Chapter 20
Twenty
Sabine Takes the Hunt
Sabine sat alone in her chamber with three pieces of proof laid out before her.
Cassian’s letter. Isolde’s music. The knowledge that Queen Mother Ilyra had signed the order threatening Corvyr.
The palace had kept her moving from one pressure point to another. Objects appeared. Notes vanished. Warnings arrived. People summoned her. She reacted, survived, moved forward.
She was done reacting.
Sabine gathered the hidden materials and locked them away. Then she called for Lysa.
“I need to set a trap,” Sabine said when Lysa entered.
Lysa closed the door. “What kind of trap.”
“The kind that makes the palace come to me instead of me waiting for the next warning.” Sabine crossed to her desk. “Someone has been entering this room. Someone searched it after the Blackwater. Someone left the carved bird. Someone took my notes about Isolde and left a message in their place.”
“The temple.”
“Or someone acting under temple authority.” Sabine pulled out a blank sheet of paper. “I am going to give them something to find. Something that looks like proof I have discovered more than I should.”
Lysa’s expression sharpened. “False bait.”
“Yes. But it must look real. Accidentally vulnerable. Something a frightened bride would hide badly while thinking she was being clever.”
They worked together.
Sabine drafted a note implying she had found a surviving confession from Isolde naming the priest who altered the Tenth Vow. She made it sound urgent but incomplete, as if she were still piecing together fragments.
Key phrases:
“Isolde knew. She documented the alteration.”
“The priest who changed consent into submission.”
“Proof hidden where temple cannot reach without crown witness.”
“Show Elara after evening prayer.”
Lysa read it and nodded. “This will bring someone. But catching a temple official creates consequences.”
“I know.”
“If you corner a cleric, he will either deny everything or the temple will claim you fabricated evidence.”
“Then I need a witness who cannot be dismissed.” Sabine met her eyes. “Bring Princess Elara. Quietly. Tell her I need her political mind more than her sympathy.”
Lysa left.
Elara arrived through a servant passage, dressed simply, carrying a book as if she had come to return archive material.
She read Sabine’s false note and smiled faintly.
“Temple men do not panic over accusation,” Elara said. “They panic over jurisdiction. You need to add one phrase that implies the temple acted independently without full crown authority.”
She took the pen and added a single line:
“Removed from marriage archive under temple seal, not crown authority.”
“That will make them move fast,” Elara continued. “If the crown believes the temple altered a royal rite without witness, Serast loses his procedural shield.”
“Will you stay as witness when they come?”
“I will position myself in the adjacent gallery. Close enough to enter if needed, far enough not to ruin the bait.” Elara set the note down. “You are learning to hunt, Sabine Corvyr. That makes you more dangerous than a dozen properly trained brides.”
She left through the same hidden route.
Sabine placed the false note inside a decoy notebook and hid it in her desk drawer. Badly hidden. Obviously accessible to someone searching quickly.
Then she waited.
The door opened without warning.
Lucien entered and locked it behind him.
His face was controlled, but his eyes were dark.
“Elara sent word you are setting bait for temple agents,” he said. “Without telling me.”
Sabine rose. “Telling you would have made you intervene.”
“Yes.”
“And your interventions are now part of the problem.” She crossed her arms. “Every time you step between me and the palace, you prove Serast right. That the bond makes you reckless. That I destabilize you. That we are repeating the Isolde pattern.”
“I do not care what Serast thinks.”
“You should. Because he is building a case to remove me by arguing I make you dangerous.” Sabine held his gaze. “I need to move without you rescuing me. I need the palace to learn I am not something they can control by threatening you.”
Lucien crossed the room in three strides and caught her wrist.
The bond flared.
Heat rushed up Sabine’s arm and lodged in her chest.
“Stop touching me if you want me obedient,” she said.
“Obedience is the last thing I want from you.”
“Then stop asking me to behave like something you can lock away.”
He kissed her.
Hard. Frustrated. Desperate enough that Sabine felt it in her ribs.
She kissed him back just as hard, her hands going into his coat, dragging him closer. The mark burned where their bodies met.
Lucien backed her against the desk, his mouth moving from her lips to her jaw to her throat. His hand slid to her waist, then lower, gripping her thigh and lifting her slightly so she was half-sitting on the desk edge with him pressed between her legs.
