44. Bryony
brYONY
The blade snapped, and every marked guard beyond the doors screamed.
Their pain hit Harrowmere in a single violent wave. Fists hammered against the sealed doors. Stone groaned around the frames while the Crown poured heat over my scalp and showed me every man Adrian had tied to his command.
Thin red marks burned under their skin. They ran from throat to heart, each one bright with the last order he had given.
Kill anyone who stood between him and the throne.
Adrian lay dead at Stellan’s feet, yet his order remained inside the men he had controlled.
“Bryony,” Lenora said. “If those doors open while the marks are active, they’ll attack.”
Stellan pulled the broken dagger out from under his boot. Blood soaked his shirt and spread lower from the wound in his side. He looked ready to fight every guard left in the court.
He could barely keep his shoulders level.
“You’re not fighting them,” I said.
His gaze met mine. “That sounded dangerously close to an order.”
“Sit down before Lenora tackles you.”
He braced one hand against the throne instead. I accepted the compromise because the doors shook again.
The Crown had shown me Harrowmere’s locks, wards and old chains. The marks inside Adrian’s guards felt different. They didn’t belong to Harrowmere. They were thin hooks pushed into living blood and held there by an authority that had just died.
I reached through the Crown for every hook.
Heat rushed down my spine. White light travelled across the throne-room floor, slipped under the doors and spread through the lower court. The guards struck the doors once more. Their blows stopped as the light climbed their bodies.
The marks resisted until I tightened my hands around the arms of the throne and held on. Adrian had built his commands out of pain, fear and years of obedience. Those things had weight, but they had no right to stay.
“His authority is dead,” I said. “Release them.”
The white light sharpened.
Red lines tore free from the guards one after another. Each mark burned for a heartbeat in the air, then vanished. Men fell to their knees across the lower court. A few dropped their weapons. The rest stared at their hands as if they had only just got them back.
Lenora let out a breath. “Open the doors. And you,” she said to the freed guard beside her, “stand well away from the opening.”
He moved quickly, and I opened the doors wide enough for Lenora to step through. Stellan pushed away from the throne.
“Stay there,” I said.
His mouth almost curved, but he stayed where he was.
Splintered benches covered the lower court, and one wall had cracked. Adrian’s guards knelt among broken weapons and blood, their faces blank with shock.
Lenora stopped in the doorway. “Adrian is dead. His commands are gone.”
A guard with blood drying over half his face looked up at her. “Commander?”
“Not anymore.”
“What happens to us?”
Lenora looked back at me.
Every eye in the court followed hers. The Crown grew hot while Harrowmere waited for my answer.
“Put down your weapons,” I said. “You’re leaving.”
One of the older guards frowned. “Leaving for where?”
“Anywhere outside my gates.”
“You can’t send us out unarmed.”
“You came into this court to help Adrian murder us. I can send you out naked if you want to argue.”
Several guards decided the floor deserved their full attention.
The older man set down his sword. “We were commanded.”
“I know. That’s why you’re walking out instead of being carried.”
He looked at Adrian’s dead marks fading from his wrists, then lowered his head. Weapons struck stone across the court.
Lenora pointed towards the damaged main doors. “Form a line and move. Anyone who reaches for a weapon gets to explain the choice to me.”
“You said you weren’t commander,” the bloodied guard said.
“I’m discovering that retirement doesn’t suit me.”
The first guards stood. They moved slowly at first, then faster as Harrowmere opened a clear route through the ruined entrance hall.
I felt each vampire cross the threshold. Harrowmere released them without resistance. They gathered beyond the split main gate while the last of Adrian’s soldiers came out through the service passage.
No one fought, and no one asked to stay. The line kept moving until every guard had passed beyond the gate and started down the road.
When the final guard cleared the grounds, Lenora came back inside and shoved the damaged main door as far as it would go. One hinge hung loose from the wall.
“That won’t hold,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to.”
I pressed my palm to the throne.
Harrowmere answered through stone, iron and old white wards. The broken doors dragged together as cracks closed around their frames. Outside, twisted iron pulled straight and locked the split gate into place. A slab of stone sealed the service entrance.
Harrowmere settled around us with a deep shudder.
Silence reached the throne room.
Lenora tested the main doors. They didn’t move. “Useful.”
“I’m adding that to my list of queenly talents.”
“It’s still a short list.” Her smile faded when she looked towards Stellan. “The court is secure. I’ll take the others through the rooms and check for anyone Adrian left behind.”
“Thank you.”
Lenora nodded once. She gathered the three freed guards and led them out through a side door.
The latch had barely closed when I left the throne and crossed the room.
Stellan caught me when I reached him, though his grip lacked its usual strength. I put one arm around his waist and kept the other away from the wet tear in his shirt.
“You’re bleeding everywhere.”
“And you were magnificent.”
The bond carried the rough drag of his pain and the fierce relief underneath it. I pressed my forehead to his chest and listened to his heart.
“We did it,” I said.
His hand slid into my hair and stopped when his fingers touched the Crown. “We did.”
I lifted my head. Blood streaked one side of his face, and the wound in his side still hadn’t closed. He was alive, Adrian was dead and the guards were gone. Harrowmere belonged to us.
Relief hit me so hard my knees weakened.
Stellan tightened his arm around me. “You’re shaking.”
“You have a hole in your side. You don’t get to worry about me.”
“I can manage both.”
A laugh escaped me, shaky but real. His lips touched my temple, close to the white metal around my head.
“Take it off,” he said quietly.
“Gladly.”
I reached up and found the Crown’s narrow band behind my ears. It was still warm from the power I had used. My fingers closed around it, and I lifted.
The metal didn’t move.
I adjusted my grip and pulled harder.
Pain bit across my scalp. The Crown stayed fixed against my head.
Stellan’s arm went rigid around me. “Bryony?”
“Give me a second.”
I slid my fingers under the band and tried to work it loose. There was no clasp, pin or strand of hair caught under it. The white metal sat flush against my skin.
I pulled again until my eyes watered.
The Crown would not lift.