Chapter 3
Seven Nights Before the Tribunal
“Say my name.”
Lucian’s voice did not rise. It did not need to.
The small room held its breath around him. Rain touched the narrow window. Somewhere below, the keep bells gave their last deep note, and the sound rolled through the walls like a warning meant for stone, servants, and kings alike.
Isolde stood near the bed with the pendant hidden beneath her bodice and heat burning through the cloth. The light from her back had faded, but not enough. She could feel it licking at her skin in thin, restless lines.
Thierry remained in the doorway. His thoughtful face had lost its usual calm. He had seen the glow. He had seen Lucian’s mark answer it.
No one spoke of it.
That made it worse.
“My lord,” Isolde said.
Lucian’s eyes narrowed. “Not that.”
Thierry glanced down the corridor. “Lucian, the council riders—”
“Can wait in the receiving hall.”
“They won’t enjoy that.”
“They weren’t invited for enjoyment.”
Isolde tried to move toward the door. Lucian did not touch her. He only shifted half a step, and the path was gone.
“Please,” she said quietly.
His expression changed at the word. Not softened. Not fully. But something in him pulled back from command.
“Why are you afraid to say it?”
“I am a servant. It would be improper.”
“You argued with me over coffee.”
“That was also improper.”
Thierry made a sound that might have been a cough.
Lucian did not look away from her. “You know my voice.”
Everyone in the room went still.
Isolde kept her face lowered. “Everyone in the keep knows your voice.”
“Not like that.”
The pendant pressed against her skin, almost painful now.
Lucian saw her hand twitch toward it.
“What are you hiding?”
“Laundry keys,” she said.
“Again?”
“I have a limited life, my lord. It gives me limited lies.”
For one strange second, his mouth almost curved. Then the bells began again.
This time, faster.
Thierry straightened. “That is not for the riders.”
Lucian turned sharply. “What is it?”
A guard appeared at the end of the corridor, breathless. “My lord. A message from the north gate. The council seal has arrived. Seven nights until the Blood Moon Tribunal.”
Lucian’s face closed.
Isolde had heard servants whisper about the Tribunal for years. A gathering of dragon houses. A place where bloodlines were counted, alliances weighed, punishments signed, and human lives mentioned only when useful.
Seven nights.
Her grandmother had once told her that seven nights could bury a woman if she spent them trusting the wrong person.
Lucian looked back at Isolde.
He had reached the same number, the same danger, from a different road.
“Thierry,” he said, “clear the corridor.”
Thierry did not move. “That is a poor idea.”
“I did not ask if it was clever.”
“No. You asked me to leave you alone with a maid whose necklace just answered your chest.”
Isolde went cold.
Lucian’s gaze cut to her.
The hidden pendant burned bright enough that a thin line of blackened silver showed through the gap at her collar.
The guard at the corridor’s end leaned forward, curious.
Thierry noticed.
So did Lucian.
In one swift motion, Lucian stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him, leaving Isolde alone in the sudden dimness.
His voice came through the wood, calm as a drawn blade.
“No one enters this room.”
A pause.
Then Thierry, lower and sharper.
“And no one mentions what they saw.”
By the time Mrs. Corvin came for Isolde, the pendant had cooled.
The housekeeper entered without knocking, took one look at Isolde’s face, and closed the door behind her with her heel.
“You’ve been crying?”
“No.”
“Good. Tears wrinkle collars.”
“I wasn’t crying.”
“Even better. Liars work faster when frightened.”
Isolde stared at her.
Mrs. Corvin crossed the room, lifted Isolde’s chin with two dry fingers, and studied her eyes. “You have ten minutes to wash your face, change your apron, and report to the lower pantry.”
“I thought I was confined.”
“Lord Blackthorne gives orders. I make them useful.”
“Is that allowed?”
“Not often.”
The woman moved to Isolde’s chest and opened it. She pulled out a folded apron, shook it once, and tossed it onto the bed.
Isolde kept one hand near the pendant, careful not to touch it. “Why the lower pantry?”
“Council riders arrived. Nobles eat when they threaten one another. It makes them feel civilized.”
“Will Lord Blackthorne be there?”
Mrs. Corvin looked at her for a shade too long. “You ask like someone hoping the answer is no.”
“I ask like someone who dropped a tray last week and remembers the cost.”
“You did not drop it.”
“I nearly did.”
“I do not punish nearly.”
That almost startled a smile from Isolde.
Mrs. Corvin’s voice lowered. “Girl.”
The change was small. Enough to make Isolde listen.
“If anyone asks about Lord Blackthorne’s study, you were never there.”
“I took coffee.”
“You took nothing. You saw nothing. You heard no bells except the public ones.”
“Why help me?”
“I’m helping the keep.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Sometimes it is.”
