His hand tightened on the stone rail.
His gaze moved from the blood channel to Sabine’s face, then to the wall where Isolde’s name had been carved too cleanly.
He was beginning to see.
Too late.
But seeing.
The sequence deepened.
Sabine felt the copied score in her hem like a second pulse.
She remembered Maeven’s warning.
Music is timing. Listen for the rest, not the note.
One breath.
The chamber tried to pull her into rhythm, into smooth capitulation that would sound like consent.
She listened for the missing beat.
A rest.
A silence.
The place where Isolde had hidden the break.
Lucien’s gaze locked on hers.
The bond remained steady.
Listening.
Sabine’s blood reached the point where it should descend into the submission reservoir.
She could see it.
The carved channel opening toward a darker groove in the floor.
The stone beneath her knee warmed.
The basin drew harder.
The chamber waited for her final surrender phrase.
Serast spoke it.
The words that would commit her.
The exact break point from Isolde’s score.
Lucien moved.
Instead of cutting along the prescribed lengthwise channel, he slashed across it.
His blood spilled sideways into a cross-channel that should not have been active.