Sabine gasped and pulled him down again, biting his lower lip hard enough that he groaned.
“I trust you,” he said roughly against her mouth. “I do not trust the palace. I do not trust Serast. And I do not trust myself when you are in danger because the bond pulls at me and I want to burn this place down before I let it take you the way it took Isolde.”
“Then help me hunt it instead of trying to shield me from it.”
His hand tightened on her thigh. “You are asking me to watch you walk into traps.”
“I am asking you to trust that I know how to set them.”
He kissed her again, and this time his control fractured completely.
His hand moved higher, fingers pressing against the inside of her thigh, and Sabine’s breath caught because the touch was deliberate, possessive, and exactly what she wanted.
She pulled at the fastenings of his coat, then his shirt, needing skin, needing him closer.
Lucien’s mouth moved down her throat, kissing along her collarbone, then lower. His hands worked the lacing of her gown with quick efficiency, loosening the bodice enough to pull it down.
He kissed the curve of her breast, then lower still, his breath hot against her skin.
Sabine’s fingers tightened in his hair.
“Lucien.”
He looked up at her, his eyes dark, his breathing ragged. “Tell me to stop.”
“No.”
He pulled her forward, sliding her gown higher, his hands gripping her hips as he knelt.
The first touch of his mouth made Sabine bite down on her own hand to keep from crying out.
He worked her with deliberate intensity, tongue and lips and the scrape of teeth, until her thighs were shaking and the bond was flaring so hot she could barely breathe.
When she came, the mark burned white-hot and she had to press her face against her arm to muffle the sound.
Lucien rose slowly, his hands still gripping her hips, his mouth wet.
For three seconds they stayed like that, breathing hard, the bond pulsing between them like a live flame.
Then he stepped back carefully and helped her straighten her gown with shaking hands.
“If I stay,” he said roughly, “I will ruin your plan and then you, and right now I am not certain which one I want more.”
Sabine’s pulse was still racing. “Hide nearby if you cannot trust yourself to leave.”
“I trust you. I do not trust the palace.” He touched her face briefly. “Set your trap. Catch whoever comes. But if they hurt you, I will finish what you started and the temple will learn exactly how dangerous the bond makes me.”
He left through the hidden passage.
Sabine sat on the edge of her desk, still trembling, her body remembering his mouth and the way the bond had surged when she fell apart under his hands.
Then she stood, smoothed her gown, and prepared to hunt.
Lysa arrived to escort Sabine to evening prayer.
They moved through the corridors with deliberate visibility. Servants saw them. A junior priest noted their passage. By the time they reached the chapel wing, anyone watching would believe Sabine’s chamber was empty.
Sabine slipped away through a service passage Lysa had mapped earlier.
She doubled back, entered her chamber through the washing alcove, and concealed herself in the wardrobe with a narrow sightline to the desk.
The room was dim. Fire low. Decoy notebook visible but not obvious.
Sabine waited.
The corridor outside was silent.
Then: footsteps.
The door latch lifted carefully.
A figure entered.
Not Maelor. Not Serast.
Brother Olin.
He was younger than Sabine expected, thin, nervous, moving with the efficiency of someone who had searched rooms before but hated doing it.
He crossed to the desk and began rifling through papers.
He found the decoy notebook almost immediately.
Sabine watched as he opened it, read the false note, and went pale.
Then she stepped out and locked the door.
Olin spun, his face draining of color.
“Lady Sabine, I—”
“You entered a marked bride’s chamber without permission,” Sabine said calmly. “While she was meant to be at evening prayer. Searching her private papers. Holding a notebook you were not authorized to touch.”
“I was ordered to inspect materials related to sacred preparation.”
“By whom.”
Olin hesitated.
“By whom,” Sabine repeated.
“Temple authority.”
“That is not a name.” Sabine crossed closer. “Who sent you to search my room. What were you ordered to retrieve. And why does temple authority need to enter a bride’s chamber privately if the inspection is lawful.”
Olin backed toward the door and found it locked.
Lysa entered through the washing alcove. “If you scream, Brother Olin, every servant in this wing will hear that you were caught alone in a marked bride’s chamber with unauthorized access. The palace will assume the worst. The temple will disavow you to protect itself.”
Olin’s hands shook. “I was only following orders.”
