Sabine moved through it with the same controlled neutrality she had used at district registration. Visible compliance. Private calculation. She curtsied at the correct angle, repeated the sacred phrases, sat with her spine straight and her token displayed. And she watched.
Watched which brides folded fastest under correction. Watched who resisted subtly and who bent too quickly. Watched Yselle perform every gesture with such flawless precision it became a form of domination. Watched Tavi’s mouth tighten every time Halvine called discipline a kindness. Watched Brinna shake so badly during her third attempt at the full ceremonial reverence that the attending sister had to steady her by the elbow.
By midday, Sabine understood the bride wing more clearly.
It was not preparation. It was reduction. A mechanism designed to strip women of prior identity, prior confidence, prior certainty about their own value, so that by the time the Trials began in earnest they would be grateful for any form of clarity, even if that clarity came shaped like a collar.
The afternoon brought supervised rest, which meant returning to their chambers under watch and remaining there until second bell. Sabine used the time to retrieve her hidden notebook from the document case lining and record what Halvine had left unsaid.
No consequence named for failure.
No assurance of safe return.
No word “choice” spoken once.
Withdrawal = family dishonor.
Dismissal terms: “depends on the nature of the failure.”
She was still writing when the knock came.
“Yes.”
The door opened. Tavi stepped inside without waiting for full invitation and shut it behind her.
“Walk with me,” she said.
Sabine set the pen down and slid the notebook back into its hiding place before Linet or any other attendant could arrive to interrupt. “Where.”
“Anywhere they haven’t forbidden yet.”
They took the long gallery on the second floor where windows overlooked an inner courtyard and the corridor remained empty enough for speech. Two attendants tracked them at a distance, close enough to observe but far enough back to suggest the illusion of privacy.
Tavi waited until they reached the midpoint before she spoke.
“So,” she said, voice low. “Ambition, piety, or insolvency. Which brought you here.”
Sabine kept her eyes on the courtyard below. Pale stone. Clipped hedges. A fountain that had been drained for winter and never refilled. “Survival.”
“Same.”
Sabine glanced at her. Tavi’s profile stayed forward, but her mouth had gone harder.
“My house entered me,” Tavi said, “because marriage to a prince costs less than maintaining three widows and funding burial pensions for men who died under our family colors. Efficiency dressed as devotion.”
The bluntness landed cleanly. No sentiment. No apology.
Sabine measured her answer and chose honesty. “House Corvyr entered me because extinction sounds more dignified when a daughter bears it.”
Tavi’s head turned then. For a moment neither of them spoke.
“Collateral,” Tavi said finally.
“Yes.”
Another pause. Then Tavi gave a short breath that might have been a laugh if it had carried less weight. “At least we know what we are.”
They walked the rest of the gallery in silence. Not friendship. Not yet. But something more solid than the performance happening in the rest of the wing. Two women who understood the same arithmetic and had stopped pretending the sum was kind.
