“The water is stronger down there than it should be,” Lysa continued. “Colder. Some of the older staff say the shrine predates the current rite. That the temple built around something already there.”
Sabine thought of the garden vision. The veiled bride in white, drowning in black water while still wearing her circlet.
She had not told Lysa about that.
She did not mention it now.
But the memory sat underneath her ribs like a stone in deep water, waiting.
The preparation chamber was windowless and damp.
The remaining brides stood in ritual gowns, each designed to drag beautifully once soaked. Brinna looked pale enough to faint. Tavi stood with her arms crossed, jaw tight, already furious at water she had not yet touched. Yselle’s composure was flawless, but Sabine noticed the way her fingers worried at the silver braid along her cuff.
Mistress Halvine entered with Serast beside her.
The High Hierophant wore ceremonial black stitched with symbols Sabine did not recognize. His expression carried the calm of someone about to watch women drown and call it sacred.
“The Blackwater Trial,” Halvine announced, “measures revelation. Each bride will descend to the shrine and retrieve what the river offers. Panic, refusal, or failure to retrieve the object constitutes elimination from the Trials.”
Serast stepped forward. “The Blackwater is sacred witness. It remembers what flesh forgets. What you bring back belongs first to the rite, then to history, and only last to yourself.”
Sabine heard the trap clearly.
The river does not reveal. The temple places objects and calls survival obedience.
But something about Serast’s phrasing felt older than his polished cruelty. As if the shrine underneath them remembered versions of this trial the current priesthood no longer controlled.
The descent was narrow, cold, and older than the palace above.
They moved through passages carved from wet stone, down steps slick with condensation, past iron lanterns that turned their faces into shadows and flame. The air smelled of minerals and deep earth. Water dripped somewhere in the dark.
The carvings on the walls were worn smooth by time or deliberate erasure. Sabine caught fragments of figures, possibly women, possibly queens, their faces and hands rubbed away until only the shapes of bodies remained.
The Blackwater shrine opened before them like a throat.
A vast chamber beneath the temple, fed by a channel from the river itself. Black water filled the space, moving with deceptive stillness. The surface looked calm. But Sabine saw the current pulling hard below, dragging at reflected lantern light.
A narrow stone dock jutted into the water. Small ritual boats waited, each barely large enough for one woman. Across the shrine, submerged niches had been carved into the far wall at varying depths.
Court witnesses and clergy filled the raised walkways above, safe and dry.
The brides would go down to the water.
The imbalance was deliberate. Women in the river. Power watching from stone.
Sabine scanned the upper gallery and found Lucien.
He stood near the royal platform, perfectly still, his face unreadable. But she felt his attention like heat against her skin.
The mark on her hand pulsed once, hard.
Brinna went first.
She descended into the boat with visible terror, her hands shaking so badly she nearly lost her balance. The attendant pushed her off. The boat drifted toward the nearest niche.
Brinna reached into the water.
Her face went white.
