Sabine saw the other woman notice the change at once. Yselle’s gaze flicked from Sabine’s new placement to her own unchanged position, and for one unguarded instant her face showed something raw beneath the polish, rage, or fear, or both compressed into a single sharp breath before control reasserted itself.
The other brides watched Sabine cross to her new seat with the focused attention of women trying to read ashift in hierarchy before it crushed them. Some adjusted their expressions into careful neutrality. Others leaned toward neighbors and whispered behind raised napkins. Brinna sat near the table’s lower end, pale and hollow-eyed, barely present.
Tavi’s place remained in the middle distance. When Sabine passed, their eyes met briefly. Tavi’s mouth tightened in something that was not quite sympathy, more like acknowledgment that Sabine had just been moved into significantly more dangerous air.
Sabine took her seat.
An attendant poured wine. Another brought the first course, delicate greens, candied nuts, thin slices of pear arranged like petals. The food was exquisite and irrelevant.
The questions started before the second course arrived.
A Deren cousin, seated two places down, spoke with the kind of bright curiosity that concealed calculation. “Lady Sabine, you must still be shaken from this morning’s trial. Such a disruption. We were all quite surprised.”
Sabine met her gaze. “Surprised by what, specifically.”
“Well, ” The woman faltered slightly. “By Lord Solhain’s behavior, naturally. So inappropriate.”
“Yes. It was.”
A pause. Then another bride, farther down, tried a different angle. “The prince’s intervention was very… decisive. Does the mark cause pain when touched by others? Is that why he—”
“The mark,” Sabine said, “is sacred. Solhain violated ritual law. The prince corrected him. That is all.”
“Of course.” The woman’s smile thinned. “Though one does wonder whether the correction would have been quite so immediate for any bride, or whether—”
“Whether what.”
The room went quieter.
The woman backtracked smoothly. “Whether the bond creates sensitivity we do not yet understand. The temple teachings are often more complex than laypeople realize.”
“Indeed.”
Sabine lifted her wine and drank. The conversation moved on, but the attention did not. Every bride at the table was measuring her now, her composure, her answers, the way she held herself in the elevated seat. Testing whether Lucien’s intervention had changed her, whether she believed herself protected, whether she would make mistakes under the weight of sudden visibility.
Yselle remained silent through the entire exchange. She ate precisely, spoke only when directly addressed, and kept her gaze fixed on her plate or on points in the middle distance that did not include Sabine.
The control was unnerving.
Sabine had expected confrontation. Challenge. The polished cruelty Yselle deployed so effortlessly in rooms like this. Instead, she got stillness. Restraint so absolute it felt like a held breath before something broke.
The meal continued. Servants removed plates and brought new ones. Wine was poured and poured again. The candles burned lower. Conversation ebbed and flowed around safe topics, weather, palace architecture, the upcoming trial schedule, while every woman at the table remained alert to the real current beneath the surface.
By the time dessert arrived, Sabine’s pulse had begun to slow. Perhaps Yselle had decided silence was the better strategy. Perhaps the room would let the evening end without-
“Lady Sabine.” Yselle’s voice cut cleanly through the ambient sound. “A word, if you would. In private.”
Not a request.
Sabine met her eyes. “Of course.”
They rose together. Yselle moved toward the withdrawing room with the kind of unhurried grace that made everyone else’s movement look rushed. Sabine followed.
The withdrawing room stood empty, lit by a single branch of candles near the far window. Heavy curtains muffled sound from the corridor. Yselle waited until the door closed fully before she turned.
“You must be very pleased with yourself.”
Sabine kept her voice level. “I survived a trial. That is the objective.”
