Chapter 47
CHAPTER
Sabine
“And you believe we can trust her?” Azrian asked as their gondola drifted along the canals of the Gilt Quarter, slow as a funeral barge. The night pressed close beyond the glass.
Sabine hated that her heart galloped at the sound of we .
She knew, with a certainty that surprised her, that Azrian would defer to her judgment—and stand beside her, whatever path she chose.
It was a dizzying feeling to be trusted so fully, without conditions.
She tried not to dwell on it, lest it overwhelm her.
Water lapped at the gondola’s hull; the movement of it settled her thoughts. She had no intention of lying to her husband, but the truth was more complicated than a simple yes or no . “If you ask me whether I believe her capable of betrayal, then surely, yes.”
“But?” he prompted, tone gentle.
“But so are we, are we not?”
Sabine was beginning to believe the way Lady Delarine had taught her to weave was older, wilder, as if it had slipped through the cracks of the Empire’s history. And the conversation she’d overheard in the study? With the knowledge she now had, it sounded revolutionary, rather than murderous.
Braythar House crowned the rise, lanterns set to full blaze in every window.
As they neared the private landing, the gondolier slowed, letting the boat glide into the dark mouth of the boathouse.
The transition from the open air to darkness was jarring; the air inside smelled of old stone and damp moss, sweet and earthy and clinging.
Azrian stepped onto the dock first, silent as a wraith, and offered his hand to Sabine.
They took the hidden servant’s stair, winding up to the second floor. At the top, the mirrored corridor stretched out before them, starlit and endless. Sabine caught her reflection—a wild knot of hair, dress sodden and twisted around her calves. She looked untamed. She felt it, too.
Azrian leaned close, his voice a caress against her ear. “If you change your mind or sense any kind of danger, squeeze my wrist. I’ll get us out.”
At the end of the hall, the doors to the parlor stood open; candlelight poured out, framing the Duchess in gold. Lady Delarine bent over a marble table, shuffling cards with her gloved hands. She did not glance up as they entered.
“It is always a pleasure to have you in my home,” she said. “Though you might consider calling ahead next time.”
Sabine offered a thin smile. “It’s been an eventful day.”
The Duchess set her cards aside. “And?”
Azrian met the Duchess’s gaze, unflinching. “We need your help.”
Sabine stepped forward, letting exhaustion leak into her words. Her fingers skimmed the mark at her collarbone. “We know these are not Registry innovation. They’re not even new, but ancient as time itself.”.
“You have learned the truth, then.”
Sabine nodded. “About soulmarks, yes. And about what the Registry has done to erase them, too.”
Lady Delarine leaned back into her chair, folding her hands atop her knee. “So what is it you need from me? You seem to have managed well enough so far.”
Sabine sank into the chair before the Duchess. Azrian stayed standing at her back. “We know about the soulbonds, too.” Sabine twisted to look at Azrian. “In fact, we have one.”
The Duchess sucked in a sharp breath. “However did you manage that?”
“We said private vows before our ceremony,” Azrian explained. “Between that, and our… infractions of the blood vow’s symmetry, it was enough to snap the bond into place.”
Lady Delarine slumped in her chair. “I knew I should not have left you alone.”
“Did you know what would happen?” Sabine asked. “The soulbond was unfinished, and the blood vow latched onto it like a parasite. It’s made our magic… volatile.”
The Duchess’s eyebrows furrowed, deepening the lines of her forehead. “I did not know, exactly, but mixing ancient magic with Registry-sanctioned one has never provided the best of outcomes.”
“We believe our lives to be in danger,” Azrian explained, squeezing Sabine’s shoulder. “And not only because we can hardly control our magic.”
Lady Delarine’s gaze shifted to Azrian. “And you believe I might help?”
“Can you?” Sabine asked.
The Duchess stood, crossing the room to the window, hands clasped at the small of her back. The moonlight silvered the lines of her dress, turning her into a creature carved from starlight. “If this is some elaborate ploy to bring the Empire to my doorstep, Lord Vaelros…”
“I have no duty left to the Empire.” He smiled, bleak and beautiful. “My loyalty lies solely with my wife.”
Sabine’s lips parted. She’d noticed his lapel pin gone weeks ago. And of course, the evidence they’d gathered had already made them traitors to the Empire. But to hear him speak those words aloud…
Lady Delarine’s laughter was sudden. “Very well. Come, then. Let me show you the cost of treason.”
