35. Stellan
STELLAN
The Crown had never freed anyone without demanding more in return.
It lay at Bryony’s feet with its narrow black points turned towards her. The red restraints under my skin remained dark. For the first time since Adrian had cut his commands into me, I couldn’t feel him pulling at my body.
That was exactly what the Crown wanted Bryony to notice.
“Don’t touch it,” I said.
She looked from the Crown to me. “I’m not fucking touching it.”
Adrian’s voice carried through the damaged doors. “It has already freed him. Pick it up and the rest of his restraints will follow.”
I moved closer to Bryony without stepping between her and the Crown. “It wants you to believe control is the same as freedom.”
“I’ve met that sales pitch.” She kept both hands at her sides. “I didn’t like the salesman.”
The black dagger punched through the crack again.
Stone split around it. The main doors opened several inches, stopped and ground wider as Adrian forced his arm into the gap.
Lenora took position on my right. “His guards are holding back.”
They’d seen the Crown silence my cuffs and watched two vampires die. Adrian could order them forwards, but fear would slow them for a second.
I only needed one.
“Bryony, keep the Crown in sight,” I said. “Don’t let it reach your hands.”
“That’s a horrible combination of instructions.”
The black blade moved another inch into the room.
“You can complain when the doors are closed.”
Adrian stepped through the gap.
“Kneel,” he commanded.
Nothing happened.
The shock on his face almost made the last century worthwhile.
I reached him before he could recover. My shoulder hit his chest and drove him back into the opening. His dagger arm struck stone. I caught his wrist with both hands and slammed it against the door until his fingers opened.
He kept hold of the dagger.
A guard came through beside him with a sword aimed at my ribs. Lenora caught the blade on hers, turned it aside and kicked him into the wall.
Two more tried to follow.
“Right door,” Bryony called.
Stone swung across the lower hall and cut them off from Adrian. One jumped back. The other lost the end of his coat when the door closed.
The fourth guard stayed beyond the silver line.
Adrian drove his forehead into my face. Bone cracked across my nose. I didn’t release his wrist.
“You wanted the Blood King,” I said. “Here I am.”
I bit into his shoulder.
His blood hit my tongue, old and bitter from the commands he’d fed into his guards. I tore through cloth and flesh until he shouted. The sound pleased me more than the blood.
Adrian brought the dagger up between us.
I twisted. The black point missed my heart and opened my side from ribs to hip.
Pain burned across the cut. The wound stayed open.
He smiled against my hair. “That blade knows your blood.”
I hit his wrist against the stone again.
The heartblood dagger slipped in his grip. Another strike would free it.
The Crown scraped across the floor behind me.
Bryony swore.
I looked over my shoulder. The Crown had moved against the toe of her boot. One point lifted towards her ankle while she backed away.
“Stellan, it’s following me.”
“It needs your hand. Don’t give it one.”
The Crown rose another inch.
Bryony grabbed the broken sword lying near the doors. She used the flat of the blade to shove the Crown away from her.
“No,” she said. “I’m not wearing you to borrow control over him.”
The Crown struck the base of the throne.
Red fire closed around my wrists.
Adrian’s smile widened. “Hold still.”
My body locked with his wrist still trapped in my hands. I fought to finish the movement. My fingers wouldn’t close.
He pulled the dagger free and pressed its edge to my throat.
Bryony stayed away from me, exactly as I’d told her. Her gaze dropped to the floor around Adrian.
“Thorns,” she said.
Black vines burst between the flagstones.
They wrapped Adrian’s dagger arm and drove thorns through his sleeve. Another length caught his ankle. He cut the first vine, but three more replaced it.
The pressure on my body weakened.
I seized his coat and threw him across the silver line.
Adrian hit one of his guards and took him down. Lenora shoved the vampire she’d been fighting after them. Bryony pulled the side door open long enough for the other two to retreat.
I took one step towards Adrian.
The cuffs flared again.
“Close them,” I said.
Bryony’s palm struck the wall. The main doors slammed shut while Adrian was still getting to his feet.
Darkness covered the red restraints. My knees nearly gave out with the sudden release.
Bryony reached me after the doors met. She stopped just outside my arms, checking my wrists first.
“They’re dark,” I said.
She caught my face and examined my broken nose. “You look awful.”
“I was winning.”
Two fingers stopped my mouth before it reached hers. “Not yet.”
I stopped. Her gaze dropped to the cut down my side and the blood soaking my waistband.
“The dagger prevents it healing,” I said. “Your blood will slow the bleeding, but the cut stays open while its command remains active.”
Anger replaced her fear. “Then we take the bloody dagger.” She rolled up her sleeve and held her wrist near my mouth. “This is triage, not an answer to what you hid.”
I took her wrist. Three mouthfuls dulled the burn and drew the wound together enough to hold under pressure. I lifted my mouth before her pulse changed.
Bryony covered the bite and checked the red line still running from my ribs to my hip. “Enough to keep you alive?”
“And fighting.”
