Lysa paced before the fire.
Sabine sat at the writing desk with the temple notice spread flat beneath one hand, reading the same line until the words lost meaning.
The final vow is suspended pending formal review.
Suspended.
A clean word. A soft word. A word that made ruin sound like a ribbon tied around a closed file.
Brinna lived. That much Tal had confirmed. She had not woken, but the draught would fade. Her pulse remained weak but steady. Her body had been made temporarily unfit, not dead.
Because the attack had never needed a corpse.
Only a reason.
Sabine touched the place beneath her gown where Isolde’s letter rested against her ribs.
The mark warmed under her sleeve.
Lysa stopped pacing. “You should eat something.”
“No.”
“You should drink.”
“From a cup prepared by whom?”
Lysa’s mouth tightened.
A fair point, and she knew it.
Sabine looked toward the locked door. Two crown guards stood beyond it. She had heard them change once already. Heard the clink of armor. The low murmur of men who had been told they were protecting something valuable and dangerous without being told which part mattered more.
The door opened.
Lucien entered first.
Behind him came Princess Elara, Trial Marshal Corvek, and Queen Mother Ilyra.
That combination told Sabine the world had tilted while she waited.
Lucien’s face was composed. Too composed. His coldness from the bride wing had not left him. It had simply been sharpened into use.
Elara carried a folder of documents beneath one arm. Her expression looked almost cheerful, which meant someone else had been made miserable.
Corvek looked severe and displeased.
Ilyra looked like herself. Elegant. Pale. Unmoved. A woman who had watched fires spread and decided which building mattered enough to save.
Sabine rose.
“Am I still suspended?”
“No,” Lucien said.
Corvek’s jaw tightened. “The suspension has been stayed under crown objection pending evidentiary review.”
Elara stepped forward and placed three sheets on the desk. “The cordial came from temple stores. The forged page uses ink from the outer sacristy copying office. The wax seal was bride wing stock, but the impression was made with a false household signet that Heskar has now found in a clerk’s cabinet two corridors from Maelor’s workroom.”
