Lysa stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Was it him?”
Sabine should have lied. Instead she looked down at her marked hand and said, “Yes.”
Lysa let out a slow breath, not surprised, only grimly confirmed. “Then you need control today more than food.”
Sabine closed her fingers into a fist. “I know.”
But knowing and having were different things. That was turning into the story of the entire palace.
Lysa dressed her in the black silk, laced it close through the bodice, and pinned her hair higher than usual, exposing the line of her throat and the marked hand both. No necklace. No softness. No distraction.
When she finished, she stood back and studied her.
“You look dangerous,” Lysa said.
“Good.”
“No,” Lysa said. “Dangerous is useful. You look like a woman trying very hard not to look touched.”
Sabine’s pulse kicked once, hard.
Lysa softened just slightly. “Then do not let the trial smell blood.”
The preparation chamber felt thinner than usual.
The fast had stripped something from all of them. Even the air seemed sharper. Brinna sat folded into herself on the far bench, pale and shaky, her lips dry. Tavi stood by the window with all the tightly contained violence of a drawn blade. Yselle looked immaculate, which meant she had decided to weaponize deprivation the same way she weaponized everything else.
When Sabine entered, Yselle’s gaze slid over her once and stopped.
“Lady Sabine,” she said. “You seem surprisingly composed.”
Sabine took her place without answering.
Yselle smiled faintly. “Then again, perhaps time alone in the archives with His Highness is restorative in ways sacred fasting is not.”
The room went still.
Tavi’s eyes flicked toward Sabine at once. Brinna looked down at her hands. One of the river daughters flushed, though whether from scandal or fascination Sabine could not tell.
Sabine turned her head and met Yselle’s eyes.
“You appear curious,” she said.
“I appear observant.”
“That is a generous word for it.”
Yselle’s smile sharpened. “I thought scholarship might have agreed with you.”
Before Sabine could answer, Halvine entered carrying a lacquer tray with seven stoppered glass vials.
Saved by protocol. Again.
“The Trial of Hunger measures discipline under temptation,” Halvine said. “You have fasted. You will now be offered abundance. Appetite is not failure. Indulgence is. Refusal is not always strength. Sometimes it is insult. Read correctly. Behave correctly. Survive correctly.”
She handed a vial to each bride.
Sabine pulled the stopper and drank.
