breath. She understood scandal as currency. She understood what it meant for a prince to pull one bride out of shared custody and place her near his own chambers.
Tavi stood farther back, arms crossed, fury plain in every line of her body.
Brinna’s litter was gone.
That absence hurt worse than seeing her would have.
Lysa moved to follow.
A guard blocked her.
Lucien stopped without turning fully. “Lady Sabine’s attendant remains with her.”
Heskar said, “The privilege extends to the bride’s person, Your Highness. Not necessarily household staff.”
Lucien looked back then.
“Unless you intend to argue that crown protection excludes the woman who can identify what was placed in Lady Sabine’s room and who witnessed the cordial’s source, she remains.”
The guard stepped aside.
Lysa followed.
Sabine walked between royal guards through the bride wing she had entered as a desperate daughter from a dying house. The walls seemed farther away now. The whole place watching, whispering, rearranging itself around what had just happened.
She had been chosen first.
Marked publicly.
Claimed on the causeway.
Pulled from the Blackwater.
Now removed under princely privilege.
Every step made her safer and more ruined.
