After they left, the group reconvened in the guarded suite.
Maeven spread her copied fragment on the desk.
“This is what you need. The break point is marked. The timing is here.” She pointed to the rest symbols. “Both of you must speak the altered line together. If one hesitates, the chamber treats it as refusal.”
“What line?” Sabine asked.
Maeven translated the marginal script.
“The blood travels together, not alone. The answer is mutual, not given.”
Lucien looked at Sabine.
“High Veyran?”
“Yes.”
“And if we speak it at the wrong moment?”
“The chamber rejects you,” Maeven said. “Or kills you. Or both.”
Sabine picked up the copied measure.
For the first time since entering Halcyr, she held something the rite had never meant her to have.
Not proof.
Not comfort.
Instructions.
A knock sounded.
A palace runner delivered a sealed notice.
Sabine opened it.
The final public trial will commence before crown, temple, and assembled court. All remaining candidates will be tested in claim, composure, devotion, and endurance. Attendance is required.
She handed it to Lucien.
He read it and his expression hardened.
“Serast could not remove you quietly. He could not make the Trial of Surrender reject you. Now he will put you before the entire court and try to make you fail publicly.”
“Let him try.”
Sabine looked at the copied score, the carved bird, and the music box key sitting on the desk.
Isolde had not left them a lament.
She had left them a blade made of timing.
And Sabine intended to use it.
Twenty Seven
The Final Public Trial