Before Isolde could press her, a shout rose from below. Not a scream. A sharp call from one servant to another. Doors opened. Feet moved quickly.
Mrs. Corvin’s jaw tightened. “Hurry.”
The lower pantry smelled of wax, apples, cold meat, and fresh bread. Servants filled trays in tense silence. Perrin stood beside the wine shelves, pretending to count bottles while keeping watch on the passage.
When Isolde entered, he exhaled.
“You’re alive.”
“For now.”
“Excellent. I prefer my friends breathing. Makes conversation easier.”
“You call me your friend?”
“After what I just witnessed? Either friend or disaster. Friend sounds kinder.”
A silver tray was pushed into Isolde’s hands by a cook too busy to care who carried it. Mrs. Corvin pointed toward the service corridor.
“Receiving hall. Keep your head down.”
Perrin leaned close as Isolde passed. “The roads are blocked.”
She stopped. “What?”
“North gate. East road. Village path. All watched.”
“By whose order?”
He gave a small shake of his head. “That’s the ugly part. Not Lord Blackthorne’s.”
The tray felt suddenly unsteady.
Across the corridor, two young footmen hurried by with folded linens.
One whispered, “They say he has a mark.”
The other hissed, “Shut up.”
Isolde’s back warmed under her dress.
Perrin heard it too. His nervous face sharpened with worry.
“You need to know something else,” he murmured.
“What?”
He looked past her, toward the stairs leading down to the old records passage.
“A man came to the lower gate this morning asking after Ma?lle Fenwick.”
Isolde’s breath caught.
“He wore no noble ring,” Perrin said. “But the guards let him in like they feared saying no.”
“What did he look like?”
“Big. Gray eyes. Scar here.” Perrin drew a line along his jaw.
Isolde had never seen such a man.
Yet the pendant under her dress gave one hard pulse, as if it knew him.
From the receiving hall, Lucian’s voice cut through the corridor.
“Bring the papers.”
Mrs. Corvin turned and pointed at Isolde.
The tray in Isolde’s hands held no food now.
Only sealed letters.
One bore the red-black mark of the Dragon Council.
The receiving hall of Blackthorne Keep was built to make visitors feel small.
It worked.
The ceiling rose three floors overhead, crossed by black beams carved with winged shapes.
Narrow windows looked out toward the sea, where white waves struck the cliffs hard enough to throw spray into the air.
At the far end, beneath a banner of House Blackthorne, Lucian stood with Thierry at his right and three council riders before him.
The riders wore dark coats fastened with silver clasps. Their leader, a thin man with hair the color of old iron, did not sit. He had the satisfied posture of someone who had arrived with trouble and expected to be thanked for it.
Isolde entered through the side door with the tray held steady.
Lucian saw her at once.
She felt it before she looked. The small pull in the room. The heat at her spine. The strange quiet inside her chest, as if her fear had stepped aside to make space for something worse.
Recognition.
She lowered her gaze and crossed the hall.
The council rider’s eyes followed her.
“New servant?” he asked.
Lucian did not answer.
Thierry reached for the letters. “The council seal?”
Isolde handed him the tray, but the rider touched one envelope with two fingers before Thierry could take it.
“Lord Blackthorne must receive it directly.”
Lucian held out his hand.
The rider smiled. “Protocol.”
“Then give it.”
Isolde began to step back.
“Wait,” the rider said.
She stopped.
Lucian’s eyes went cold. “Why?”
“The council has ordered all household names to be listed before the Tribunal. Servants included. No exceptions.”
Thierry’s hand paused over the tray. “That is excessive.”
“That is law.”
“It is inspection dressed as law.”
The rider looked at him without interest. “The council does not dress for your approval, Armand.”
Lucian broke the seal.
The wax cracked louder than it should have.
His gaze moved over the first page. His expression did not change, but the air around him warmed. Two candles on the side table bent toward him.
Isolde saw the rider notice.
Good, she thought. Let him remember fear.
Lucian folded the letter once. “Seven nights.”
“Correct.”
“On what grounds?”
The rider’s smile thinned. “Your absence after the Valcour gathering. The attack you failed to report. Rumors of a private injury. And a mark.”
The last word landed softly.
Isolde felt her body try to betray her.
She did not move.
Lucian’s voice lowered. “Rumors are not grounds.”
“When carried by three noble houses, they become concern.”
“Morgaine,” Thierry said under his breath.
The rider turned slightly. “Lady Valcour is among those worried for your stability.”
Lucian’s face gave away nothing. But Isolde, who had seen him wounded in the forest and almost helpless in her room, saw the anger settle deeper than any raised voice.
“Tell the council I will attend,” he said.
“With your bonded companion, if one exists.”
A candle flame snapped blue.
Lucian stepped forward. “Choose the next words with care.”