26. Bryony
brYONY
Stellan walked towards the throne with the chain pulling him faster than either of us wanted.
I stayed beside him and held the loose links away from his legs. The black blade felt warm where I’d tucked it under my belt. Lenora remained in my room with the door open, close enough for us to hear if her breathing changed.
The chain scraped around the edge of the throne and disappeared into a narrow slot under the seat. A silver raven covered the locking plate, its wings spread across the stone.
Stellan stopped on the dais. The collar loosened enough for him to breathe properly, although the iron still rested against the wounds it had opened earlier.
“Don’t use that blade on the collar,” he said. “It cut Adrian’s blood because his command came later. This chain belongs to the Crown. Cut the iron, and the court may push the restraint inside my body permanently.”
I took my hand away from the blade. “Then tell me how to open it without turning you into a prisoner I can’t see.”
“Use the anchor. Give the raven willing blood and name only the physical chain. Don’t ask the court to release my sentence or swear me to you in return. If Harrowmere offers more than the iron, refuse it.”
That was direct enough. I unwrapped the strip of cloth around my palm and found the cut almost closed.
Stellan caught my wrist before I reached for the sword. “You’ve bled enough tonight. The mark may open for what remains.”
“And if it doesn’t, I’ll give it one drop. I’m not slicing my hand open for dramatic effect.”
“I’m glad imprisonment hasn’t damaged your sense of proportion.”
I pressed my palm over the silver raven.
The metal warmed. White light filled the old cut and pulled one bright bead of blood to the surface. The raven drank it before it could run down my hand.
A voice whispered from inside the throne.
Free him and take his oath.
The words entered my thoughts in a voice that wasn’t mine. Power filled the lower court. For a second, I knew where every locked door stood and how to open it. I could remove the collar, bind Stellan to me and make certain he never chose another path.
My fingers tightened against the metal.
Stellan watched my face without touching me. “What did it offer?”
“Your oath. It wants me to trade the iron for control.”
“Then take your hand away. We can find another method.”
The Crown had used freedom against Stellan and power against me since I arrived.
I kept my palm on the raven. “Harrowmere, release the iron collar and its physical chain. Take no oath. Add no command. Stellan keeps every choice that belongs to him.”
The throne pushed back. Cold travelled up my arm, and the whisper sharpened.
He will leave you.
“He had the chance,” I said aloud. “He came back.”
Stellan’s attention stayed on me. He didn’t ask what the Crown had said.
The raven seal opened under my palm.
The chain ran loose through the slot. Stellan caught it before the weight pulled against his throat and fed the links through both hands until the final length lay across the dais.
The collar clicked.
He went still.
I reached for the iron and stopped with my fingers an inch away. “Can I?”
“Take it off.”
I opened the collar and lifted it from his neck.
The heavy ring hit the floor. Stellan drew a full breath and touched his throat. Nothing tightened. The chain lay dead beside us.
Then red light closed around both his wrists.
Two narrow bands appeared under his skin. Matching lines circled his ankles as the throne gave a low pulse.
“What the hell are those?” I asked.
Stellan turned one wrist. The red band moved with him. “The Crown’s blood restraints. They were hidden under the physical chains. I can move throughout the lower court now, but Harrowmere’s boundary will stop me. I also can’t harm the recognised heir while they remain.”
“So the iron is gone, but you’re still fucking chained.”
“Less than I was five minutes ago.” He stepped over the fallen collar and came close enough to put both hands on my waist. “You rejected the oath when it offered you complete control. That matters more than the cuffs tonight.”
“You came back when you could’ve left. That matters too.”
His thumbs pressed into my sides. “It doesn’t erase what I admitted.”
“I know. One good decision doesn’t wipe out the bad ones.” I touched the unbroken skin over one red band. “It does affect the decision I make next, and I’m choosing to face Adrian with you.”
Stellan lowered his head until his mouth was close to mine. “Together?”
“Together. You answer my questions, I don’t put a crown on my head, and neither of us does anything heroic and stupid without warning the other.”