As they followed, Azrian’s hand brushed hers in the dark. The touch was feather-light but steadied her, anchoring her to the moment.
The Duchess’s true allegiance was as murky as the canal after a storm, but they didn’t have many other options. To expose the Registry, they needed to speak a language the Gilt would understand. The Children had been trying to do so for cycles now, and had only managed to be branded heretics.
The Duchess unlocked the door to her study, then ushered them in.
Every surface was heavy with the scent of paper, ink, and the faint, aching sweetness of dried violets.
Lady Delarine moved to the hearth, stoking the embers with a flick of her wrist, before turning to face them.
The firelight cast deep shadows across the lines of her face.
“We know the Registry is hunting people like us,” Sabine said. “We have found a list of marked couples, and uncovered the killer they hired to murder them.”
Sabine didn’t mention Ellie. There was no purpose in it, now that she and Petyr had fled Ilvarenne.
Once, Ellie had been her only friend in a city that had wanted nothing to do with her, and the Registry had turned her into another casualty.
Why tarnish her memory, when it would serve nobody but the Empire’s machine?
“But while the evidence is strong, it’s not irrefutable,” she continued. “The Registry will find a way to discredit our proof, to make the list look fabricated. We need something beyond reproach.”
Lady Delarine exhaled. “Of course you do.” She gestured for them to sit, then poured three glasses of a dark, syrupy cordial. “If you wish to expose the Registry, you will need every record, every precedent, every failed experiment they buried.”
Sabine sipped and coughed at the strength of it.
The Duchess watched her, then asked, “Why trust me, child? Surely you understand my role in the Royal Circle and my standing in this Empire. What makes you believe I would risk any of it?”
The question caught her off guard, but only for a moment. “Because puzzle pieces always look different once you know the picture they complete.”
Lady Delarine nodded, accepting the answer. She went to a lacquered cabinet in the corner and unlocked it with a heavy silver key. The top drawer slid open to reveal rows of books.
Azrian watched in silence, face carved from stone.
Lady Delarine slid one of the ledgers back and pressed the bottom of the drawer. A hidden catch gave way, revealing a secret compartment. Inside hid bundles of letters, a smaller ledger bound in black silk, and a stack of papers stamped with the Registry’s twelve-pointed star.
Sabine’s breath caught. “How—?”
“I am a woman who plans for contingencies,” Lady Delarine replied softly. She spread the evidence across her desk.
Sabine devoured the Registry’s correspondence: dry, legalistic prose salted with words like containment and necessary correction . Some letters were decades old, the parchment yellowed to ivory; others, freshly scribed and redolent with the ink’s bitter perfume.
“Why keep these?” Azrian asked.
The Duchess looked at him, and for the first time, Sabine noticed how tired she truly seemed. “Because the world is built on memory. If no one remembers the crime, the victims die a second death.”
Sabine reached for the black-bound ledger, her hands shaking. Inside, each entry described a pairing: two names, two affinities, the nature of their bond. Some ended in marriage; some, in tragedy. The commentary in the margins was Lady Delarine’s own—a running autopsy of every Gilt union.
Sabine closed the book and looked at the Duchess. “It must’ve taken cycles to gather all this evidence.”
“Since they plucked me from my home in Keshira at sixteen to marry the Duke of Braythar,” Lady Delarine confirmed.
“He was cruel and soulless. The only kindness he ever did me was dying early. I swore I would not allow other young ladies to suffer my same fate… and in the process, uncovered some of the Registry’s darkest machinations went beyond arranging brutish marriages. ”
It all clicked into place, then. The Duchess had upheld a reputation as an eccentric patron, her protégées seemingly chosen on a whim, when in reality, she’d always sought out the overlooked, the wounded.
Sabine tried to imagine carrying that burden for cycles—the archives, the names, the knowledge that change was always just out of reach. She could not.
They have plans for marked pairs this Season. My sponsorship offers you protection while those plans unfold.
She laid her hand softly atop the Duchess’s gloved one and squeezed once. “Thank you.”
Lady Delarine withdrew with a faint smile. “If you wish to thank me, end the blood vow system. For good.”
It was a difficult promise, but one Sabine meant to keep. She nodded, blinking away the urge to cry. Azrian arranged the documents in neat rows. Sabine perched on the armrest of a velvet chair, leafing through a portfolio thick with imperial seals.