A knock at the door made them both freeze.
A voice in the corridor. Formal. Controlled. “Your Highness. Bloodwright Maelor requests your presence in the Vow Chamber. Immediately.”
Lucien’s face went white.
He released Sabine’s hand and rose, dressing quickly, his movements mechanical.
“Stay here,” he said. “Lock the door after I leave. Do not let anyone in.”
“Lucien”
“Sabine.” He turned to face her, and his expression was raw. “I do not know what this summons means. But if Maelor is calling me to the Vow Chamber after I just bonded with you physically, it is not for pleasant reasons. Stay here. Stay safe. And do not come looking for me.”
He left.
The door locked behind him.
Sabine sat on the edge of his bed, naked and marked and suddenly very aware that she had just done exactly what the rite might have wanted all along.
She had given it consummation. She had deepened the bond. She had turned desire into vulnerability.
And the palace had summoned Lucien to the chamber where Isolde died the moment the mark began to spread.
Sabine looked down at her hand, at the dark lines climbing her forearm, and felt cold settle in her chest.
She had wanted him honestly.
She had chosen him freely.
But the rite did not care about honesty or freedom.
It cared about consumption.
And she had just fed it exactly what it needed.
Sixteen
The Blackwater Trial
The summons came before dawn.
Sabine woke to Lysa’s hand on her shoulder and the weight of a sealed temple notice on the bedside table.
“The Blackwater,” Lysa said quietly. “Today.”
Sabine sat up. Her body ached from the Trial of Mirrors, from breaking glass with a candlestick, from refusing to watch herself become the kind of woman this place manufactured from desperation and obedience.
“Tell me what servants know about this one.”
Lysa crossed to the wardrobe and withdrew a gown Sabine had not seen before. Dark indigo wool, close-fitted, layered with thin ceremonial silver that would turn heavy the moment it touched water.
“The brides are taken beneath the temple to a shrine fed by the Blackwater itself. Each descends by boat. Each retrieves an object from a submerged niche.” Lysa’s hands moved efficiently through the lacing. “The temple calls it revelation. Servants call it the river taking inventory.”
“Inventory of what.”
“Who survives. Who panics. Who the current decides to keep.”
Sabine stood and let Lysa dress her. The fabric settled against her skin like a second layer of cold.
