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“You’re doing a poor job of getting it.”
Adrian’s control slipped for a moment. His fangs showed, and the guards behind him lowered their hands towards their weapons.
“Your grandmother filled your head with fear and left you ignorant,” he said. “She kept you human because a human heir was easy to hide. Now you’re trapped under a house with the vampire who slaughtered his queen, and you’re still defending her choices.”
Stellan went completely still beside me.
I looked at him instead of Adrian. “Is there more about Cecily that I need to know?”
His eyes met mine. “Yes. The account I gave you was true, but it wasn’t complete. There are details I owe you. None of them makes Adrian honest, and none changes what he intends to do with that dagger.”
That answer hurt more than a lie would have, but it was an answer. He hadn’t denied the truth or asked me to ignore it.
“Tell me when we’re alone,” I said.
“I’ll tell you.”
Adrian gave a quiet laugh. “You believe him because he’s learned to admit part of the truth. Ask him how many vampires died when Cecily wore the Crown. Ask him why Edith needed every chain in this court to hold him.”
“I’ll ask him myself. You don’t get to stand there with a murder weapon and pretend you’re protecting me.”
A door opened across the garden.
Lenora entered from the witness room with the surviving guards behind her. They stopped inside the inner boundary, close enough to hear without crowding us.
Adrian’s expression tightened as he looked at her. “You were ordered to hold the outer passage.”
Lenora placed a hand on the sword at her hip. “You lost the right to order me when you forced your blood into my body.”
“That seal on your shoulder belongs to my court.”
“Then take it back when you can reach me.”
One of Adrian’s guards moved towards the damaged gate. Black thorns drove through the gap and stopped him. He pulled away with blood running over his glove.
Harrowmere carried Lenora’s answer into the clear wall. Her words appeared beside Adrian’s offer in sharp red lines.
“The vampires at the main gate can see this,” Lenora said. “The witness room is showing them everything you say.”
Adrian looked towards the passage behind him. His guards shifted, and unease moved through them.
“Good,” he said. “They can see that I offered the heir mercy while the Blood King hid behind her.”
Stellan stepped forward until only the barrier separated him from Adrian. “I’m standing where she asked me to stand. You wouldn’t recognise the difference.”
The dagger struck the clear stone.
A red fracture spread from its point. Harrowmere answered with white light and forced the blade back, but the entire wall shook.
Stellan pulled me away from the crack. His arm locked around my waist while stone dust fell over the dais.
“That weapon was made to cut royal bloodwork,” he said. “Don’t touch the wall while it’s against the seal.”
Adrian drove the point into the fracture again. The opening widened enough for cold air to enter, carrying the sound of vampires gathering in the upper court.
Lenora drew her sword. The witnesses spread across the garden entrance and kept their hands away from the weapons Harrowmere had taken from them.
“He can’t force the whole gate yet,” Stellan said. “The house is still holding.”
