Chapter 34
CHAPTER
Sabine
The conservatory’s glass roof diffused morning sunlight into white haze and pale shadow, transforming Lady Delarine’s gardens into a shimmering masterpiece.
Lacquered benches were arrayed in perfect rows, and the fountain at the chamber’s heart had been covered with a disk of mirrored glass, serving as a makeshift altar.
Thousands of white rose petals scattered down the aisle and the dais, clustered so thickly they might’ve been snow.
Sabine paused in the West entry, mindful of keeping her breathing shallow and commanding her pulse to maintain the same rhythm. The conservatory was packed. Not only the expected Gilt, but an assembly of functionaries, House staff, Registry officers.
The shuffle of her slippers against the stone was, for several heartbeats, the only sound. The hem of her dress gathered rose petals as she walked. Then came the surge of a single, orchestrated intake of breath as every guest turned to face her.
Lady Delarine and Liora sat at the front row of one side of the aisle, their dresses a study in polar opposites: Delarine’s sapphire silk gleamed like a blade, while Liora’s muslin was the pale blue of a robin’s egg. Liora’s hands were knotted in her lap, but her chin was tilted higher than ever.
On the other side, Caelen and Virelle sat together, hands interlaced atop the rail dividing them from the dais.
It was the one seating arrangement Sabine had overruled her sister on.
Caelen wore his Shadow uniform again, but softer at the edges this time, as if the shape of his new happiness had rounded its severity.
Virelle’s cotton gown was a gentle pink that matched the conservatory’s hydrangeas.
It was not lost on Sabine that this aisle, this division, split her old life from her new.
Azrian entered from the East door, and before she’d even managed to walk halfway there, took the steps of the platform two at a time and came to stand on the dais among the white roses, a few paces in front of the High Binder, his body so still he might have been carved from obsidian.
When Sabine reached the first marble step and glanced up, his mask cracked, if only for a moment.
Even when he’d come to visit her in her chamber, she hadn’t missed how he did not wear his uniform, as she assumed would have been expected of him; instead, his formal jacket was trimmed in pearlescent violet, a shade eerily similar to that of her engagement ring.
He looked not like the Emperor’s Hand, but long-lost royalty. If the Star of Corven belonged to its last Queen, then Azrian today could easily pass for its next King.
Tradition dictated she climb the dais alone. Sabine’s fingers hovered above the banister, wondering if her knees would betray her at the critical moment. Before she could commit to the ascent, Azrian stepped forward, breaking the ritual’s symmetry. A ripple of sound passed through the Gilt.
His palm was cold, and when Sabine placed her own atop it, the pulse at her wrist aligned perfectly with his. He eased her up the steps until she stood on the dais, pressed to his body, close enough that she could see the faint gleam of satisfaction in his pale eyes.
“You’re making a scandal out of us,” she whispered, failing to keep the amusement out of her tone.
“Am I?” He tilted his head, as if genuinely considering this. “We are about to be married. I would assume some fondness to be implied.”
“Fondness.” She couldn’t help the way the word settled warm and sweet on her tongue. “Is that what you call it?”
He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “What would you call it?”
This was not real. No matter the way her heart set off at a gallop at the barest hint of his touch, she had to remind herself this ceremony, this very marriage, was only happening by imperial decree.
They had nothing to do with their partnership, their secret rebellion.
This had always been, and still was, a performance.
So she said, “Spectacle.”
He lifted her hand, slowly, deliberately, and pressed his lips to her knuckles. The Gilt swooned. Against her skin, he murmured, “I suppose the good news is Velyar won’t have to freeze after all.”
When they finally came to stand before the High Binder, they did not react to the breach of protocol. “We gather to witness the forging of a sacred bond.” Their voice echoed off the glass and marble as if coming from a hundred throats at once. “Let the Empire bear witness.”
They held the chalice in front of them, arms outstretched.
The obsidian-and-silver vessel had been polished to a mirror shine.
