16. Bryony
brYONY
I woke three steps from the throne.
My feet were bare on the black stone. The bedroom door stood open behind me, and I couldn’t remember leaving the bed. I still wore the thin shirt I’d slept in. My knife was on the bedside table, several rooms away.
The Crown floated above the carved seat at the level of my eyes.
Up close, it didn’t look like jewellery. Eight dark points rose from a narrow silver band, each one wet with red light. The metal turned slowly in the air. Every point moved with it except the longest, which stayed aimed at me.
“Come closer, Bryony.”
The woman’s voice filled the room. It also pressed against the inside of my head, warm and reasonable.
I tried to step back. My body leaned forwards instead.
The Crown brightened. A picture formed in my mind of the doors upstairs standing open to a sunny morning. Stellan waited on the front steps without iron around his throat, waist, wrists or ankles. His silver hair moved in the wind, and he held out both hands to me.
The picture hurt because I wanted it.
“Touch me, and Harrowmere will open. Touch me, and your king will be free.”
My hand lifted.
“Bryony.”
Stellan’s voice came from the open doors behind me. It was rough with pain, but it reached me more clearly than the woman speaking inside my skull.
My fingers stopped level with my shoulder.
“You’re awake now. Turn your head and find me. I’m standing at the doors, and you can hear my voice in the room. That’s real.”
The Crown moved closer. The longest point hovered less than an arm’s length from my palm.
“He cannot free himself. He cannot take you out of this house. I can give you both what you want. I can make him safe to touch. I can make every door obey you.”
I turned my head.
Stellan stood at the throne room entrance with one hand braced against the stone. The chain at his waist stretched tight behind him. Another length ran from the iron at his throat and pulled his head back. Red marks showed where it had already bitten into his skin.
His eyes met mine.
The sunny entrance in my mind disappeared. I saw the real man held at the edge of the room, angry and frightened for me. His shirt was open at the throat. His hair was tangled from sleep, and the chain was cutting deeper every time he tried to move.
“Good,” he said. “Stay with my voice. The Crown can use what you want, but it can’t make the final choice.”
The pressure in my head sharpened.
“He wants your blood. Every broken link has come from you. He will keep taking until nothing remains.”
My raised hand trembled.
Stellan’s expression changed. The words had reached him too.
“Will you?” I asked.
“No. I need your blood, and I want it, but I stopped when you pulled away. I’ll stop again.”
The Crown offered certainty. Stellan left the choice in my hands.
“You said I could take the time I needed.”
“You can. Attraction isn’t trust, and a kiss doesn’t settle either one. Wanting me doesn’t put you under my control. Wanting me free doesn’t put you under the Crown’s. You still decide what happens next.”
The Crown lowered until its band hung near my fingertips.
“Touch me, Bryony. Command him to kneel, and every truth will be yours. Command the doors, and no vampire will hold you here again. His hunger will never frighten you. His body will never refuse you.”
“I don’t want his obedience.”
Stellan gripped the doorway harder. “It’s offering control because Adrian frightened you. It’s offering my freedom because you want me. Neither promise tells you what it will take after you put it on. If it respected your choice, it wouldn’t have dragged you out of bed.”
I looked at the Crown. Red light ran around the band and gathered under the point aimed at me.
“Can it force my hand?”
“It can pull at every reason you have to reach for it. It can make refusal hurt. Harrowmere still needs you to choose. That’s why it’s talking instead of dropping onto your head.”
His voice stayed steady, although the collar was forcing his chin higher.
“And if I walk away?”
“It’ll punish me because that gives it another reason to call you back. Leave anyway. I’d rather take the chain than watch you give the Crown your voice.”
The iron at his throat tightened as if the court had heard him. Stellan’s breath stopped. His shoulders locked, and a dark line of blood appeared along the lower edge of the collar.
My body moved towards him.
The Crown stopped me after half a step. Pressure closed around my wrist without anything touching it, holding my hand in the air.
“He’s already dying. Take me, and you can save him. One touch will open the iron. One command will bring him to your feet.”
Fear tightened my chest. The pull wasn’t subtle now. It used Stellan’s blood, Edith’s warning and every locked door at once.
I wanted Harrowmere open. I wanted Adrian outside it. I wanted Stellan free enough to touch me without a chain deciding how far he could move.
Wanting those things didn’t make the Crown safe.
My trust in Stellan was unfinished. That didn’t make the Crown honest.
“Stellan.”
His breath came back in a harsh drag. “I’m here.”
“Keep talking.”
