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Adrian cut the stone holding him inside the broken doorway. The dagger opened the royal seal as if the wall were flesh. Red light spread around the blade and widened the gap.
I pushed more power through Harrowmere. “Shut him out.”
The broken doors dragged across the floor towards Adrian. He braced one boot against the frame and kept cutting.
Stellan threw the swordsman into the moving door.
The vampire hit Adrian and knocked the dagger from the seal. The broken sections slammed together, catching both men between them. Adrian shouted when the stone caught him. Stellan seized the guard by the back of his armour and pulled him inside before the stone crushed his chest.
He could have left him there.
The choice cost Stellan his opening.
Adrian thrust the dagger through the gap. “Stop.”
Red fire closed around Stellan’s wrists.
His body locked with the guard still in his grip. The vampire twisted free and drove his elbow into Stellan’s wounded side.
Blood soaked through the bandage.
Pain struck the bond hard enough to make my knees weaken. Stellan stayed on his feet while the guard hit him again.
I grabbed the wall and forced the nearest door across the floor.
It caught Adrian’s dagger arm and slammed his wrist against the broken frame. The command broke, and Stellan moved before the red cuffs faded. He headbutted the guard and drove him down.
“Bryony, left,” Stellan said.
The marked woman had found another route through the damaged main seal. She came at me with a short sword held close to her body.
I raised mine too late.
Stellan caught her arm from behind. She turned the blade towards his stomach under Adrian’s control. He trapped her wrist, but the fight dragged him away from the main doors.
Adrian saw the opening.
He cut the remaining seal and stepped into Harrowmere.
The house struck him with white light. He bent under it, then lifted the dagger and sliced through the ward pressing against his chest.
“You have no authority here,” I said.
“Neither do you until you take the Crown.”
“The house seems happy to disagree.”
I closed every door between us.
Adrian drove the dagger into the floor.
Red cracks split the stone. The doors stopped before they reached him, shuddering against the command buried in the blade.
Behind me, the throne groaned.
The floor around its base broke open. The Crown rose through the gap and struck the seat hard enough to split the carved wood. It climbed the back of the throne and settled where it had waited when I first entered Harrowmere.
One black point turned towards me.
