Cassian shut his eyes once, hard. “He thought the orchard would recover.”
“He thought recovery wanted us enough to arrive.”
“That is not fair.”
“Fairness has been absent for some time.”
Mirelle rose then, moving to the window. Lamplight caught the line of her cheek and the old family ring at her hand. “What would you have us do,” she asked, “other than catalogue humiliation.”
Tell the truth, Sabine thought.
But her mother already knew it. Cassian knew enough of it too. The room was strained not by ignorance, but by refusal to pronounce the last word.
“Nothing tonight,” Sabine said. “Tonight changes nothing.”
Cassian gave a short, angry laugh. “At last.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Junor Kett entered carrying a tray. He wore old household dark, brushed and mended until age had become part of the garment rather than damage to it. On the tray lay a sealed packet in heavy parchment.
“A courier from the district hall, my lady,” he said to Mirelle. “Marked urgent from the capital. They are reading the same notice in the square.”
No one moved at first.
Then Sabine took the tray.
The seal bore the royal device, pressed beside the temple’s nine-rayed mark.
Mirelle said, “Open it.”
Sabine broke the seal and unfolded the parchment.
The script had been prepared for public reading, full of ceremonial flourishes and formal spacing meant to make state machinery resemble sacred order. She read the heading in silence, then the first lines below it.
Cassian stepped nearer. “What is it.”
Sabine looked up once, then read aloud.
“By sovereign decree and temple witness, let it be known that His Majesty King Aeron Vhalor, in consultation with the Council of Peers and under the sanction of the Temple of the Nine, calls the Nine Public Trials to secure and sanctify the succession of Prince Lucien Vhalor, firstborn issue of the royal line, restored to claim under lawful rite and sacred judgment—”
Mirelle caught the back of her chair.
Cassian said, “No.”
Sabine kept reading.
Eligible daughters of the blooded houses were commanded to present proofs of lineage, health, and lawful standing at district registration. Accepted entrants would travel under crown protection to Halcyr. The Trials would begin with the new month. Sacred union would restore full legitimacy to the succession.
Lucien Vhalor.
His name altered the room.
Sabine remembered the scandal in fragments sharp enough to have kept their edge: golden heir, wedding splendor, a bride dead inside the rite. Blood on his hands. Exile to the border instead of a headsman’s block. Mercy, or fear. Perhaps both.
Cassian took the proclamation from her and read faster than comprehension allowed. “They cannot mean to make him public again.”
“They do,” Sabine said.