Sabine and Azrian stepped to either side of the chalice.
Registry attendants reached forward with the ceremonial blades, but Azrian moved first. He withdrew his own knife from a sheath at his thigh, the gesture fluid and unapologetic.
He met Sabine’s gaze, holding it as if the rest of the world had vanished.
He sliced his palm in one clean movement, so deep the sound of skin parting was audible even above the fountain’s burble.
Blood welled at once, dark and viscous, dripping onto the pristine rose petals on the ground and staining them red.
He held his fist over the chalice, allowing the drops to fall inside it.
And still, his gaze never left hers.
Sabine hesitated for only half a second. A hundred sets of eyes waited for her to falter. Instead, she extended her left hand—not to the attendant with the ritual blade, but to Azrian.
His eyebrows rose fractionally. For a moment, she thought he would refuse. Then he offered her the knife, hilt first, still slick with his blood.
The handle was warm. She pressed the blade to her own palm, just below the base of the thumb, and cut.
Pain bloomed.
She felt something inside her stir, a warming in the depth of her belly, where Lady Delarine had taught her the seat of her magic should be.
It was instinctual, automatic, like breathing.
When she looked at her own blood, welling in her palm, it bloomed red before a single bead of it gilded into liquid gold.
Sabine gasped, immediately closing her palm to conceal the odd change, and looked to Azrian. The way his forehead creased slightly told her he hadn’t missed it, either. But the blood vow was not yet complete. She should not be able to weave.
And she hadn’t attempted to do so, either.
When she opened her fist, her blood was wholly red again, as if the gold had been but a hallucination. She watched the ichor accumulate at her wrist before letting it drip into the chalice, drop for drop alongside Azrian’s.
What was happening to her? Was her mind beginning to play tricks on her, and if so, was that a sign of the Fade?
But Azrian had seen it too…
The High Binder raised the chalice between them. “By the shedding of blood, let the ancient bonds be made new. By the will of the Emperor, let your fates be joined.”
They dipped a finger into the mixture and traced a mark on Azrian’s forehead, then Sabine’s.
The sensation was electric; icy at first, then burning, then something else entirely.
Her skin tingled, as if every nerve had been braided together with Azrian’s, the distinction between their bodies momentarily obliterated.
Sabine had expected—what? Pain, perhaps. Ecstasy. A flare of light, a rush of energy, the sudden clarity of affinity awakened.
The feeling was both more subtle and more totalizing. Her vision sharpened and blurred at once, the room refracting into endless versions of itself, each overlaid atop the other like plates of glass.
She could feel Azrian’s blood, his mind, even his fear, as intimately as her own. She tried to speak, to confirm she was still herself, but her tongue felt fused to the roof of her mouth.
So she reached for him. He took her hand at once, their blood still slick between their fingers.
But instead of calming, the sensation faltered. The power that should have locked into place stuttered, a symphony missing its final note. For a split second, the bond surged, threatening to consume her. Then it wavered, battling some force in her body or mind.
Azrian’s expression reflected her own terror.
The magic recoiled. The mark flared again, but this time with a sensation of wrongness, a chemical taste like iron and burnt sugar. The bond had taken, but not as it should have. It was wild, corrupted, impossible to contain.
She clung to Azrian’s hand with all her might. He squeezed back, his grip the only solid thing left in the world.
The High Binder spoke again, louder this time. “The bond is forged. By blood, by bond, by the Empire’s will.”
The room repeated the litany after them. Sabine felt herself returning to her body in increments, as if consciousness were being poured back into her through a sieve. She blinked, and the guests came back into focus.
Azrian’s grip was the sole reason she remained upright as they climbed down the dais and walked the length of the aisle. There was applause. Virelle wiped a tear from her cheek. Liora sat rigid, unmoving, hands gripping the rail so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
Sabine felt the bond’s unstable hum in the depths of her soul and wondered, with a chill, if this was how the end began.