Sabine pushed herself upright. Her marked hand ached faintly, the way old injuries ached before rain. “What does the trial measure.”
“Officially? Composure under public scrutiny. A future queen must bear witness, accusation, and judgment without losing shape.” Lysa crossed to the wardrobe and began pulling garments. “In practice, it’s theater. The court gets to watch brides be humiliated in silk and call it sacred testing.”
“Humiliated how.”
“You’ll walk a causeway through the Court of Witness while petitioners, nobles, and clergy ask questions. Some will be genuine. Most will be designed to break you. The trial passesif you reach the far threshold without collapsing, fleeing, or striking someone.”
Sabine rose and crossed to the basin. The water was cold. She splashed it across her face and let the shock settle her pulse. “What kind of questions.”
“Family debts. Moral stains. Rumors about your house that may or may not be true. Old scandals the palace archives kept for exactly this purpose.” Lysa laid a gown of deep charcoal silk across the bed. “They’ll come at you from all sides. The point is to see whether you can hold dignity while being stripped of it in public.”
“And if I refuse to answer.”
“Silence is permitted. But the room reads silence as guilt or weakness depending on what serves them better.”
Sabine dried her face and reached for the shift Lysa offered. “Have you seen women fail this trial.”
“Yes.” Lysa began unlacing the night dress. “Some freeze. Some run. One girl from three seasons ago tried to answer every accusation and talked herself into incoherence. The court loves that. It gives them material for weeks.”
Sabine stepped into the dark silk. “What happened to her.”
“Dismissed. Sent home in disgrace. Her house lost two alliances within the month.”
The gown settled against her skin, heavier than the ivory ceremony dress, cut to emphasize bearing rather than softness. Lysa laced it at the back, pulled her hair into a severe arrangement that left her throat and marked hand fully visible, and stepped away.
“You look like a woman who expects interrogation,” Lysa said. “Good. That’s closer to the truth than most of them will admit.”
The preparation chamber stood adjacent to the Court of Witness, close enough that Sabine could hear the galleries fillingthrough the stone walls. The other marked brides had already assembled, Yselle in pale gray that made her look carved from winter light, two river daughters she barely knew, and a house Deren bride whose name she had not retained.
Brinna sat in the corner with her hands knotted in her lap, breathing too shallowly. Tavi stood near the window, shoulders rigid, staring at nothing with the fixed intensity of someone trying not to ignite before the trial began.
Halvine entered carrying a small lacquered box. “You will proceed in the order chosen. Lady Yselle third. Lady Sabine first.”
Of course, Sabine thought. The court wants to watch the dying house daughter lead.
Halvine set the box on the central table and opened it. Inside lay six white ribbons, each tied with a small silver bell. “These mark you as trial participants. You will wear them until the crossing is complete.”
She tied one around each bride’s left wrist, the bells chiming softly with every movement. The sound was delicate, almost ornamental. It made Sabine think of livestock marked for market.
“The Trial of Bearing tests your capacity to endure public witness without loss of composure,” Halvine said. “You will walk the causeway at steady pace. You will answer when questioned. You will not stop, run, or turn back. Reaching the threshold constitutes passage. Failure to reach it constitutes elimination.”
“What determines failure?” Tavi asked, voice tight.
“Collapse. flight. refusal to continue. physical or verbal aggression.” Halvine’s gaze swept them once. “The trial is witnessed by court, council, and clergy. Everything you do will be read as evidence of your fitness or its absence. Comport yourselves accordingly.”
She withdrew.
Brinna made a sound low in her throat that might have been the beginning of a sob before she strangled it.
Yselle sat perfectly still, hands folded, expression serene. She looked like a woman who had practiced being examined since childhood and expected nothing here she could not master.
The bells on Sabine’s wrist chimed faintly when she flexed her hand.
The Court of Witness had been built for exactly this: bodies on display, judgment delivered from height, spectacle disguised as governance.
The causeway ran black and gleaming down the chamber’s center, narrow enough that two women could not walk abreast. Galleries climbed three levels on either side, already packed with nobles in house colors, clergy in temple black, council members in silver-trimmed formal dress. At the far end, the royal dais stood elevated and empty, waiting.
Sabine was led to the threshold and told to wait.
