Page 35 of Blood Curse

The Crown warmed against my scalp.

“He trained it,” I said.

“Yes. For a century.”

“You’re sure?”

“I treated the first people he used before he drove us from Harrowmere. Later victims found members of the scattered court. They all described the same thing.” Elias’s mouth tightened. “He kept feeding the appetite until obedience became the quickest way for the Crown to gain strength.”

Mara pushed away from the wall. “Adrian didn’t invent its hunger. He taught it gluttony.”

That was unpleasantly clear.

It also made the curse less mysterious. Adrian hadn’t uncovered a grand design or served some hidden enemy. He had found a dangerous object and spent a century making it worse because power interested him more than people. Every command taught the Crown that resistance could be broken. Every stolen offering taught it that obedience brought blood.

The knowledge didn’t make the metal lighter, but it gave me something solid to hate. The appetite on my head had been trained. Training could be interrupted.

“It reacted when the court knelt,” I said. “Not when they agreed to Stellan’s rules. The ritual submission gave it pleasure.”

“And passed that pleasure into you,” Elias said.

“How did you know?”

“Because Cecily told me.”

Stellan went still.

Elias’s voice softened. “She came to me twice before Adrian barred me from her rooms. She said ordinary affection felt distant, but obedience struck like heat. I thought the Crown was amplifying what she already wanted. I was wrong.”

“We were all wrong,” Stellan said.

“We were frightened and missing half the truth,” Elias replied. “You were the man Adrian buried, not the man who failed to dig himself out.”

Stellan looked away. The relief returned despite his effort to hide it.

I reached for his hand. He took mine.

“Can it be destroyed?” I asked.

Elias didn’t soften the answer. “I haven’t seen it done.”

“That isn’t the same as impossible.”

“It isn’t. The royal spring may quiet it.”

“What spring?”

“The one Harrowmere was built around. It’s older than the Crown and carries silver through the stone. Enchanted metal loses heat in the water. Blood magic weakens.”

“You’ve used it on the Crown?” Stellan asked.

“Cecily sat in the spring after the first command took her body. The voice stopped while the metal remained under the water and stayed quiet for several hours afterwards.”

“Why didn’t we keep her there?”

“Because a person can’t live in a freezing pool.” Elias held Stellan’s gaze. “And because quieting the Crown didn’t remove it. I’m giving you an option, not pretending I have a cure.”

I appreciated him for that.