“Your name is Bryony Ellison. You came here with a torch and Edith’s key because you thought an animal was trapped. You questioned everything I told you. You tested the doors yourself and made Adrian lose his temper before he could frighten you into obeying.”
His mouth moved despite the strain in his face. “You chose when I fed. You chose when we entered the garden. You kissed me because you wanted to. The Crown didn’t give you any of those choices, and it can’t take them back. Keep hold of what you know.”
My fingers lowered by an inch.
The Crown flashed hot enough to make my eyes water.
“He killed the last woman who wore me.”
I knew that part. Adrian had said it in the garden, and Stellan hadn’t denied it.
“Tell me,” I said.
Stellan’s fingers slipped on the doorway. “I killed Cecily. I’ll tell you why, and you can decide what it means. I won’t let the Crown decide for you.”
He didn’t try to make the answer sound better. The pressure around my wrist loosened for one second, and I used it.
I grabbed the hem of my shirt with both hands and held on. The band dropped through the space where my fingers had been.
“No.”
I said it clearly. The Crown stopped turning.
Every light in the throne room went out except the red glow around its points.
“You would leave him in chains.”
“I’m leaving you above the throne.”
The longest point tipped towards Stellan.
“He will betray you. He will drink from you and call it necessary until you no longer know which choices were yours.”
“Then I’ll deal with Stellan. He doesn’t get my trust because I want his mouth on me, and you don’t get it because you can open a door. I’m still not fucking touching you.”
The Crown rose sharply. The air grew heavy enough to hurt my ears. The doors began to close behind me.
Stellan drove one foot over the threshold.
The chain at his waist snapped tight. The one at his throat jerked him back, but he caught the edge of the door with both hands and stopped it closing.
“Come to me,” he said. The words broke around the iron. “Don’t run. Keep your hands against your body and walk. The floor is slowing you, but it isn’t holding you. Take one step at a time and keep your eyes on me.”
I moved towards him.
Red light spread over the floor and wrapped around my ankles. Each step felt as if I were walking through deep water. The Crown followed above and behind me, silent now.
Stellan held the doors apart. Blood ran down the middle of his chest and darkened the open edge of his shirt.
“Let go. I can make the gap.”
“It’ll close faster if I release it. You have half the room left, and I can hold it that long.”
Blood ran faster down his chest.
His attempt at a smile failed. “You’re halfway here.”
I kept walking. The pull around my legs grew stronger as I passed the throne. A whisper filled the room, repeating my name until it became a steady sound without meaning.
Stellan’s gaze stayed fixed on me. He didn’t call me his queen. He didn’t tell me to trust him. He held the door and let me make the distance myself.
I reached the final few steps.
The Crown struck the back of my head with a burst of heat. My knees buckled, and my hand shot out towards the nearest solid thing.
The throne waited to my left.
Stellan tore one hand from the door and reached for me. “Bryony, take my hand.”
I lunged forwards and caught it.
His fingers closed around mine. The red light around my ankles broke. He pulled me over the threshold while I used his arm to stay on my feet.
The doors slammed against his shoulders.
Stellan shoved them back once, got me clear and released them. They crashed together between us and the Crown.
The whole court shook.
The chain at his throat dragged him away from me. His hand tore out of mine, and his back hit the sitting-room wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
I reached him as he slid down it.
“Stellan.”
He put one hand against the floor and tried to rise. His arm folded under him. The silver in his eyes had gone dull, and the red around his irises spread until almost none of the pale colour remained.
“Stay back for a moment.” His fangs had dropped. He turned his face away from my throat. “The fucking court took what I had left when I crossed the threshold.”
I crouched out of reach and looked at the iron. The collar had cut a deep line around the front and side of his neck. Blood ran steadily from it, too much for the wound to be closing.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad enough that I can smell your pulse from here. I can still control what I do with that information.”
His answer was calm. His body wasn’t. One hand shook against the floor, and the chain at his waist had pulled so tight that he couldn’t take a full breath.
“Can you get back to the throne?”
“Not without help, and I don’t want you near me until I’m certain the Crown is out of your head.”
I checked for its voice. Nothing pressed against my thoughts now.
“It’s gone.”
“Good.” He swallowed and winced as the collar moved against the cut. “The court spent me to hold the doors. Give me a minute, and I’ll get up.”
He didn’t have a minute. The blood reached his collarbone and kept running.
I looked towards the sealed throne room, then back at the vampire who wanted my blood and had hurt himself to keep the Crown away from my hands.
I was still angry about what he hadn’t told me. He was also dying in front of me.
The chain at Stellan’s throat tightened another link.
His eyes closed.