28. Bryony
brYONY
The wardrobe opened while I was reaching for my bloodstained green jumper.
A clean black top and matching skirt slid from the rail and landed across the nearest chair. The top had long sleeves and a low neckline, while the skirt had enough stretch to let me move properly.
“Harrowmere has opinions about my clothes,” I said.
Stellan buttoned a clean black shirt over his chest. “It has excellent judgement.”
“You’re agreeing because it chose black.”
“I’m agreeing because it wants you out of the stained clothes.” His gaze moved over me. “Although I support the neckline.”
I changed while he pulled on boots. The red bands around his ankles showed for a moment before the leather covered them. His wrist restraints remained visible under his open cuffs.
The witness bell rang again.
Stellan crossed the room and opened the door. The garden waited outside, but another doorway had appeared beside the spring. White light marked its frame, and voices came from the other side.
“That room sits across Harrowmere’s inner boundary,” he said. “The accused and the witnesses enter from the outer court. The Crown and Blood King enter from this side.”
“I’m not wearing the Crown.”
“Then the room will decide whether it accepts your blood without it. Don’t let anyone rush you across the dividing line. Adrian may still have guards in the outer passage.”
“You felt what he just tried to make you do. You don’t have to warn me about him.”
Stellan caught my hand before I could pass. “I’m warning you because the blood cuffs won’t let me follow if he reaches you on the other side.”
The humour left the room. I turned my hand and held his properly.
“I’ll stay where you can reach me until we know who’s waiting.”
We entered together.
The witness room was long and narrow, with bare stone walls and no furniture. A white line cut across the middle. Stellan’s side held a carved raven set into the floor. The outer half had five shallow bowls built into a waist-high ledge.
Lenora stood beyond the line with the four surviving guards. Their armour had been removed, leaving the blood marks over their hearts visible through torn shirts. The dead vampire lay under a black cloth near the outer door.
No one else had entered.
“Where’s Adrian?” I asked.
“He pulled every guard still loyal to him into the formal court and sealed the doors,” Lenora said.
“I got these four here first. Their blood opened the room and sent the witness call to every house tied to Harrowmere. The room will hold their account even if Adrian stops them reaching the formal court.”
The swordsman with the broken ribs braced one hand on the ledge. “Commander Cade said you could remove the regent’s mark and that the Blood King wouldn’t kill us afterwards. Both claims sounded fucking unlikely, but she was right.”
“Lenora,” she corrected.
He glanced at the commander’s seal on her shoulder. “You still have the rank.”
“Adrian gave me that rank. Use my name while we prove what he did with it.”
Stellan’s hand settled at the back of my waist. He stayed on the inner side of the room and watched the sealed outer door.
“What does the room need from me?” I asked.
Lenora pointed to the silver raven in the floor. “Blood and a clear accusation. It’ll test your right to bring the charge before it accepts their memories.”
“And if it rejects me?”
“The door opens and Adrian keeps calling you an intruder.”
I stepped onto the raven.
The silver warmed under my shoes. A narrow point rose from the bird’s beak, sharp enough to draw blood without the sword. I pressed my thumb against it.
One drop struck the raven’s head.
White light spread around my feet and climbed the walls. A woman’s voice filled the room, calm and empty of emotion.
“Edith Ellison carried the recognised line. Her daughter died before the claim passed. On Edith Ellison’s death, her granddaughter Bryony Ellison became the direct successor.”
My breath caught despite knowing the words were coming.
Mum had died with Dad when I was eight. Edith still carried the claim then. She’d raised me, protected the truth and left me the choice she’d refused Adrian.
The light tightened around my thumb.
“State the charge.”
I looked across the dividing line. “Adrian Rook used his authority as regent to put blood commands into Harrowmere’s guards and force them to attack the recognised heir and Blood King.
He murdered one of those guards when the man resisted.
I’m asking the court to hold the complete memory and remove Adrian’s right to command Stellan’s restraints while the charge is heard. ”
The red bands around Stellan’s wrists brightened. He didn’t move.
“Witnesses may answer,” the room said.
The woman guard placed both hands on the first bowl. The mark over her heart began to glow.
“Adrian ordered us to the service gate and said the heir had freed a violent prisoner,” she said.
“When Lenora questioned the order, he opened his wrist and marked us. I fought him. He held my face against the wall until I swallowed his blood, then ordered me to kill Bryony Ellison. The command remained active until Stellan Varen cut it from my heart.”
