Page 209 of Blood Curse

I pulled the dagger free and laid it on the basin wall.

The last dark line of blood followed the blade into the water. The wound stayed open, but the spring stopped drawing from it and my heart settled into a brutal, reliable rhythm. Elias watched my face and gave one short nod.

Bryony released my wrist only when she was satisfied the blade would stay on the wall.

“I’m here,” I said against her wet hair.

Her body shook once. “Good.”

One word, stripped of performance. The future we chose held inside it.

I pressed my blood-covered palm more firmly over hers.

The spring answered.

White light surged up every silver leaf. It crossed our joined hands and wrapped the Crown point by point. The metal fought by tightening. Bryony cried out, but she stayed against the carving.

I felt the moment the first point moved.

It dragged through skin with a wet metallic scrape. Blood slipped from under Bryony’s hair and ran down her temple. I turned my face towards it before hunger could become action, breathing rain instead of blood.

Another point shifted.

The Crown pulled upwards, slow and vicious, as though the spring was drawing a hooked thing from flesh. Bryony’s nails scraped the stone. Her hand under mine trembled so hard the silver flickered.

“Use me,” I said. “Not the blade. Me.”

She leaned back against my body. Her shoulder pressed to my chest, missing the wound by inches. Heat moved through soaked cloth and cold water. Even here, with blood circling our waists and an ancient curse trying to tear her apart, the contact was unmistakably ours.

Her weight steadied. So did her hand.

The Crown lifted another fraction.

A gap opened between the black band and her forehead. Red light spilled from it, reaching blindly for the paths the spring destroyed. It found nobody.

The court stood free beyond the gate.

Mara ordered everyone away from the failing roof. Elias remained beside us by choice, one hand hovering near my shoulder. Harrowmere shuddered, but it had lost the Crown’s route into their bodies.

The curse was trapped in metal again.

Bryony understood at the same moment I did.

Her free hand left the basin wall.

For one dangerous second, the Crown tried to claim it. Her fingers jerked towards my wound.

She stopped them halfway.

Then she raised that hand to her head.

The loosened metal cut her palm as she closed her fingers around it. Pain flashed across her face. She didn’t release the carving with her other hand until the spring’s light climbed over her wrist and held.

I lifted my palm from hers.

Bryony brought her blood-slick hand up from the silver.

With both hands, she gripped the Crown.