32. Bryony
brYONY
Stellan kept his hand in mine.
He didn’t pull me closer or ask whether I forgave him. He stood where I’d left him and waited while I tried to fit his confession around the man I knew.
He’d made a terrible choice for a woman he loved, then hidden it because he feared making the same mistake with me. I understood him well enough for that to hurt.
“No more careful answers,” I said. “If I ask, you tell me everything, even when you think I’ll leave.”
His thumb moved across my palm. “Especially then.”
The promise didn’t erase the lie or return the dead, but it gave me the facts to decide what came next.
I tightened my fingers around his and drew him half a step closer.
Stellan’s eyes dropped to my mouth. “You’re still angry.”
“Very.”
“I can give you space.”
I almost caught the front of his black shirt. Wanting him hadn’t stopped when he told me about Cecily. That was exactly why I needed to think before I let wanting decide what his confession meant.
I released his hand.
“I don’t want you gone. I want a boundary.”
He went still. “Tell me.”
“No bed. No feeding. Not while I’m still trying to work out whether you trust me with the truth only after I drag it out of you.”
Heat remained in the bond, sharp enough to make the distance between us hurt. Good. The consequence needed to cost both of us something.
“Understood,” he said.
“Don’t say it as if I’m punishing you.”
“You aren’t. You’re deciding what access I have to you after I hid something that mattered.”
The answer took some of the fight out of me. It didn’t take the anger.
“And if you’re frightened the truth will make me leave?”
“I tell you while I’m frightened.” His mouth tightened. “I failed to do that before.”
I believed him. Belief wasn’t repair.
Stellan stepped back without making me ask twice. The bond carried the strain of it, but he didn’t use that strain to pull me closer.
“One more answer,” I said. “When you feed from me, is that connected to the Crown?”
“No. Feeding belongs to us. Harrowmere and the Crown have no part in it.”
“And it doesn’t weaken the restraints?”
“It restores my strength. It doesn’t remove Adrian’s commands.”
Relief came first. I wanted his restraints gone, but not through sex or blood the court expected from me.
“If the bottles stop being enough, what happens?”
“I tell you. Then you decide what, if anything, you give me.”
“That sounds more like everything.”
“I’m learning.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. Stellan chose the chair across from me, leaving the space I’d asked for even though every part of him looked built to close it.
The distance gave me room to breathe. It also made the shape of the problem clearer. Stellan had answered every question once I forced it into the open. That wasn’t the same as trusting me before I knew which question to ask.
“An answer only helps if I know there’s something to ask about.”
“You’re right.”
“I can’t build a map of every secret in this court and hope I eventually step on the right one.”
He rested his forearms on his knees. His hands stayed open between them. “Then I stop waiting for the perfect question. If I know something that affects your safety, your authority or a choice you’re making, I tell you.”
“Even if you think it will frighten me.”
“Fear is information. I don’t get to keep it from you because I dislike what you might do with it.”
That was closer. It still sounded neat in a room holding the remains of a very ugly truth.
“What are you frightened to tell me now?”
He didn’t look away. “I don’t know every command Adrian buried in the restraints. I know the ones he’s used. I don’t know what he prepared and never needed.”
Cold moved through me. “Could one make you attack me?”
“Yes.”
The word landed without comfort around it. He let me have the worst version first.
“Could my authority trigger them?”
“I don’t know. Your blood opened my prison and Harrowmere recognises you. The chains were made under the Crown’s authority. Until they’re gone, I won’t pretend those things can’t reach each other.”
I looked at the faint red marks under his skin. I’d touched them, fed him while they held him and slept with his body around mine. They had begun to look like scars because I wanted them to be scars. They were still weapons.
“How do I know if a command has taken you?”
“The marks usually brighten first. I go still because I’m fighting it, then I move whether I’ve won or not.” His voice remained level. “If that happens, don’t come closer. Use the house. Put stone between us and call Lenora.”