“That last condition will be difficult for both of us.”
I kissed him before the conversation could become another argument. His arms tightened around me, and he took over the kiss at once. The lack of iron between us changed his hold. He could pull me against him without a chain scraping across the floor or closing around his throat.
His fangs pressed lightly against my lower lip. Heat moved down my body despite the blood drying on my clothes and the wounded vampire in my bedroom.
“Later,” I said against his mouth.
“Definitely.”
A cabinet door slammed in the passage.
We separated and looked towards the royal rooms. A second cabinet door opened, revealing a row of dark glass bottles on a low shelf.
Stellan’s expression changed. “The old blood store.”
“Is it safe?”
“It was prepared for wounded court vampires. Harrowmere opened it for Lenora because you brought her under royal protection.” He took the first bottle and checked the silver seal. “This one is clean. It will heal her, but it won’t remove a blood mark. We’ll check her before she leaves.”
We returned to the bedroom. Lenora opened her eyes when Stellan broke the seal, and her fangs dropped at the scent.
He passed her the bottle. “Hold it yourself and drink slowly. You lost enough blood to make speed a bad idea.”
Lenora ignored the final instruction and drank half of it in one pull. Colour returned to her face before she lowered the bottle.
“I said slowly.”
“You stopped being my king when the court chained you.” She took a shorter drink. “I’m following the important part.”
I checked the bandage on her side. The bleeding had slowed, and the skin around the wound was already drawing together.
“Will that repair your leg?” I asked.
“Enough for me to stand. The bone will take longer.” Lenora looked past me to Stellan’s bare throat, then at the red bands at his wrists. “You opened the final chain, but the blood restraints remain.”
“The iron is off,” I said. “The restraints hold him inside Harrowmere and stop him hurting me. Can Adrian use them?”
Lenora took another drink before giving me a full answer.
“He can push old commands into the restraints while the court still recognises his regency, but your rejection makes each attempt weaker. Once Harrowmere records this attack, Adrian will have to defend what he did in front of the outer court. If the guards speak and show the marks he put inside them, he may lose the authority he needs to reach Stellan at all.”
“Edith’s appointment called the regency temporary,” I said. “Why couldn’t she revoke it after she knew he’d corrupted the Crown?”
Lenora set the bottle down. “Because she tied it to Stellan’s holding sentence. Once Harrowmere sealed both orders, her uncrowned authority couldn’t cancel the regency alone. It ends when the sentence ends, a crowned heir replaces the regent or the formal court removes him for breaking his duty.”
“Adrian kept me chained, controlled the formal court and removed the witnesses Edith needed,” Stellan said. “Every route out depended on authority he already held.”
Lenora looked towards the garden. “The surviving guards and Harrowmere’s memory give us a route he doesn’t control.”
We had one job now. Keep the surviving guards alive, let Harrowmere hold the memory and put them in front of the vampires Adrian claimed to lead.
“Then we cut the marks out of the remaining guards,” I said. “After that, you take them outside.”
Stellan looked at Lenora’s leg. “She can barely stand.”
“I can stand well enough to get them past Adrian’s unmarked guard,” Lenora said. “If I stay here, he’ll tell the outer court that Stellan took me and slaughtered everyone who entered. I need to walk out with the survivors while the blood marks are still visible.”
“Adrian watched you help us,” I said. “He already knows you’re against him.”
“He knows I resisted one command. The vampires outside don’t know why, and I’m still commander. His unmarked guards have to obey me unless he removes my seal in front of them. That gives me enough authority to get these four into the witness room.”
Stellan took the empty bottle from her. “You’ll have minutes before he decides you’re more useful dead.
Don’t waste them trying to convince every frightened vampire at the gate.
Take the guards to the old witness room and seal the door.
Harrowmere can show its memory there when Bryony calls the court. ”
Lenora swung her legs over the side of the bed and tested the injured one. “That was my plan.”
“Then it’s improved with age.”
