His hand shot out and caught her wrist. “Do not say that again.”
The mark flared where he touched her.
Heat rushed up Sabine’s arm, chasing away the lingering cold.
“We need to talk,” Lucien said roughly. “Not here. Follow me.”
The balcony jutted out over the Blackwater like a stone blade.
Narrow, cold, exposed enough to feel dangerous but private enough for words the palace should not hear. Wind came off the river, carrying the mineral smell of deep water and old stone.
Sabine gripped the railing and looked down at the black current moving below.
Hours ago, she had been under that water. Drowning. Fighting to keep hold of forbidden evidence while the river tried to pull her down into the same darkness that had claimed the veiled bride.
Then Lucien’s arm had locked around her waist and hauled her back.
“You reached for the music,” Lucien said behind her. “You felt the safe object and chose the dangerous one anyway.”
“Yes.”
“You nearly died for a strip of waterlogged notation.”
Sabine turned to face him. “That strip proves Isolde was not the first bride consumed by this rite. It proves the temple has been hiding deaths for longer than your lifetime. So yes, I reached for it. And I would do it again.”
“Even if it kills you.”
“Even then.”
Lucien moved closer, his face hard. “Do not make recklessness sound like courage.”
“Do not make my survival sound like obedience.”
They were too close now.
Close enough that Sabine could see the faint shadows under his eyes, the tension in his jaw, the way his breathing had gone uneven.
“When you went under,” Lucien said quietly, “the bond hit me like cold water in my own lungs. I felt you drowning. Notpolitically. Not strategically. I felt the river pulling you down and I could not breathe until I had you back.”
Sabine went still.
“The bond is not just attraction,” he continued. “It carries danger across distance. When you are hurt, I feel it. When you panic, it moves through me. I did not choose to enter the water as strategy. I felt you dying and my body moved before I could think past it.”
“That is terrifying.”
“I know.”
“If the bond can override your judgment like that, we are both more vulnerable than I thought.”
“I know that too.” His hand came up and touched the wet strand of hair near her throat. “But I would rather be vulnerable than watch you drown.”
Sabine’s breath caught.
His fingers traced the line of her jaw, then lower, brushing across her collarbone where bruises were beginning to show. Places where the current had slammed her against stone. Places his arm had locked around her ribs to drag her back to air.
“You are not breakable,” he said. “That is part of the problem.”
Sabine stepped into him instead of away.
