Tavi said, very quietly now, “Well. That is not a place that invites mistakes.”
Sabine studied the façade as the coach climbed.
Beautiful, yes. How a blade could be beautiful or how some tombs were arranged too well to permit mourning. Every line told the same story: scale above comfort, order above welcome, permanence above the bodies moving toward it.
The procession passed through the first gate, then the second, wheels striking from road to fitted stone. Guards in palace colors took over from the district escort in seamless sequence. Temple attendants dismounted and re-formed. Coach doors remained shut.
No one asked the candidates whether they wished to continue. That question had expired miles ago.
The inner court swallowed them in pale walls, archways, and high windows that gave back no warmth. Sabine saw servants waiting in ordered ranks near a side entrance, not the main stair. Beyond them, wardens. Beyond them, women in controlled dark clothing with tablets in hand.
Processing, she thought. Not welcome.
Their coach rolled to a halt.
For one suspended instant nothing happened. Then, behind them, the great gates began to close.
The sound traveled through stone before it reached the ear fully. Weight on hinges. Iron meeting iron. Finality without drama because finality needed none.
Brinna shut her eyes.
Tavi looked toward the door as if measuring how many guards stood outside it.
Sabine sat still and felt the token at her wrist press against bone.
The first trial was not waiting somewhere deeper in Halcyr. It had begun long before any formal test. Registration. transfer. the public road. the bells. the seating charts. the guard lines. the shrine. the narrowing route. The thing itself had started the moment the kingdom took charge of movement and stopped requiring consent for each next step.
Outside, a palace official called the first coach number.
Sabine looked once at the closed gate beyond the court.
Then she gathered her case, straightened her cuffs, and prepared to step into the machine.
Five
The Bride Wing
The coach door opened onto an inner court of pale stone and disciplined silence.
A palace official stood below with a tablet in one hand and a list pinned beneath his thumb. Two wardens waited behind him, dark-coated and motionless, weapons worn without display. Beyond them stood a row of attendants in identical black dresses with narrow gold piping at the collar. They had arranged themselves before the first bride stepped down, each woman placed for a task already decided.
No one welcomed them.
“Lady Sabine Corvyr. Lady Tavi Rennic. Lady Brinna Sere,” said the official. “Proceed as directed. Personal attendants end here. Trunks will follow under inventory.”
Tavi paused on the step. “How gracious.”
The official made a mark on his tablet. “Lady Rennic has arrived.”
Tavi’s mouth sharpened. She descended.
Sabine followed with her document case in hand and her token visible at her wrist. The air inside the court felt colder than the road had. Not by weather. By stone, scale, and the absence of anything unarranged. The great stair rose to their left, broad enough for spectacle. The line of brides was turned to the right.
Of course.
Not through the grand approach. Not into the palace proper as guests. Through the side mouth of the machine.
Brinna stepped down last. Her hands had steadied enough for the movement, though she still clasped them too tightly. She glanced once toward the great stair before the warden gestured them onward. The look carried no awe. Only recognition that the choice had been made for them.
