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He waited.
I didn’t point towards the door or the spring. I didn’t decide which part of this fight belonged to him. The signal gave him what I knew: I had enough of my body back to act when the command changed.
What he did with that belonged to him.
The Crown heard the thought even if it couldn’t own it.
Pressure drove into my hand. My fingers began to open.
I scraped the broken point across my palm again.
Fresh pain split the pressure. My wrist dropped. Blood slid from my hand and struck the stone beside the chair.
The red path on the floor turned towards it.
The Crown wanted the blood.
It couldn’t take it without letting something else go.
The man in the borrowed coat stood fully. The grey-braided woman released the chair and stayed on her feet. Two vampires near the doors rose together, shoulders locked under the pale bands.
Others followed in uneven bursts.
One got halfway and fell back to a knee.
The woman beside him caught his arm. She couldn’t lift him while the command owned her own legs, but she kept him from striking the floor.
He planted his foot again.
The court stopped looking like a room arranged by the Crown.
It became messy, furious and alive.
Mara moved away from my chair by choice. One step. Then another. She placed herself between me and the nearest vampire still trapped on both knees without blocking his route to stand.
Elias circled towards Stellan. He didn’t touch him this time. He watched the red links and matched each shift in Stellan’s shoulders, ready for the moment the command changed.
He took hold of the young vampire’s sleeve. He didn’t pull. He gave him something steady to use while they both fought the bands.
The Crown couldn’t turn any of it into obedience.
Nobody was moving in the same direction. Nobody waited for a voice from the chair. The court helped sideways, badly and without ceremony. Every useful choice made the Night Hall less like the picture the Crown built.
I felt each refusal inside the metal.
The pressure didn’t weaken smoothly. It jerked from one body to another. My jaw loosened when the Crown forced down the man by the fire. My shoulder moved when it caught the woman. Stellan’s chains flared when I tightened my bloody hand.
The curse was running out of places to press at once.
I kept the broken point inside my palm. Blood had soaked through the wrapping, turning the cloth dark and slick. My fingers wanted to release it. I held tighter.
The pain gave me a narrow strip of my own body.
I used all of it.
The Crown sent a pulse through the kneeling command.
Every band flared.
