Page 110 of Blood Curse

Nobody formed neat lines. Nobody waited to be told where to stand. People gathered coats, packs and each other. A woman with a torn sleeve carried two sealed bottles of blood under one arm. The silver-haired guard who had been forced to hold Mara walked beside her, flexing her stiff fingers.

Stellan kept a few steps ahead of us. His silver hair was still untidy from the struggle, his coat torn at one shoulder. He looked nothing like a king in a portrait. He looked tired, hungry and very hard to move.

The main gate stood shut under the old stone arch.

Stellan lifted the bar with both hands. A dark-haired vampire moved to help him, then paused.

“May I?” he asked.

Stellan shifted to make room. “Please.”

Together they lowered the bar to the ground. The doors opened on damp fields and a road shining under a wet grey morning.

Cold air swept into Harrowmere.

The road should have looked ordinary. It ran between low stone walls, curved past the bare edge of the orchard and disappeared into darkness. There were no guards waiting outside it. Nothing in the fields promised safety. Still, the sight of that empty road loosened shoulders all around me.

An open gate was a small thing until somebody expected it to stay shut.

Nobody moved.

The Crown eased.

It liked their hesitation.

“This isn’t a test,” I said. “Leaving doesn’t make you disloyal. Staying doesn’t buy you favour. Decide what you want, then do it.”

The grey-faced vampire looked towards the road. “What if it summons us again?”

“Then you decide again,” I said.

“Can it force us back?”

“The summons pulled at your blood. It brought you here because the court was waking. It didn’t drag your feet along the road, and it can’t stop them carrying you away.”

I hoped that was true.

The Crown tightened at the thought.

Stellan heard the pause. “We have seen what the summons can do,” he said. “We haven’t seen it imprison anyone who chose to go. I won’t promise that it will never change its tactics. I can promise the gates will stay open.”

The grey-faced man nodded once. “That’s honest, at least.”

“Honesty is what you’ll get.”

“I’m owed quite a lot of sleep.”

“Take a room for the day if you need it,” I said. “You can still leave tonight.”

He stared at the open gate for a little longer. Then he stepped across it.

The Crown jerked against my scalp.

I left my hands at my sides.

Another vampire followed him, a short woman with mud dried to the hem of her green coat. She stopped on the road and turned back.

“My sister refused the summons,” she said. “If the Crown can use me against her, I need to warn her.”