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Lenora climbed the steps with the seal blade ready. The freed guards spread across the room and took positions at the broken entrances.

Adrian tightened his grip on the dagger. “You think opening doors and protecting traitors makes you queen?”

“I think the Crown has terrible taste.”

Stellan’s anger warmed the bond. He was bleeding under Adrian’s hand, pinned by the last two chains, and still managed to be amused.

Adrian heard the light catch in my voice. His expression twisted with fury.

“You’re wearing the same Crown that destroyed Cecily,” he said. “It will strip every soft human thought out of you. You’ll beg me to take it when you understand what it wants.”

The metal pressed harder against my temples. Pain spread behind my eyes, but no other voice answered him. I could still feel my own hands, my own anger and the fear I had no reason to hide.

Stellan remained in the middle of it. The bond carried the pain of the dagger, the pressure of the last chains and the control holding his body still. Under those sensations, he was ready. Adrian had mistaken that stillness for obedience again.

“You’re the only thing in this room I want gone.”

I placed my palm against the side of the throne. Harrowmere’s power rushed into the final chains around Stellan’s wrists.

Adrian leaned his weight onto the dagger. The blade entered another fraction, and Stellan’s blood ran down the black metal.

“Give the command,” Adrian said. “Do it now, or I’ll push this through his heart.”

“You can’t take what’s bound to him without me.”

“I can still kill him.”

Fear tore through my control. The throne room shook, and a crack raced across the step between Adrian’s knees.

The Crown gave me enough power to stop Stellan from moving. It couldn’t stop the dagger already touching his heart unless I used his body to do it.

I looked at him.

His face was pale under the blood. He met my eyes without asking for an order. The last time Adrian threatened him, Stellan had trusted me to lift the Crown. Now he waited for me to finish what I had started.

I pressed harder against the throne.

“Harrowmere, remove Adrian’s command from every restraint on your king. Add nothing in its place.”

The red light inside the wrist chains went out.

For one second, nothing moved. Power still ran from the Crown to Stellan, ready to take his body if I gave it direction. Adrian saw the hesitation and smiled as if he believed I had finally reached the part where I needed him.

I pushed more power into the restraints while keeping it away from Stellan’s body.

Adrian drove the dagger down.

Stellan’s hand snapped free and closed around the blade before it reached his heart. Blood cut across his palm, but he held the point away from his chest.

Adrian threw his weight behind it.

The second chain broke.

I left the open path between the Crown and Stellan empty.

“I’m not giving you an order,” I said. “What you do next is yours.”

Stellan rose with the dagger still against his chest and caught Adrian’s wrist.