Page 36 of Blood Curse

Hope would have been easier if he had offered a miracle. It also would’ve been bloody useless. The spring could buy silence, perhaps enough to let me think without the Crown leaning into every fear. It couldn’t end the problem by itself, and Elias refused to dress that limit in comforting language.

Stellan’s attention stayed on the Crown while Elias spoke. He wasn’t measuring the distance to me or watching my hands as if I might become dangerous. He was studying the curse, already separating the thing we could fight from the woman wearing it.

Noise rose in the passage outside. More footsteps. More voices.

Mara opened the door a fraction, listened and closed it again. “The next group reached the gate.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Fourteen,” Elias said. “Another twenty were less than an hour behind me. They’ll reach Harrowmere before full dawn.”

The outer room suddenly felt much too small.

“Are they all coming here?”

Mara gave a brief smile. “They want to see the queen.”

“They can see me in the Night Hall. I’m not turning our bedroom into a royal waiting room.”

Stellan’s thumb brushed mine. “Meeting them can wait.”

“I’m not staying hidden while they gather outside the door.” I stood. My legs held without protest. “I can walk, and the Night Hall has chairs.”

Elias watched my balance without reaching for me. “If the Crown pushes?”

“I say so. We stop. Nobody kneels.”

“Sensible.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“I’ve known you for eleven minutes. I’m reserving judgement.”

Mara opened the door. “You’ll fit in beautifully.”

We walked together through a Harrowmere transformed by bodies and voices. Vampires filled the lower passage. Some carried bags. Others had arrived with only the clothes they wore. They moved aside when they saw the Crown, but they remained standing.

The house responded to them as if it remembered every footstep. Doors opened before tired hands reached the latches. Fires woke in rooms that had stayed cold for decades. A row of lamps lit ahead of an elderly woman using the wall for support, while two younger vampires argued quietly over which of them had lost their only suitcase.

They didn’t look like an army or a collection of elegant monsters. They looked displaced. Mud, exhaustion and relief had stripped ceremony away before they reached the gate. Stellan knew several faces. Each recognition struck him, but he kept walking at my side.

The Night Hall doors were open. Warm light spilled across the stone, along with the sound of several dozen people speaking at once.

Stellan slowed at the threshold.

Mara bumped her shoulder against his. “You were lost. Now you’re home. Try not to make it dramatic.”

“I’m never dramatic.”

Elias snorted. “I’ve stitched you after three duels. Two were caused by insults you could have ignored.”

“They were very good insults.”

The corner of Stellan’s mouth lifted.

Then he stepped onto the Night Hall floor.

Every returning vampire fell silent.