Her blood rose from the shallow bowl and spread across the wall.
The garden appeared in red and white light. We watched Adrian mark the guards, throw Lenora through the damaged gate and drive a blade into the man who tried to stop him. The memory continued after Adrian left. It showed Stellan cutting the marks from the survivors and Harrowmere releasing them.
The image ended with the dead guard striking the ground.
The swordsman stepped to the second bowl. “The Blood King had every chance to kill us. He killed the first guard because that man was attacking him and the heir. He kept the rest of us alive after we tried to do the same.”
The other guards placed their hands on the remaining bowls. Their blood joined the first memory instead of showing the attack again.
A red seal formed on the wall.
“The charge is held,” the room said. “Regent Adrian Rook must answer when the formal court opens.”
Stellan’s blood cuffs flashed. He bent one wrist and looked at the fading line.
“Did it weaken them?” I asked.
“It blocked Adrian from using the restraints until he answers the charge. The Crown’s original sentence remains.”
I stepped off the raven. “So he can’t order you to bring me to him again.”
“Not without entering this room and defending what he did.”
“He won’t come willingly,” Lenora said. “He has the formal court, the main gate and enough frightened vampires to slow us down. The witness call went out, but the outer houses will want to see the proof for themselves.”
“They will,” I said. “The room can keep it safe until they arrive.”
Lenora looked behind me. “It’s doing more than that.”
The silver raven had opened along its wings. A lit staircase descended under the room, and cold air carried the scent of old blood.
Stellan stared into the opening. “The Crown vault. It was sealed after Cecily died. Harrowmere accepted that Adrian’s attack was an attempt to take the Crown.”
Lenora moved towards the line and stopped short of it. “I’ll hold this room and keep the witnesses alive. If Adrian comes through the outer door, the seal will warn you.”
“Don’t fight him alone,” I said.
“I have four guards who are very angry about being forced to attack you.” The woman beside her bared her fangs. Lenora rested her hand on her sword. “We’ll manage the door.”
Stellan went down first. I followed close enough to see each step around his body. The entrance sealed over us after we reached the bottom, leaving the lamps to guide us along a short passage.
The vault door stood open.
Broken pieces of black stone filled shelves along one wall. Silver tools lay inside glass cases, most bent or burned. A row of narrow bottles held dark blood labelled with dates going back centuries. The air tasted metallic against my tongue.
“Failed coronations?” I asked.
“Failed attempts to control the Crown,” Stellan said. “Every queen added records of what didn’t work so the next heir wouldn’t repeat it. Cecily showed me this room once. Adrian was never allowed inside.”
A blood image moved across the far wall.
Adrian stood at a stone table with a bottle in one hand. I recognised the dark red blood inside it before Stellan spoke.
“Mine,” he said.
The recorded Adrian poured a small amount over a broken point from the Crown. Red light touched the metal and died. He swore, wiped the point clean and tried again with blood from a second bottle.
Nothing changed.
A blurred figure outside the memory asked a question. Adrian answered clearly.
“A common vampire can’t alter royal bloodwork. I need the heir wearing the Crown and the recognised Blood King alive long enough to surrender his heart.”
Bryony’s recorded name followed, although the rest of the sentence had been damaged. Adrian picked up a long silver dagger and pressed its point against a drawing of a vampire’s chest.
The image vanished.
I moved closer to the wall. “That was recorded before Edith died. He already knew who I was.”
“Edith kept you away, but she couldn’t remove your name from the bloodline.” Stellan examined the bottles. “Adrian knew the succession would reach you. He needed Harrowmere to recognise you before he began the rite.”
“And the blood he stole from you wasn’t enough.”
“Ordinary blood can power a command or ward. Heartblood carries the authority Harrowmere gave me as king. He intends to take it while your command stops me resisting.”
I looked at the red bands. “He reached your body without the Crown.”
“For seconds, using a command the restraints mistook for your protection. He needs your crowned voice to hold me still through the extraction.”
Adrian wanted the Crown on my head, Stellan unable to move and a knife in his heart. Everything else had pushed us towards those positions.
“Then the dagger stays in this vault,” I said.
Stellan turned towards the glass cases.
One case stood open at the end of the row. Dark velvet inside it held the outline of a long blade. A raven had been stitched into the fabric where the hilt belonged.
The case was empty.
Stellan read the inscription cut into the silver frame. His face hardened.
“That’s the heartblood dagger.”
I looked back at the wall where Adrian’s memory had held it.
“And he already has it.”