Lenora wiped her blade on the dead vampire’s coat. The guard was still alive, though he wouldn’t stand again without blood. “Adrian won’t offer his hand twice.”
I pressed my palm over the wound. The edges remained hot and open. “He won’t need to. He has to put the blade against a seal to open it.”
Bryony looked at the crack in the main doors. “Which gives us his position.”
“And one occupied hand,” Lenora said.
Bryony looked at my wrists. “Is the dagger controlling the cuffs as well as the doors?”
“Adrian used it to cut the first blood commands into me after Edith closed the iron restraints. The cuffs recognise it. That’s why he can wake them while he remains outside Harrowmere’s inner wards.”
“If we take it, do the cuffs disappear?”
I wished I could give her that answer. “No. It stops him activating them from outside and prevents him cutting new commands. We still have to remove what’s already under my skin.”
She absorbed the answer without looking away. “One problem at a time. We take the dagger, then we deal with the cuffs.”
Lenora checked the split in the doors. “He keeps the blade close to his body. Our best chance is when he uses it on a seal.”
“Then we make the next door difficult enough to need his full attention,” Bryony said.
I looked at the side sections she’d just controlled. “You give him one route. Lenora and I take opposite sides. He can block one of us.”
“And the house closes the door behind his arm,” she said.
The plan was brutal, direct and likely to work. I loved her a little more for suggesting it.
Bryony kept her gaze on the sealed doors. “If you kill Adrian, what happens to the cuffs?”
“He can’t give them another order. The commands already cut into me will remain until we remove them.”
She considered that for a moment. “So killing him still improves the situation.”
“Considerably.”
Lenora checked the edge of her sword. “His guards may keep fighting after he dies.”
“Then they’ll be choosing it,” Bryony said. “I can live with that.”
I touched her shoulder. “You won’t have to fight them.”
She faced me. “I’m not planning to wave a sword around. I’ll close the doors and let the two vampires handle the biting.”
“A sensible division of labour.”
“I have my moments.”
A dull strike hit the other side. The doors held.
Bryony retrieved the broken sword and pushed the Crown farther under the throne. She didn’t touch the metal.
“Was it really freeing you?” she asked.
“It was silencing Adrian while it thought you might accept its offer. The second you refused, it gave him control again.”
Bryony nudged the broken blade between herself and the Crown.
“So it helped him punish me for saying no.”
“Yes. It wanted the punishment to make its offer look safer.”
Her eyes stayed on the black metal. “If I’d waited to refuse, would it have kept your cuffs dark?”
“For a few more seconds, perhaps.”
“Long enough for you to take the dagger?”
I understood why she needed the answer. “Possibly. It also might have moved into your hand while I was fighting Adrian.”
She used the broken sword to hold the Crown in place. “Can it force my fingers around it?”
“No. It can move close enough for you to catch it without thinking. The court may treat that as acceptance.”
“So I don’t catch the evil Crown.”
The Crown scraped against the broken blade she held over it.
“Not even if it falls towards your bare foot.”
Her stare moved from the Crown to my face. “Has anyone ever told you how ridiculous this place is?”
“For one hundred and twelve years.”
The answer earned a quick smile. It faded when the Crown pressed against the broken blade.
“I’m not using it to buy you a few seconds,” she said. “We take Adrian’s weapon without giving this one what it wants.”
“Agreed.”
Her grip tightened on the broken sword. “I’m going to enjoy destroying it.”
The certainty in her voice affected me more than the pain. I wanted to put her against the throne and remind both of us that her body still belonged to her. The blood running down my side made that a poor idea.
Bryony caught me looking at her.
“Don’t even think about it. You have a hole in you.”
“A temporary problem.”
She pressed the folded cloth harder against my side.
“One that’s leaking on my floor.”
“Your floor?”
She gave me a look and tore a clean strip from the hem of her black top. “Argue after I stop the bleeding.”
I let her wrap the cloth around my waist. Her hands stayed firm and careful. She didn’t apologise for refusing the Crown, and I didn’t insult her by wishing she’d accepted even a second of its control for me.
“You did the right thing,” I said.
“I know.” She tied the cloth tight enough to make me hiss. “You can tell me again if you need the reminder.”
I laughed despite the pain. “There she is.”
Lenora watched the silver light around the doors. “The main seal is weaker, but he’s stopped cutting it.”
“He knows the Crown can interfere with his commands,” Bryony said. “He also knows we’re waiting for his dagger hand.”
I tested the bandage. Blood still seeped through, although the pressure slowed it.
“He’ll change his approach,” I said. “We don’t need to predict every version. The dagger is the only tool that opens royal seals and keeps these cuffs active from outside.”
Bryony picked up my sword and handed it to me hilt first. “Then the next plan stays simple. He reaches in with it, and we take his arm.”
A soft metallic scrape came from under the throne.
The Crown slid back into the light.
Bryony lowered the broken sword towards it. “Stay there.”
The Crown stopped moving.
For several seconds, none of us spoke.
Then one black point slowly turned towards me.