Chapter 142 Almost Free
The back wall was constantly weeping freezing seawater. Chained to the center of it, his arms pulled taut above his head by massive iron bolts, was Klaus.
His massive frame was slumped forward, suspended entirely by his wrists. The dark trousers he wore were shredded and soaked in black water. His broad, heavily muscled back was a canvas of absolute devastation. The silver whip had flayed the pale skin down to the bone in a dozen places, the wounds weeping a sickening mixture of bright crimson and sluggish silver ichor.
The heavy iron collar glowed with an angry, hissing red heat against his throat, cooking the flesh beneath it. The dark, necrotic veins of the curse pulsed violently over his heart, fighting the starvation and the trauma.
He wasn't moving. His head hung completely limp between his stretched arms.
Commander Silas stood three feet away from him.
Silas was unarmored now, wearing only a pristine white linen shirt and dark trousers. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. In his right hand, he held a long, braided leather whip, the tips embedded with sharp, gleaming shards of raw silver.
"You are a profound disappointment, Admiral," Silas murmured softly. His breathy voice echoed off the wet stone walls. He didn't sound angry; he sounded genuinely bored. "I was told you were the apex predator of the Empire. But you just hang there like a slaughtered pig. You don't even have the decency to scream."
Klaus didn't react. He didn't twitch. The sheer, iron-clad walls of his ancient discipline were holding his mind in a state of deep, protective shutdown.
Silas sighed, a delicate, frustrated sound. He raised the silver whip, letting the braided leather trail in the freezing black water on the floor.
"The Emperor wants you alive, but he didn't specify the condition of your face," Silas observed smoothly. He stepped closer, reaching out to roughly grab Klaus by the chin, forcing the Admiral’s head up.
Klaus’s sapphire eyes were completely black, swallowed entirely by the feral, starving void. His lips were split, his fangs fully descended, thick strings of saliva and blood dripping from his jaw. He let out a low, guttural snarl—a sound of pure, mindless, predatory hatred—but he was too weak to thrash against the chains.
"Let's see what the Siren thinks of you when you lack a lower jaw," Silas whispered, taking a slow step backward to measure his swing.
The absolute, blinding fury that erupted in my chest eclipsed my physical exhaustion entirely. The cold magic sitting at the base of my lungs boiled into a violent, churning hurricane.
I didn't stay in the shadows. I didn't try to sneak up on him.
I stepped into the doorway of the flooded cell.
"Step away from him," I commanded.
My voice wasn't a dry rasp anymore. It was laced with the raw, crushing authority of the abyssal deep. The sound resonated off the unhewn stone, a heavy, vibrating pressure that made the freezing water on the floor ripple outward from my bare feet.
Silas froze.
He turned his head slowly, his red eyes widening in genuine, profound shock as he looked at me. He saw the heavy iron cuffs still on my wrists. He saw the thick coating of the dead guard’s blood soaking the front of my black silk dress. He saw the jagged crystal shard gripped in my hand.
But mostly, he saw my eyes. They weren't the flat, dead turquoise of a broken captive. They were entirely black, mirroring the feral, protective violence of the monster chained to the wall.
"How did you get out of the cage?" Silas breathed, his shock completely overriding his tactical discipline for a fatal fraction of a second.
"I broke it," I stated simply.
I didn't give him time to recover. I didn't give him time to raise the silver whip.
I lunged.
I crossed the flooded cell with a speed born of pure, unadulterated desperation. Silas tried to step back, his hand dropping toward the short sword at his hip, but the freezing water slowed his footwork.
I slammed my body directly into his chest. My left hand shot out, grabbing the pristine white linen of his shirt to anchor him in place. I raised the jagged crystal shard high above my head, the jaundiced torchlight catching the wet, bloody glass.
Silas grabbed my right wrist, his vampire strength crushing my brittle bones, stopping the downward trajectory of the blade inches from his eye.
"You are a fragile, dying human," Silas hissed, his lips pulling back to bare his fangs. He twisted my wrist violently, trying to snap the joint. "You cannot kill me."
I stared up into his burning red eyes, ignoring the excruciating agony radiating up my arm.
"I don't have to," I whispered, a cold, bloody smile stretching across my face.
I didn't fight his grip on my right wrist. Instead, I opened my left hand, releasing his shirt, and slammed my raw, bleeding palm flat against the center of his chest.
I bypassed his physical strength entirely. I reached deep into the cold, churning hurricane of magic in my lungs and forced the raw, corrosive pressure of the ocean directly into his heart.
Silas screamed.
It was a high, tearing sound of absolute, blinding terror. The magic didn't rust him like it did the iron; it acted as a localized, catastrophic depth charge. I forcefully expanded the pressure inside his ribcage, crushing his lungs and stopping his immortal heart with the sheer, crushing weight of the abyssal trenches.
His grip on my wrist vanished. His red eyes rolled back into his skull, blood bursting from his nose and ears simultaneously.
I stepped back, pulling my hand away.
Silas collapsed backward into the freezing black water, his sleek body thrashing once before going entirely, permanently still.
I stood in the center of the flooded cell, my chest heaving, the crystal shard dropping from my numb fingers to splash into the brine. The silence rushed back in, broken only by the steady, wet dripping of the weeping stone walls.
I slowly turned around to face the back of the cell.
Klaus was looking at me.
The feral, mindless void in his eyes was receding, shocked into submission by the sudden, violent display of magic and the death of his torturer. He stared at my blood-soaked dress, the iron cuffs on my wrists, and the broken, unyielding fire in my eyes.
"Nerissa," he choked out, his voice a ruined, shattered whisper.
I didn't speak. I walked through the freezing water, stepping over Silas’s dead body, and closed the distance. I pressed my hands gently against his ruined, bleeding chest, resting my forehead against his cold skin, right over the dark veins of the curse.
"I told you," I breathed, closing my eyes as the tears finally spilled hot against his chest. "I told you to wait for me."