Page 155 of Blood Ties

Her gaze found mine through the dark. She still held the Crown with both hands, blood running between her fingers.

“I’m here,” she said.

The Crown dropped onto her head.

Bryony’s eyes closed as her body went rigid. The black metal flashed white against her red hair. Power burst from the throne and raced across the floor. It hit the broken doors, filled every open passage and climbed the walls until the whole room shone.

The force threw Lenora and the freed guards away from the steps. A clear wall rose between them and the dais before they could get up.

“Bryony,” Lenora shouted as she struck the wall with the seal blade. “Can you hear me?”

No answer came from Bryony.

Power flooded our bond and drove the breath from my lungs. Harrowmere’s rooms, gates and wards pressed into my awareness, too much to separate, but Bryony remained present under them. I felt her fear, pain and the furious effort she used to control both.

She had already answered when she chose to lift the Crown herself.

Adrian released the chain around my throat and grabbed the front of my torn shirt. He pulled me higher against the base of the throne, then placed the heartblood dagger over the wound above my heart.

The black point entered the cut it had already made.

Pain spread across my chest. I kept my eyes on Bryony.

“The coronation isn’t complete,” Adrian said. “Don’t mistake a few lights for authority.”

“You’re the one hiding behind her.”

He pushed the dagger deeper until its point scraped my breastbone. “She chose the Crown. Harrowmere accepted her. When she wakes, she’ll give me what I need.”

The metal began to pull at my blood. It could take ordinary blood without Bryony’s help, but the power bound to Harrowmere stayed locked inside me. Adrian needed her voice to force it out.

He’d spent years arranging this moment and now waited for a woman he’d never understood to obey.

The thought would have amused me if breathing didn’t hurt so much.

The Crown tightened around Bryony’s head.

She gasped as her hands flew away, but the metal stayed in place. Fine white points spread into her red hair and settled against her skin without drawing blood. The Crown had her.

Pressure closed around the power Harrowmere had bound inside me. Bryony had given no command. The Crown had opened the path between us and left it waiting for her voice.

Adrian noticed the change in me. His attention sharpened, and his grip on the dagger steadied.

“You feel it now,” he said.

“I feel her.”

“You feel your new mistress.”

I stared until his smile thinned. Adrian still couldn’t understand the difference between devotion and control.

I pulled once against the red chains.

They contracted around my wrists and throat. Adrian’s command still held them, although the light inside the links had started to flicker.

“Don’t waste your strength,” he said.

“I’ve been waiting a century to kill you. I can spare a little.”