The basin darkened.
The blood channels activated, glowing faintly beneath centuries of use.
Sabine felt the pull.
Not in her hand.
Deeper.
The chamber wanted more than blood.
It wanted surrender shaped into voice.
Maelor cut Lucien’s wrists next.
His blood entered a separate channel, waiting to follow hers, waiting to seal what she would give.
The corrupted sequence began.
Serast spoke the ritual in High Veyran.
The language was old, legalistic, seductive.
Each phrase collapsed devotion into obedience, marriage into absorption, love into disappearance.
Sabine followed the script.
She had to.
The break point was not here yet.
She repeated the first responses, feeling each word try to shape her mouth toward surrender.
The chamber pressed at her.
Pressure in her jaw.
Tongue heavy.
Breath tightening.
The mark along her arm burned.
Her blood moved down the carved channel, flowing toward the place where it should descend into the submission reservoir.
The floor hummed beneath her knee.
The basin drew at her body.
Old names on the wall seemed to shift in lamplight.
Lucien answered his parts of the sequence.
She felt through the bond that the rite was trying to make him seal what she gave, not answer what she chose.
He was fighting his own coercion without breaking timing.
From the witness ring, King Aeron watched.