Princess Elara entered from the corridor, producing a key Sabine had not known she possessed.
“Royal witness,” Elara said calmly. “Whatever Brother Olin says now enters record. Lying to a princess of the blood is a crown offense, not merely a temple matter.”
Olin looked trapped.
Sabine stepped closer. “Tell me what you were ordered to find.”
“Materials referring to Isolde. The Tenth Vow. Altered marriage rites. Bride effects hidden before temple purge.”
“Who gave the order.”
“High Hierophant Serast through Bloodwright Maelor.”
“Why search now.”
“Because you retrieved something from the Blackwater. Because you were seen with archive materials. Because the trial testimony exposed too much and the temple needs to know what you have learned.”
Sabine felt the truth settle into place. “Who stripped Isolde’s rooms after she died.”
Olin swallowed. “Temple authority. Before dawn. Before the crown could inventory her effects.”
“What were they looking for.”
“Letters. Journals. Music. Anything she might have hidden that referenced the rite’s structure.”
“And the marriage archives. Who removed pages from those records.”
“Temple officials. Under Serast’s seal. They said certain sections were too damaged or too sacred for public record.”
Elara leaned forward. “Were the pages damaged, or were they removed because they documented something the temple wanted erased.”
Olin did not answer immediately.
Lysa crossed her arms. “We can call palace security now, or you can finish answering.”
“They were removed,” Olin said quietly. “Some of them referenced the original marriage rite before the reforms. Before the Tenth Vow was changed.”
Sabine’s pulse quickened. “Where did those pages go.”
“Serast’s private archive. Or destroyed. I do not know which.”
“What else did the temple purge after Isolde’s death.”
“Personal effects. Bride chambers. Anything from women who failed or withdrew before final selection.” Olin’s voice dropped. “But some brides knew the purges were coming. Some of them hid things before the temple could claim them.”
“Where.”
“Old hearth channels. The bride wing was built centuries ago. The heating system used stone channels behind the walls. Some chambers still have access points inside the fireplaces. Women used to hide letters, jewelry, evidence there because servants and priests did not think to search structural cavities.”
Sabine met Elara’s eyes.
This was the clue she needed.
The bride wing itself might contain hidden proof from Isolde or earlier brides.
“Thank you, Brother Olin,” Sabine said. “You may go.”
Olin stared at her. “You are releasing me.”
“You were ordered to search by someone more powerful than you. I do not punish men for being trapped inside systems.” Sabine opened the door.
“But if you tell Serast or Maelor that I caught you, or that I know about the hearth channels, I will make sure Princess Elara testifies that you entered my chamber alone at night with intent to steal sacred materials. The temple will sacrifice you to protect itself.”
Olin fled.
The hidden passage door opened.
Lucien stepped into the chamber, his face controlled but his eyes sharp.
“You set bait inside your own room,” he said, “and waited for the temple to bite.”
“And they did.”
“Gods help them, then.” He crossed to her. “What did Olin give you.”
“The location of hidden bride effects. Old hearth channels behind the fireplaces in the bride wing. Isolde may have hidden materials there before the temple could strip her rooms.”
Elara was already examining Sabine’s fireplace. “This chamber is newer construction. But the older bride chambers near the east gallery still have original stonework.”
Lucien’s hand found Sabine’s. The mark pulsed warm where they touched.
“When do you search them,” he asked quietly.
“Before the temple realizes Olin broke.”
“Then you do not go alone.”
“I will take Lysa and Elara.”
“You will take me as well.” His grip tightened fractionally. “You can hunt the palace machinery, Sabine. But you do not walk into hidden places where the temple has already killed women without someone who can fight if the palace decides to kill again.”
Sabine met his eyes.
She saw fear there. And desire. And the particular intensity of a man who had watched one bride die and would burn the kingdom before he let it happen twice.
“Then we go together,” she said.
Later, after Elara and Lucien had left and Lysa had checked the corridor, Sabine stood before her own fireplace and stared at the cold stone.
The palace had been entering her room for weeks.
Leaving objects. Taking notes. Watching her react.
Now she would enter the palace’s hidden bones and take what it had tried to bury.
She had spent weeks being tested by machinery designed to consume women.
The machinery had just failed a test of hers.
And Sabine Corvyr had learned something useful.
Machines could be hunted from inside.