42. Bryony
brYONY
Every part of Harrowmere opened to me at once.
I felt the broken main doors, the damaged service gate and the rooms stretching above us. White wards ran through the walls. Red marks stained the passages wherever Adrian’s commands had touched them.
The Crown sat cold and heavy on my head.
Stellan lay beside the throne with the dagger against his heart. His blood covered Adrian’s hand, but the power inside it hadn’t crossed into the blade.
Adrian waited for me to obey.
“Go fuck yourself.”
Adrian’s face emptied of expression.
The words hadn’t carried any magic. I’d spoken to him as myself, and the Crown hadn’t stopped me.
Relief moved through Stellan so hard that I felt it in my knees. His left hand stayed loose inside the chain, hiding how close he was to pulling free.
Adrian pushed the dagger into his chest.
“You accepted the Crown,” he said. “Use it.”
“I am.”
The whole house waited behind my next breath. Harrowmere would close doors, move stone or tear its own wards apart if I gave the order. It would also reach for Stellan’s body if I named him carelessly.
I could separate the house from the people inside it. Doors registered as solid shapes, and the wards warmed my skin. Stellan was alive at the centre of the court, held by restraints placed over his body instead of belonging to it.
The Crown gave me access to all of them. It didn’t give me the right to use him.
I kept my attention on the restraints.
“Harrowmere, release every chain holding Stellan. Leave his mind, his body and his blood under his control.”
White light struck the red links.
Adrian grabbed the chain around Stellan’s throat. “Hold the Blood King.”
The house ignored him.
The red links tightened once, fighting the release. Stellan’s back lifted from the floor as the chain cut into his throat. I felt his pain and the force he used to remain still while white fire moved from one link to the next.
“Release him,” I said.
The chain around his throat split.
Adrian recoiled as the broken ends struck the floor. The restraints around Stellan’s wrists flickered, but the dagger kept feeding red light into them.
I could have ordered Stellan to tear it out. The Crown made that path feel easy. One sentence would move his hand, turn his body and use his strength exactly as I wanted.
That was Adrian’s answer to everything, and I wouldn’t use it.
The clear wall around the dais cracked under Lenora’s seal blade. She struck the same point again while the freed guards braced behind her.
Adrian looked towards them and shouted, “Captain, kneel.”
Lenora’s legs buckled under the force.
I reached for the ward between us instead of her body. “Harrowmere, protect Lenora and the guards freed from Adrian’s marks. Carry no order from him into their blood.”
The clear wall shattered.
White light wrapped around Lenora and the three guards. Adrian’s command broke before it forced her knees to the floor.
She caught herself on the seal blade and looked up at me. “That’ll do.”
“Can you hold the others away from him?” I asked.
Lenora checked the guards behind her. The last vampire they’d freed was still unsteady, but he had a sword in his hand and no red light in his eyes.
“We’ll hold the room,” she said. “Deal with Adrian.”
I left that choice with her. The protection stayed around them without directing where they stood or how they fought.
Footsteps pounded in the passage beyond the broken doors. More of Adrian’s guards had reached the lower court. Their red marks showed through the walls now that the Crown had tied me to every ward.
The house offered me all of them at once. I could feel doors waiting above necks and stone ready to close around limbs. The amount of damage I could do with a few careless words turned my stomach.
“Harrowmere, close every door against anyone carrying Adrian’s command. Hold them without killing them. Keep the path between Lenora and the throne open.”
The throne room doors slammed.
A vampire made it halfway through. The doors stopped against his shoulders instead of crushing him. White bands wrapped around his arms and pulled him back into the passage before the stone sealed.
More doors closed through the lower court. The impacts travelled under my feet, one after another, cutting Adrian off from every guard he still controlled.
I felt each trapped vampire strike the other side. Harrowmere held their arms and legs with white bands while leaving their throats and chests clear. They could breathe and swear, and several of them were making full use of that freedom.
The house would keep them alive until Lenora could remove the marks. That was enough for now. I had no interest in using the Crown to make their choices for them either.
Lenora climbed the steps with the seal blade ready. The freed guards spread across the room and took positions at the broken entrances.
Adrian tightened his grip on the dagger. “You think opening doors and protecting traitors makes you queen?”
“I think the Crown has terrible taste.”
Stellan’s anger warmed the bond. He was bleeding under Adrian’s hand, pinned by the last two chains, and still managed to be amused.
Adrian heard the light catch in my voice. His expression twisted with fury.
“You’re wearing the same Crown that destroyed Cecily,” he said. “It will strip every soft human thought out of you. You’ll beg me to take it when you understand what it wants.”
The metal pressed harder against my temples. Pain spread behind my eyes, but no other voice answered him. I could still feel my own hands, my own anger and the fear I had no reason to hide.
Stellan remained in the middle of it. The bond carried the pain of the dagger, the pressure of the last chains and the control holding his body still. Under those sensations, he was ready. Adrian had mistaken that stillness for obedience again.
“You’re the only thing in this room I want gone.”
I placed my palm against the side of the throne. Harrowmere’s power rushed into the final chains around Stellan’s wrists.
Adrian leaned his weight onto the dagger. The blade entered another fraction, and Stellan’s blood ran down the black metal.
“Give the command,” Adrian said. “Do it now, or I’ll push this through his heart.”
“You can’t take what’s bound to him without me.”
“I can still kill him.”
Fear tore through my control. The throne room shook, and a crack raced across the step between Adrian’s knees.
The Crown gave me enough power to stop Stellan from moving. It couldn’t stop the dagger already touching his heart unless I used his body to do it.
I looked at him.
His face was pale under the blood. He met my eyes without asking for an order. The last time Adrian threatened him, Stellan had trusted me to lift the Crown. Now he waited for me to finish what I had started.
I pressed harder against the throne.
“Harrowmere, remove Adrian’s command from every restraint on your king. Add nothing in its place.”
The red light inside the wrist chains went out.
For one second, nothing moved. Power still ran from the Crown to Stellan, ready to take his body if I gave it direction. Adrian saw the hesitation and smiled as if he believed I had finally reached the part where I needed him.
I pushed more power into the restraints while keeping it away from Stellan’s body.
Adrian drove the dagger down.
Stellan’s hand snapped free and closed around the blade before it reached his heart. Blood cut across his palm, but he held the point away from his chest.
Adrian threw his weight behind it.
The second chain broke.
I left the open path between the Crown and Stellan empty.
“I’m not giving you an order,” I said. “What you do next is yours.”
Stellan rose with the dagger still against his chest and caught Adrian’s wrist.