The seal in Sable's palm tightened.
Not like a rope. Like a rule.
Her mouth went dry. Her lungs drew a breath as if the answer had already been chosen somewhere deeper than thought.
The voice filled Seed Court, steady and patient.
"Combine or sever. Decide."
Sable stared at her duplicate.
Same face. Same eyes. Same scar under the left ear.
Different mark.
The duplicate held her palm up as if showing it to the court. The thorn crown sat there, clean and certain, like a stamp.
Maera's hand hovered near Sable's elbow, ready to steady or pull her back. Vessa stood close enough that Sable could feel heat in the air between them, controlled and waiting. On the platform's edge, Jory stayed in fox form, pacing a tight circle with quick, restless steps. His tail twitched with tension.
The duplicate smiled. "You see. It is simple. Choose the stable record. Choose me."
Maera's voice cut in, low and sharp. "You are not stable. You are trained."
The duplicate did not look at Maera. "Training is stability."
Sable forced herself to speak without letting another sound of her true name rise. "If I choose sever, what happens."
The voice answered.
"One record will persist. One will be erased."
Sable's stomach turned. "Erased how."
"By correction," the voice said.
Vessa's face tightened. "Correction means deletion."
The duplicate's smile sharpened. "If you are erased, you will not feel it for long."
Sable's fingers curled. She hated how calm the duplicate sounded. Calm made cruelty easier to sell.
Maera stepped closer, her posture protective. "Sable. You do not owe this court your life."
The voice corrected her without anger. "The court requires remedy. The realm requires coherence."
Jory's fox ears flattened. He let out a small sound that was not a growl and not a whine. It was the sound of a creature that knew a trap when it smelled one.
Sable looked down at her palm. The closed loop seal burned faintly. It did not hurt yet. It promised it could.
Sable lifted her chin. "If I choose combine, what happens."
The voice answered.
"One record will be made whole."
Sable's throat tightened. "How."
"By union," the voice replied. "By consent or by force."
Maera's jaw set. "There. It will force it."
The duplicate lifted her hand slightly. "Consent is simple. I consent. Do you."
Sable met her eyes. "You consent to being in control."
The duplicate's gaze did not flicker. "I consent to stability."
Vessa spat a single word. "Liar."
The duplicate turned her head toward Vessa. "Fire makes you emotional. It does not make you wise."
Vessa's lips parted and flame flickered on her tongue for a heartbeat. She swallowed it down.
Sable spoke quickly, before her own body tried to speak for her. "Court. Define consent."
The masked figure wrote at once. The words hung in the air.
CONSENT IS WILLING UNION WITHOUT COERCION.
Maera pointed toward the duplicate with one rigid finger. "She is holding a false name over Sable like a blade. She used a hostage. That is coercion."
The duplicate's expression cooled. "I released the hostage."
Maera's eyes narrowed. "Only because the court pulled me here. You did not choose mercy."
The voice spoke. "Coercion noted."
The duplicate's smile returned, smaller now. "Noted is not denied."
Sable felt the seal in her palm tighten again, as if the court grew impatient with argument.
Sable took a breath and made a choice that was not the final choice.
"Combine," she said.
Vessa's eyes widened. "Sable."
Maera's hand tightened on Sable's arm. "Listen to me."
Sable did not look away from the duplicate. "Combine, but on my terms."
The duplicate's smile broadened. "You do not get terms."
Sable looked toward the bowl of black glass. "Court. I choose combine under consent. Not force."
The hall went quiet for a breath.
Then the voice answered.
"Consent required for stable union."
The duplicate's smile faltered.
Maera's shoulders eased by one small degree.
Vessa let out a slow breath. "Good."
The duplicate recovered fast. "Fine. Consent. I consent."
Sable held her gaze. "Then say what you are."
The duplicate's eyes sharpened. "I am Sable Vane."
Pain snapped through Sable's teeth. The court did not punish the duplicate for the lie. It punished Sable when she tried it.
That told Sable what she needed to know.
The court judged through the signer.
It judged through Sable.
Not through the duplicate.
Sable spoke, steady. "Say what you were made to be."
The duplicate's jaw tightened. "I am not made."
Sable felt the seal tighten again. She was running out of time.
She raised her marked palm. "I will combine, but not with a lie. If you are part of me, then you can tell the truth."
The duplicate's voice stayed calm, but the calm was thinner now. "Do you think truth is safe."
Sable answered, "No. But I think it is necessary."
The voice above the dais spoke again.
"Consent requires truth."
The duplicate's eyes widened a fraction.
Vessa's mouth curled. "You cannot cheat this court."
The duplicate stared at the bowl. Her throat worked once.
Then she looked back at Sable.
"I am the coherent record," she said slowly. "I am the part shaped to carry the chain without breaking it."
Maera's face hardened. "Shaped by whom."
The duplicate hesitated.
The court did not like hesitation.
The light above the bowl brightened, and the grooves in the platform lit like a warning.
"Truth," the voice said.
The duplicate's lips pressed into a thin line. Then she spoke, sharp and fast, like ripping off a bandage.
"House Vale."
Sable's stomach dropped. She had suspected. Hearing it still felt like a blade.
