Chapter 47 #2
The first letter was penned by the High Binder: cold, immaculate script that bled through the parchment like veins through pale skin.
Sabine read it aloud: “ For our order to be maintained, oversight is paramount. By whatever means necessary, the people must never remember the origins of their gifts. The ancient magic is chaos, and chaos has memory. The Registry exists to ensure it never wakes. ”
Her throat closed around the words.
Each document layered new intent onto the last: forged cause-of-death reports, erasure of whole lineages, staged accidents. Beneath the horror, Sabine felt… vindicated. Every suspicion she’d harbored was here, rendered unarguable in black ink.
Azrian leaned back, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.
“We have to find a way to expose this,” Sabine said, feverish. “These records could bring the Registry to its knees. We have to make them known.”
She turned to Azrian, and instead saw Liora standing in the hall, hair mussed and eyes huge.
In that instant, she looked impossibly young—a child again, the little sister who used to slip into Sabine’s bed when she was frightened by nightmares.
Sabine’s mouth went dry. She tried to speak her sister’s name, but no sound came out even as her lips moved.
Her sister’s gaze darted to the papers, then to Azrian, then back to Sabine. There was a silence like the moment before a storm. Then Liora slipped away, vanishing into the shadows.
Sabine’s first instinct was to follow. But she didn’t know how much Liora had overheard, and, if she was honest, she didn’t trust her sister with the whole truth any longer. Letting the matter drop would give Liora plausible deniability.
So she stayed back, and after a long breath, returned her attention to the documents.
For hours, the three of them catalogued and cross-referenced the evidence, weaving a tapestry of guilt so inescapable that no one in the Empire could dismiss it as fiction.
The sun rose, flooding the study with pink and gold.
And still, Sabine kept seeing her sister in the shadows, silent as a curse.
They finished just before the sun had fully emerged from the horizon. Azrian bound the most damning documents in oilcloth and concealed them beneath his coat.
Lady Delarine turned to the window, staring out at the dew-laced garden. “If anyone asks, you did not stay the night, and instead departed late. I will ensure my staff is aware.”
Sabine’s thoughts flashed to her sister again and soured, but she nodded nevertheless.
As they made their way back to the boathouse, Sabine saw Liora again, standing where darkness met light, arms wrapped around herself. Her hair was braided now, her face unreadable.
“What are you doing here?” Liora demanded.
Sabine slowed, using the distance between her and Liora to devise a strategy. She couldn’t openly confide in her, and the fact alone was enough to break her heart. “We came to see Her Grace. We had some matters to discuss regarding our magic.” As much of the truth as she could possibly share.
“I saw you in the study. I know that you know.” Liora hesitated, then pressed on, “Lord Blackwell came to see Lady Delarine about a fortnight ago. The Duchess wouldn’t say, but I can only assume it was to ask for permission to propose.”
The change in subject had Sabine’s mind spinning, but she managed a smile. “Congratulations.”
Her sister’s gaze sharpened to a point. “Except he never did. Propose, it is. Because you got yourself accused of murder. Eccentric, opinionated—they might have overlooked that, with a family like the Vaelros behind you. But a murderer , Bine? I might as well become a Binder, now.”
“You cannot be a Binder, Lili. You don’t wield Light.”
Liora stamped her foot. “This isn’t funny!”
Sabine bit back tears and a shout. Three breaths. Four. Five. Six. “And neither is the fact that you would actually call me a murderer. Do you actually believe I would do such a thing?”
Liora flinched. “I don’t… I mean… It’s what the Registry suggested.”
“And you’d believe them over your own sister? You, of all people, should know it couldn’t have been me. You also know I lost that bracelet before the blood vow. You helped me search for it.”
Liora tossed her braid. “It doesn’t actually matter—”
“It matters to me !” Sabine jabbed a finger at her own chest.
Liora’s lips pressed in a thin line. “What matters is that, regardless of the truth, the Blackwells will not allow me to marry into their family with this stain on our reputation.” She pointed to the corridor they’d just come from, where daylight reflected off the mirrors.
“And whatever you were doing in there? It’ll only make it worse.
No good can come of whatever righteous crusade you believe yourself to be on. ”
Sabine couldn’t have disagreed more. If they exposed the Registry, it’d be the greatest good Sabine would ever do in her life. “Let me worry about what good or bad might come of my own actions, please. It does not concern you.”
“Selfish, as always,” Liora spat, and it hurt more than Sabine cared to admit.
Selfish? Her sister thought her selfish? When she’d sacrificed her entire life for her happiness?
“If you get caught defying the Empire, it’s not only your name but mine too that will suffer,” Liora pressed, grabbing Sabine’s hands.
“Please, Bine, I’m begging you as your sister.
I could be a duchess. Even if Lord Blackwell withdraws, I might still find a titled match if I play my cards right.
But if you compromise yourself further, I’ll be lucky if I can marry a farmer, after all of this. Don’t ruin it for me.”
Calmly, slowly, Sabine extricated herself from her sister’s hold.
“Whatever cards you intend to play to secure a proposal from Lord Blackwell, or any other lord, is your business. I’ve given you my opinion on the matter, and you’ve chosen to discard it.
That’s your right. You’re entitled to your choices.
” It broke Sabine’s heart into a million pieces to say that.
“But I’m similarly entitled to my own. You’re grown now, Lili, and you no longer need me to look after you.
Allow me to be my own person just as I’ll let you be yours, no matter how much it might hurt me to do so. ”
Liora only stared. “Very well. If this is how you wish for things to be. But you might not like those cards I have to play, Bine.” With that, she turned and slipped into her room, closing the door behind her.
Sabine felt the loss as a blow to the sternum. The room didn’t tilt so much as shift , a subtle wrongness, as if the floor had become slightly less certain beneath her feet.
She counted three breaths. Then five. Ten. But it was Azrian’s touch on her arm that abated the panic this time. “We need to go.”
They stepped outside, the chill sharp enough to sting.
Sabine couldn’t stop replaying the conversation with her sister.
She wanted to believe Liora would come around, that she would see the value in truth.
But she also remembered the hunger for status, the terror of obscurity that had always driven Liora’s choices.
She turned to the Duchess. “Your Grace, do you believe my sister…” She couldn’t bring herself to voice any kind of suspicion of her own blood.
Apparently, she didn’t need to.
Lady Delarine placed a gentle, gloved hand atop Sabine’s arm and squeezed gently. “Not all of us are meant for fight, child. Some will choose flight, even if it means turning one’s back to one’s own.”
At the threshold of the boathouse, Sabine looked back at the estate, but saw no movement in her sister’s window.
Lady Delarine was right; she couldn’t stop Liora from making her own choices, any more than she would’ve wanted Liora to interfere with hers.
All she could do, now, was build a better world for her and all the ones who’d come after, one where her sister would never again have to choose between perceived safety and her own family.
And to do this, she had to burn down the world as it was and rebuild it into something greater. So she gathered herself and steeled for the fight ahead.