This is Lane. I’ve tuned the rhythm of this chapter against the established resonance of the Thorne-Valerius dynamic. The tension is high, but we have some bleed in the character voices and a few rhythmic stumbles where the prose gets "sticky."

### 1. PROSE EVIDENCE
*   **"The door I had imagined in the cage of my chest slammed shut with the wet, metallic thud of a blade meeting bone." (Early):** A visceral, high-impact opening that successfully grounds the emotional shift in a physical sensation.
*   **"I watched a single droplet of condensation freeze in mid-air between us. It did not fall; it suspended itself like a suspended judgment." (Early):** The repetition of "suspended" within six words kills the momentum of an otherwise elegant image.
*   **"At their head stood Vespera, her silver hair bound so tightly back it seemed to pull the skin of her face into a permanent mask of disdain." (Mid):** Excellent character-driven description that conveys status and personality without a single adverb.
*   **"The 'Old Blood' moved with a synchronized lethality. They didn't draw swords; they drew glass vials of consecrated blood and shattered them against their own palms." (Mid):** Strong world-building through action, showing rather than telling the mechanics of their hemomancy.
*   **"I reached for the place in the air where her breath had been, but my fingers only found the jagged edges of my own failure, cold and sharp enough to bleed the world white." (Late):** A haunting closing image that balances the "glass" motif with Aldric’s internal state.

### 2. CHARACTER VOICE AUDIT

**KING ALDRIC**
*   **Line:** "I am done being a martyr."
*   **Signature Vocabulary/Tics:** YES. Uses the singular "I" while vulnerable/shaken.
*   **Forbidden Patterns:** YES. Avoids contractions ("I am" instead of "I'm").
*   **Emotional Register:** YES. Reaches for analytical/structural cues.
*   **VIOLATION:** None.

**QUEEN SERAPHINE**
*   **Line:** "The air... the structural integrity of the silence... it has been breached."
*   **Signature Vocabulary/Tics:** YES. Uses architectural metaphors ("structural integrity," "breached").
*   **Forbidden Patterns:** NO.
    *   *Violation:* "She didn't answer." "She wasn't looking at me anymore." "She didn't move at first."
    *   *Rule:* Profile states Seraphine (and Aldric) avoid contractions. While some of these are in Aldric's POV narration, Seraphine’s dialogue "I am not a decorative column" correctly avoids them, but the narration describing her should reflect the formal weight of the world.
*   **Emotional Register:** YES. Predatory and over-articulated under stress.

**VESPERA**
*   **Line:** "The blood is restless. It demands a purge."
*   **Signature Vocabulary/Tics:** YES (**Note:** Vespera is quoting High Priestess Malcorra’s signature tics perfectly: "It is written in the vein," and "The blood is restless.")
*   **Forbidden Patterns:** YES. No "I think" or "In my opinion."
*   **Emotional Register:** YES. Operatic and liturgical.

### 3. STRENGTHS TO PRESERVE
*   **Aldric’s Tactical Lens:** The way he perceives the room through its structural threats: *"He assesses the architecture of a room—exits, shadows, and the weight of the weapons others are carrying."* Keep: "I watched the throat of the cavern."
*   **The Scent Palette:** The use of metallic incense (rusted nails and rosemary) to signal the Cathedral's presence is a strong sensory anchor.
*   **The "Thorne Madness" visual:** The transition of water to obsidian glass is a sharp, specific manifestation of his kinetic affinity.

### 4. MUST-FIX — CONTINUITY
*   **ORIGINAL:** "The 'Old Blood' moved with a synchronized lethality... They drew glass vials of consecrated blood..."
*   **PROBLEM:** The context RAG specifies the "Old Blood" used "Blight-dampening tech" in the ambush. The chapter focuses entirely on liturgical/hemomantic magic, missing the established tech element that fractured the sovereignty.
*   **FIX:** Mention the hum of the dampening tech alongside the rhythmic clicking of Vespera’s thurible to align with the World State ch-08.

### 5. MUST-FIX — CLARITY
*   **ORIGINAL:** "...suspended itself like a suspended judgment."
*   **PROBLEM:** Echo effect. The two "suspendeds" create a rhythmic hiccup that draws attention to the writing rather than the image.
*   **FIX:** "...it hung there like a suspended judgment."

*   **ORIGINAL:** "The door I had imagined in the cage of my chest slammed shut..."
*   **PROBLEM:** This metaphor is slightly disconnected from the "Gilded Pulse" mentioned immediately after.
*   **FIX:** "The internal graft—the bridge I had built toward her—slammed shut with the wet metallic thud of a blade meeting bone." (Connects more clearly to the bio-magical link).

### 6. OPTIONAL SUGGESTIONS
*   **Passage:** "She used my shoulder to pull herself up..."
*   **Suggestion:** Since Seraphine looks at throats (per character profile), have her focus on Aldric's jugular as she uses him for leverage. 
*   **Proposed Rewrite:** "She used my shoulder to pull herself up, her gaze fixed on the pulse-point of my throat with a predatory intensity that spoke of desperation, not affection."

### 7. FORBIDDEN CHANGES / NON-GOALS
*   **Do not "humanize" Aldric’s dialogue.** His lack of contractions ("I am", "I do not") is a character-specific trait of his upbringing and the Thorne crown; do not smooth it into "I'm" or "don't."
*   **Do not remove Seraphine’s architectural metaphors.** Phrases like "decorative column" are her specific way of processing the world.
*   **Do not remove Vespera's liturgical "we."** She speaks for the Cathedral, and her lack of "I" statements is intentional.

### 8. VERDICT: REVISE
**SCORE: 82**
The chapter captures the emotional high notes of the betrayal and the visceral nature of the magic, but it requires a polish pass to remove repetitive word choices ("suspended") and to ensure the "Old Blood" faction's dampening technology is mentioned to maintain continuity with the project context. Most importantly, the narration needs to align with the sovereigns' avoidance of contractions to maintain the elevated, formal tone of the series.