Chapter 139 Sudden Strike
The rusted iron connecting my wrists was thick, forged in the Citadel’s deep, suffocating furnaces.
I sat cross-legged on the dark red velvet cushion in the center of the gilded cage, my eyes closed, my breathing reduced to a shallow, rhythmic hiss. The jaundiced light from the single remaining bronze chandelier cast long, distorted shadows of the gold bars over my ruined black silk dress. The hall was completely silent, save for the distant, hollow dripping of condensation somewhere in the vaulted ceiling.
I gripped the short chain connecting my shackles. My raw, burned palms bled sluggishly against the coarse metal.
I didn't try to pull the links apart with physical strength. I didn't have any left. My stomach was a hollow, burning cavern of starvation, and my throat was so dry it felt packed with crushed glass. Instead, I bypassed my failing muscles and reached deep into the cold, stagnant pool of magic resting at the base of my lungs.
My bloodline was born from the abyssal trenches. We were the ocean made flesh. And the ocean eroded everything it touched.
I focused that corrosive, crushing pressure, funneling it down my arms and into my bleeding hands. I didn't sing. I didn't let the magic touch my vocal cords. I forced the raw, unshaped energy directly into the iron.
It was agonizing. The magical exertion tore through my starved veins like liquid nitrogen. I began to tremble violently, my teeth chattering in my skull. A slow, warm trickle of liquid slid from my right nostril, tracking down my bruised cheek to drip onto the black silk covering my lap. It was bright, fresh crimson. My body was breaking down under the strain.
But beneath my palms, the iron was changing.
I could feel the microscopic structure of the metal weakening. The magic acted as a hyper-accelerated salt, biting into the rusted iron, eating away at the rigid bonds. The heavy chain grew unnaturally warm, then blistering hot, vibrating with a high, tight frequency against my skin.
Nerissa.
The mental voice crashed into my mind, weak but frantic. It carried the freezing, damp echo of the Abyssal Dungeon.
I faltered, my concentration slipping. The heat in the iron chain immediately died, leaving the metal cold and unyielding once more.
I am here, I pushed back through the blood-bond, gasping for air in the dry Throne Room. I wiped the blood from my upper lip with the back of my hand, smearing it across my pale skin.
You are bleeding, Klaus stated. It wasn't a question. Through the tether, he could feel the sudden, sharp decline in my physical stability. The raw magical transfer I had been feeding him to keep him alive was functioning as a two-way street; he felt my exhaustion just as deeply as I felt the agonizing, open silver-whip wounds on his back. Stop what you are doing. You are draining your own life.
I am breaking the iron, I told him, gripping the chain again. I just need a little more time.
You don't have time. Your heart rate is plummeting. The heavy, suffocating despair in his mind flared into a desperate, protective anger. I felt the phantom pull of his arms straining against the heavy chains bolting him to the weeping stone wall. If you burn out your core, your heart stops. The Emperor wins. Stop using the magic, Nerissa.
I will not sit in this cage and wait for him to kill us! I screamed back in my mind, the sheer force of my frustration sending a spike of pain through my temples. I am the Queen of the Sea. I am not a helpless bird.
A profound, aching silence stretched between us. The tether hummed with the tragedy of our bond. We were thousands of feet apart, both chained in the dark, entirely consumed by the desperate need to save the other.
I know what you are, Klaus whispered through the connection, the anger melting into a raw, bleeding devotion. I have always known. But I cannot lose you to this stone. Rest, my Queen. Please.
Before I could answer him, the heavy obsidian doors at the far end of the Throne Room groaned.
I snapped my eyes open, instantly severing the active flow of magic. I dropped my hands to my lap, hiding the rusted chain within the folds of the torn black silk skirt. I forced my spine straight, locking my trembling jaw, and stared into the jaundiced twilight of the hall.
Commander Silas walked through the doors.
He didn't march with the heavy, brutal footfalls Thorne had used. Silas moved with a terrifying, liquid grace, his sleek black and gold armor making almost no sound. His pale, angular face was completely relaxed, his red eyes burning like dying coals in the dim light. He carried a heavy wooden chair in one hand and a silver goblet in the other.
He walked down the center aisle, stopping exactly three feet from the gold bars of my cage.
Silas set the wooden chair down on the polished black marble. He sat, crossing his long legs, resting his elbows on his knees. He looked at me as if I were a fascinating insect pinned to a board.