She stood before he could answer. Her left knee nearly gave way, but she caught the bedpost and stayed upright.
I held out the second bottle. “Finish this first. Adrian has already thrown you through one gate tonight. I’d prefer not to watch him do it again.”
Lenora accepted it and drank. “You sound like Edith.”
“She raised me. I’m comfortable with that.”
By the time we returned to the garden, the surviving guards had stopped fighting the vines.
The woman lay on her back with one hand over the cut in her armour.
The two men tangled in the roses watched us approach.
The fourth guard remained on his knees near the wall, breathing hard after vomiting Adrian’s blood.
The dead guard still lay beside the gate.
Stellan stopped long enough to close the man’s eyes. Then he took the black blade from my belt and crouched beside the nearest survivor.
“The command can’t make you attack while the garden holds you,” he said. “I’m going to cut the mark over your heart. Stay as still as you can.”
The guard nodded. “Do it.”
Stellan opened the armour and drew the black edge across the red line. Blood rose around the blade in a thin sheet, separated from the guard’s own, then gathered into a dark bead on the point.
Harrowmere pulled it into the stone.
The guard’s body went loose. The roses released one arm, waited and let the other go when he didn’t reach for a weapon.
We repeated the process with the second man. I held the woman’s wrist while Stellan cut her mark because her claws returned when the blade touched her skin. She fought the command, turned her hand away from me and let the garden pin her safely until the red light died.
Lenora stood near the gate with the final bottle in one hand and her sword in the other. Her face had regained its usual colour, although she kept most of her weight off the injured leg.
“Harrowmere,” I said, placing my palm on the low wall. “Hold the memory of Adrian’s blood and the attack he forced into these guards. Keep it for the court.”
White light moved under the blood on the path. It touched each survivor, passed over Stellan and gathered around the dead guard. Images flashed across the spring. Adrian cut his palm, guards struggled against his hands and Lenora was struck from behind.
Then the water cleared.
The marked blood was gone from the stones. A red line appeared inside the garden wall and sealed itself under the surface.
Lenora looked at it. “That will hold.”
The guards rose slowly. None reached for the weapons Harrowmere had pushed into a pile beside the roses.
The swordsman touched his broken ribs and faced Stellan. “You kept us alive after we attacked the heir.”
“You fought Adrian wherever you could,” Stellan said. “Remember that when he tells you obedience is the same as loyalty.”
Lenora moved to the service gate. The repaired iron remained bent, and light shone through the cuts around its frame.
“Once I open this, Adrian may try to mark us again,” she said. “Give me the blade. We’ll cut each other free if he reaches anyone.”
I passed it to her hilt first. “Take them to the witness room. Don’t stop to argue with Adrian, and don’t come back alone.”
“I’ll return when the outer court is ready to see what Harrowmere recorded. Keep him away from the Crown until then.”
“That was already the plan.”
Lenora pressed the blade into the damaged seal. The gate opened just wide enough for one person at a time. She led the four surviving guards into the passage, and the final man pulled the dead vampire through after them.
Stellan followed as far as the white line.
The red bands flared, and he stopped so quickly that I struck his back. The restraints had locked his feet to the path.
Lenora looked over her shoulder. “The boundary recognises the blood cuffs. Adrian can’t pull you out, and you can’t cross by choice.”
She closed the gate from the other side. White light sealed the opening.
I touched one glowing band. “We’ll get these off too.”
“I believe you.” His hand closed around mine. “For tonight, I can go anywhere inside the lower court without dragging half the throne behind me.”
A heavy door opened across the garden.
Dark wood replaced the blank stone between two rose bushes. The raven carved into it spread its wings, and a warm room waited beyond.
Stellan stared through the doorway. His grip tightened around my hand.
“Your room?” I asked.
“The Blood King’s rooms.”
I looked at his bare throat, the torn shirt and the door Harrowmere had kept closed for over a hundred years. “Apparently, the house thinks you need a bed.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth. “For once, the house and I agree.”