“Lady Sabine Corvyr. Your house holds significant debt to the crown, does it not?”
Sabine kept walking. “Yes.”
“And that debt comes due within the year?”
“Yes.”
“How fortunate, then, that the prince chose you first. Some might call it desperation. Others divine providence. What do you call it?”
Sabine met the woman’s eyes. “I call it leverage.”
A ripple passed through the gallery. Not quite laughter. Something sharper.
She continued.
The next petitioner waited at the causeway’s first turn. A younger man, council colors, voice pitched to carry.
“The Corvyr orchards failed two seasons in succession. Your tenants receive crown relief while your family dines on silver. Does that strike you as equitable governance?”
“My family has sold the silver,” Sabine said. “Mismatched pieces are all that remain. The crown’s relief kept people alive. I do not apologize for that.”
“How noble. And the grain weights? There are records suggesting your father falsified measures during the famine. Care to address that accusation before this court?”
Sabine’s chest tightened. The accusation was old, ugly, and impossible to disprove cleanly. Her father had died before the investigation concluded. The crown had let the matter die with him because prosecution would have destabilized the district.
She kept her voice level. “My father managed the estate through a failed harvest. The accusations were never substantiated. I cannot answer for rumors preserved longer than the man they concern.”
She walked past him.
The guards along the causeway shifted closer. Not touching her. Just narrowing the path. Making the air feel thinner.
A voice from the second gallery, higher, sharper, female. “Tell us, Lady Sabine, does the mark on your hand burn when you lie? Or does the bond only answer to truth?”
Sabine did not respond. She focused on the far threshold and kept moving.
Another question, this one from a temple clerk. “The sacred bride must be worthy in body, blood, and intent. Do you believe yourself worthy, or merely desperate enough to gamble on divine favor?”
Still she did not answer.
The causeway stretched. The questions kept coming. Some she answered. Others she let pass. She rationed her words and her silence like a woman walking through a storm who knew the difference between bending and breaking.
Then she reached the midpoint.
A man stepped down from the lower gallery directly into her path.
Lord Merek Solhain. Council rank. Silver threading his dark hair. The kind of face that had spent decades arranging itself into expressions of polished contempt.
He did not ask a question.
He reached out and seized her wrist.
Sabine’s breath stopped.
Solhain turned her hand upward, exposing the mark to the galleries. His grip was not gentle. His thumb pressed against the dark lines as if testing whether they were painted or real.
“Here,” he said, voice loud enough to fill the court. “The mark that has caused such disruption. A dying house chosen before Marrow. Before Vale. Before any family that could actually serve the crown. Tell me, Lady Corvyr, did you offer something to secure this, or did the prince simply lack the judgment his father hoped exile might teach him?”
The galleries went silent.