Maera's eyes went cold. "Oren."
The duplicate's gaze flicked toward Maera with irritation. "Do not speak his name like you own it."
Vessa's voice was low. "So you are his."
The duplicate's eyes flashed. "I am the part that will keep the realm from burning."
Sable's hand trembled. The seal in her palm burned hotter, as if the court approved of truth.
Sable forced herself forward.
"Then consent to union as an equal," she said. "Not as a leash."
The duplicate laughed once, short and humorless. "Equal. You do not understand what you are. If you become whole, you become the signer. Do you think anyone will allow you to live free."
Maera's voice cut through. "I will."
The duplicate looked at Maera with open contempt. "You are a captain. Captains die."
Maera took a step forward, ready to strike even without a blade. Vessa shifted too, flame rising behind her teeth.
Sable lifted her free hand. "Stop."
Both women stopped.
Sable did not like that they stopped because she spoke. She filed the feeling away. She would deal with it later if she lived.
She looked at the duplicate. "Consent. Now."
The duplicate's eyes narrowed. "And if I refuse."
The voice answered for her.
"Refusal triggers forced remedy."
Sable's breath hitched. "Forced remedy means sever."
"Or forced union," the voice corrected.
Vessa's face tightened. "Forced union is unstable."
The masked figure wrote.
FORCED UNION CREATES A THIRD FRACTURE.
Sable's skin went cold. A third fracture would mean a third Sable. Another piece. Another hunt. Another lie.
Sable could not allow that.
She stepped closer to the duplicate until they were within arm's reach.
Maera's hand tightened on Sable's arm. "Sable. Do not touch her."
Sable did not look back. "I have to."
Vessa moved nearer, heat rising in the air like a shield. "If she tries to bind you, I burn the binding."
Sable nodded once.
She held out her palm, mark facing up.
The duplicate stared at it.
For a moment, fear crossed her face again, quick and real.
Sable saw it and understood. The duplicate had been trained to control. Union meant losing certainty. It meant sharing.
The duplicate whispered, "If I go into you, I die."
Sable's throat tightened. "No. You change."
The duplicate's eyes sharpened with anger. "That is a softer word for the same thing."
Sable's voice went low. "Then do not make me sever you."
Maera's breath caught. "Sable."
The court's light brightened again. The pressure in Sable's mouth returned, heavy and insistent, trying to force her to speak the next sound.
Sable clenched her teeth.
The duplicate looked up at the light, then back at Sable, calculation flashing behind her eyes.
Then the duplicate lifted her hand.
Slowly.
As if choosing.
She placed her palm against Sable's.
Thorn crown to closed loop.
The moment skin touched, the hall rang with a deep tone like a bell struck underwater.
Sable's vision snapped.
She saw a red clay room. She smelled smoke and spices. A woman held Sable's childhood face in both hands.
The woman's mouth moved.
Sable did not hear the word. She felt it like a burn behind her tongue.
Then the memory shattered into another.
A white chamber. A child's wrists held down. Ink brushed onto skin. A man's voice, calm and certain.
"Your name is Sable Vane. That is enough."
Oren Vale.
His face was younger, but it was him.
Sable's stomach lurched with rage.
She tried to pull her hand away.
She could not.
The court held the union in place.
The duplicate gasped. Her eyes widened. She was seeing it too.
"Stop," the duplicate whispered. "Stop. That is not for you."
Maera stepped forward, voice sharp. "Sable."
Vessa raised her hand, flame flaring along her fingertips, not striking, only ready.
Jory's fox body went rigid. He stared at Sable's hand as if watching a snare tighten.
The voice above them spoke, louder than before.
"Union in progress."
Sable felt something slide inside her, not gentle, not cruel, simply inevitable.
A new memory hit, hard.
A thorn crown burned into a palm.
Not hers.
The duplicate's.
A vow spoken over it.
"By House Vale, you will obey."
Sable felt the vow like a chain.
The duplicate cried out. "I did not choose that."
Sable's jaw clenched. "I know."
The next sound of Sable's true name surged up.
Not because the court demanded it.
Because the vow had touched it and woken it.
Sable's lips parted.
Maera lunged, trying to cover Sable's mouth.
Vessa moved faster.
She pressed two fingers under Sable's chin and pushed up, forcing Sable's mouth closed, hard enough that Sable's teeth clicked.
Pain flashed. The sound stayed trapped.
For one breath.
Then the union jerked.
A force yanked from the other side, ripping at the connection between their palms.
The duplicate's eyes snapped toward the empty space beside the bench.
Something was there now.
Not a person.
A presence.
A ring of iron glinting in the air, as if a hand wore it but the hand had been erased.
Mother Rook's voice came from nowhere, strained and furious.
"Someone is interfering."
The voice of the court answered, colder than stone.
"Unauthorized claim detected."
Then Oren Vale's voice cut through Seed Court, clear and confident, as if he stood right beside them.
"By House and by law," he said, "I claim guardianship of the signer."
Sable's seal burned like fire.
The next sound of her true name surged again, stronger, and this time Vessa's fingers could not hold her mouth closed forever.
Sable felt the syllable about to break free.
And Oren, unseen, spoke it first.