She gasped, pulled back, then forced her arm deeper. When she surfaced, she held a small river stone. Her gown clung to her arm, water streaming from the silver braid. She coughed twice, humiliated by her own fear, and returned to the dock shaking.
She had passed.
Barely.
Tavi attacked the trial like a battle.
She stepped into the boat with controlled violence, paddled hard to the niche, and plunged her arm in without hesitation. The water resisted. Tavi snarled and wrenched her arm free, holding a tarnished ceremonial coin.
But the river had punished force.
She climbed back onto the dock soaked past her waist, furious and nearly sick from cold.
Yselle performed beautifully.
She descended with grace, paddled with economy, reached into the water as if she had done this a hundred times before. When she surfaced, she held an elegant silver clasp shaped like a swan.
Sabine noticed the cost beneath the perfection.
Yselle’s breathing was too controlled. Her fingers were white around the clasp. And when she returned to the dock, there was a faint tremor in her legs she could not quite hide.
The trial was not easy for anyone.
Halvine called Sabine’s name.
The boat rocked beneath her weight.
Sabine settled onto the narrow bench, and the attendant pushed her off without ceremony. The water rose around the hull, black and slick as oil. Cold seeped through the wood.
The mark on her hand began to burn.
Not the soft warmth of Lucien’s touch. This was sharp, almost painful, as if the bond recognized the water and remembered drowning.
Sabine paddled toward the assigned niche.
The shrine felt different from this angle. Larger. Older. The carved walls stretched higher than they should, and the water beneath her moved with a current that felt deliberate rather than natural.
She reached the niche.
Damp air settled on her throat. Lantern light trembled across black water. The mark pulsed harder.
Sabine plunged her arm into the Blackwater.
The cold hit like a blade.
Her breath stopped. Her fingers went numb. She groped blindly along the submerged stone and found the expected object almost immediately. A smooth token, probably carved bone, placed exactly where the temple wanted it found.
Then her fingers brushed something else.
Deeper. Caught in a crevice the official trial had not prepared.
Metal. Broken edges. And beneath it, something softer. Fabric or leather, swollen with water.
A broken circlet fragment.
And tangled with it, a strip of water-logged music.
Sabine’s heart slammed against her ribs.
