Page 132 of Blood Curse

The fires bent towards Stellan. Red light flashed over the old dais and ran along the floor in thin lines. The Crown surged hot enough to tear a breath from me.

Then the power stopped.

It didn’t fade. It stopped.

The Crown reached for the court and found nothing waiting.

A woman near the windows gasped and pressed a hand to her chest. The man with the coat dropped it. Across the hall, shoulders lowered and hands opened. One vampire laughed once, startled by the sound.

Mara walked away from Stellan.

She crossed half the hall, stopped beside the grey-braided woman and turned around.

“Call me back,” she said.

Stellan’s mouth flattened. “Mara.”

She waited.

“Come here.”

Mara didn’t move.

The Crown flared, but nothing passed through it. Stellan’s words remained words.

Mara smiled. “Not a fucking twitch.”

Relief moved through the room without becoming applause. That made it feel real. Nobody needed to praise Stellan for returning something that should always have belonged to them.

Mara came back anyway.

“Choice?” he asked.

“Don’t make me regret demonstrating it.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

The woman leaned forward. “Does the release stop the Crown using Bryony’s voice on us?”

The question brought every eye back to me.

Elias answered before Stellan could soften it. “No. A direct command spoken inside Harrowmere can still catch any vampire who hears it. The release closes the old route into your blood. It doesn’t silence the Crown.”

“So what changed?” somebody asked from near the fire.

“It has to reach you openly now,” Elias said. “It can’t lean on an inherited oath before the first word is spoken. You have time to recognise Bryony’s signal, move away or prepare to wait for her revocation.”

I looked around the hall. “If it uses me, don’t treat the command as something I chose. Stop whoever is in immediate danger, and don’t punish the person it forces to act.”

“We saw you revoke it,” the injured woman said. “We know who fought for us.”

The Crown pressed cold points against my scalp.

Stellan stepped closer to my chair without blocking anyone’s view of me. “Two fingers means Bryony is present and fighting. If the signal disappears, you still protect yourselves. You don’t injure her to reach the Crown unless a life depends on it.”

Mara folded her arms. “Simple enough. Try not to panic, try not to stab the human and listen when she takes her voice back.”

“You make it sound easy,” a man said.