“You want me to lock you away.”
“For as long as it takes to stop me.”
The answer scraped against every promise I’d made about freeing him. “And if you can still speak?”
“Listen, but watch the marks. Adrian can force my body. He hasn’t been able to put words in my mouth.”
“So far.”
“So far,” he agreed.
No false certainty. No attempt to make the danger small enough for me to stay. The honesty frightened me more than reassurance would have, but fear with edges was something I could use.
“If I tell you to leave because you’re dangerous, you go,” I said. “If you decide you’re dangerous and try to disappear without telling me, I’ll have Harrowmere bring you back.”
Something changed in his face. Not amusement. Pain, perhaps, at being included in a plan that assumed he would survive it.
“Agreed.”
“You don’t get to turn guilt into another decision you make for both of us.”
“I know what that costs now.”
“You knew before.”
His jaw tightened. “Yes. I did it anyway.”
The admission mattered because it didn’t ask intention to carry the weight of consequence.
I thought of Edith hiding my blood, my family and the court under my feet. She’d loved me. She’d also left me walking blind into the danger she’d spent my whole life avoiding. Love could explain a secret and still fail the person it was meant to protect.
“I understand why you waited with Cecily,” I said. “That’s the part I hate most. I know how grief can make one more day feel reasonable. I know how love can make secrecy feel like protection.”
Stellan’s eyes stayed on mine. “Understanding it doesn’t make it yours to forgive.”
“No. But it means I could make the same mistake if I start believing my reasons matter more than everyone else’s right to know.”
The Crown waited somewhere inside Harrowmere. Adrian wanted it on my head because he believed power would finish what fear began. Refusing it now didn’t guarantee I would never touch it. A desperate choice had destroyed this court once already.
“If I ever wear the Crown, I’m not alone with it,” I said. “Lenora is present. Harrowmere records every order. If I ask you to conceal something I’ve commanded, you tell the witnesses.”
“I will.”
“If I start closing gates because disagreement feels like betrayal, you say it where other people can hear.”
“You may hate me for it.”
“Then let me hate you alive and informed.”
His breath left him slowly. “I can do that.”
“And you don’t obey a dangerous order just because it came from me.”
“If the Crown uses your voice, choice may not be available to me.”
“Then fight it long enough for someone else to act.”
“That I can promise.”
I pressed my palm into the mattress. The bond pulled towards him, carrying the steady ache of his restraint and the want neither of us had lost. Keeping the boundary didn’t require pretending I felt nothing. It required letting what I felt exist without allowing it to make the decision.
“I still want you,” I said.
His expression didn’t soften into victory. “I still want you.”
“Wanting you isn’t forgiveness.”
“No.”
“And distance isn’t abandonment.”
For the first time since he’d begun the confession, his control slipped. His fingers curled against his palms before he opened them again. “All right.”
I reached across the space and touched the back of his hand with two fingers. The contact was brief and entirely mine. Warmth moved through the bond, quiet rather than consuming.
“We start with the truth,” I said. “Repair comes after.”
“However long it takes.”
There were more questions between us than I could ask in one night. For once, I knew he wouldn’t use the silence between them as permission to hide.
I wasn’t ready to ask every question about Cecily, but he wasn’t spared them. I was choosing when I could hear the answers without using his body to silence my anger.
“I meant what I said,” I told him. “I’m not putting you in a position where you have to choose whether to kill me.”
“Then we remove Adrian and destroy the Crown.”
“Simple.”
He gave me a dry look. “I didn’t say easy.”
A heavy impact shook the room.
Stellan was on his feet before the vibration left the floor.
I stood with him. “Was that the throne-room wall?”
“Farther away.” He turned towards the door. “The main gate.”
A second blow travelled through Harrowmere. Stone cracked somewhere beyond the lower court.
White light flashed under our door and went out.
We ran. Stellan pulled a short sword from the wall rack as we reached the lower hall.
The third strike split the main gate.