She wanted him.
He wanted her.
And the only thing more dangerous than the rite itself was the fact that both of them were now one locked door away from proving exactly how much.
Fourteen
Isolde’s Name
Sabine could not sleep.
She had tried. Cold water. Darkness. Stillness. None of it helped. Every time she closed her eyes, her body returned to the corridor.
Lucien’s hand on her thigh.
His mouth on her throat.
The rough sound he had made when she pulled him closer.
The force of him pressing her into the wall until breath felt optional and wanting did not.
She lay on her back with one hand over her stomach and felt the mark pulse warm beneath her skin. Not painful. Worse. Familiar. As if her body had decided to keep the memory alive whether she wanted it or not.
This was not strategy.
Not necessity.
Not something she could file under survival and pretend it belonged there.
This was want. Clear, physical, humiliatingly real.
She turned onto her side and stared at the dark window. A weak reflection stared back. Calm face. Uncalm body.
She had entered the Trials to save House Corvyr. Not to lose herself over a prince wrapped in blood, ritual, and a dead bride’s memory. But wanting him and stopping herself had become two different problems, and the corridor had made it plain she was failing the second.
A soft knock came at the door.
Sabine went still.
Too late for Lysa. Too early for morning summons.
The knock came again. Quieter this time.
She crossed the room, opened the door a fraction, and found Brinna in the corridor barefoot and shaking, a shawl dragged over her nightdress, her face almost colorless.
“I’m sorry,” Brinna whispered. “I know it’s late. I just did not know who else to ask.”
Sabine looked once down the corridor, then pulled her inside and shut the door.
“What happened?”
Brinna opened one hand. A narrow strip of parchment lay across her palm, folded once over itself. Music notation ran across it in faded ink.
“I found it in my pillow,” Brinna said. “I swear it was not there earlier. I changed the linen myself. I checked. Then when I lay down I felt something inside the case and I thought maybe a feather had clumped or the seam had caught and when I opened it…” Her voice wavered. “There is a name.”
Sabine took the strip and moved into the lamp’s light.
The notation had been written carefully, by someone who knew what they were doing. Not a copied exercise. Not random lines. A complete phrase of melody in a hand too elegant to be ordinary household work.
