Chapter 148 Golden Prison
"Silas was careless," the Emperor continued, clicking his tongue against his yellowed fangs in a mock display of disappointment. "I warned him that you were a cornered animal. I warned him that the magic in your blood was unpredictable. But he wanted to play with his food, and now he is floating face-down in the brine."
"He talked too much," I rasped. My throat burned with every syllable.
The Emperor smiled. It was a horrific stretching of grey skin over sharp bone. "A fatal flaw in many of my Commanders. But you, Arch-Duchess... you are a fascinating creature. You melted a solid iron padlock with raw, unshaped magic. You sneaked into the deepest level of my dungeon, slaughtered an elite guard, and stopped Silas’s heart with a single touch."
He leaned forward, his blind eyes seeming to pierce straight through me.
"And yet," the Emperor whispered, "here you are. Back in the box."
I locked my jaw, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
"Do you know why I let you fight your way up the stairs?" the Emperor asked smoothly. He reached out, tapping a long, yellowed fingernail against one of the gold bars. "I knew you were out of the cage the moment the padlock broke. The magical resonance echoed through the entire Spire. I could have sent a hundred men into the dungeon to cut you down before you ever reached Silas."
A cold, heavy dread settled in my stomach.
"But I wanted you to reach him," the Emperor explained, his voice dropping to a sadistic, intimate hum. "I wanted you to unlock his chains. I wanted you to feel the hope swell in his chest. I wanted the Admiral to believe, for just a few fleeting minutes, that he was going to escape."
"You are a monster," I breathed, the sheer cruelty of his game making my blood run cold.
"I am a teacher," the Emperor corrected softly. "Physical torture is fleeting. A whipped back heals. A severed finger is forgotten. But giving a starving man a feast, only to snatch the plate away before he can take a bite? That breaks the mind."
He stood up straight, smoothing the front of his velvet robes.
"The Admiral's spirit was remarkably resilient," the Emperor mused. "But when Vespera cornered you on that landing, when he realized he had dragged you into a slaughterhouse and failed to protect you... I felt his spirit snap from all the way up here. He is completely hollowed out now. He will not fight the feral hunger anymore."
Through the tether, Klaus’s ragged, wet breathing echoed the Emperor’s words. The fight was entirely gone from him. He was just hanging in the dark, waiting for the end.
"And what about me?" I asked, my voice laced with a dark, bitter venom. "Did you break me, too?"
The Emperor tilted his head, listening to the erratic, weak rhythm of my heartbeat.
"You are fading, Siren," he observed. "Your mortal body cannot sustain the massive expenditures of magic you forced through it tonight. You are severely dehydrated. You are starving. If you try to push the magic into these gold bars, your heart will simply stop beating."
He wasn't lying. I could feel the cold, heavy sluggishness in my veins. The well of magic at the base of my lungs was completely dry, scraped hollow by the effort of breaking the iron and killing Silas. If I tried to summon the abyssal pressure again, I would die on this velvet cushion.
"I have secured the harbor," the Emperor announced, his tone shifting back to formal, absolute authority. "I have doubled the guard on the lower levels. The Admiral will remain in the deepest hole until he forgets how to speak. You will remain in this cage."
He turned his back on me, walking slowly toward the center aisle.
"The execution is canceled, of course," the Emperor called over his shoulder. "The court has lost its appetite for theatricality. Now, we simply wait. I will leave you to the dark, Nerissa. Think about the choices you made, and listen to the silence."
He glided away, his heavy boots making no sound on the marble. The jaundiced light from the remaining chandelier caught the crimson edges of his robes as he disappeared through a side door near the dais.
The heavy lock clicked. I was entirely alone.
I slumped forward, my forehead resting against the cold gold bars.
The silence of the Throne Room was absolute, an oppressive, suffocating weight pressing down on my eardrums. I closed my eyes, letting the darkness swallow me.
Klaus, I reached out again, a desperate, final grasp at the only thing keeping me sane.
There was no answer. The feral fog had completely overtaken his mind. He was lost in the starvation, the pain, and the crushing despair. The blood-bond was a static, empty line, vibrating only with his physical agony.
I pulled my knees tighter against my chest.
The Emperor was right about my body. I was broken. My hands were ruined, my dress was soaked in blood, and I was too weak to stand.
But he was entirely wrong about my mind.
I sat in the pitch-black silence, feeling the slow, heavy thrum of my own heartbeat. The Emperor thought that taking away our hope would destroy us. He thought that showing us the impossibility of escape would force me to finally surrender and sing the song of submission to save Klaus’s life.
He didn't understand the fundamental nature of the ocean.
When you strip away the warmth, the light, and the currents, you aren't left with nothing. You are left with the crushing, absolute, unforgiving pressure of the deepest trenches. You are left with a cold that kills instantly.
I opened my eyes in the dark.
I wasn't going to try to break the gold cage. I wasn't going to try to fight my way down the stairs a second time. I was done playing the Emperor's game. I was done sneaking through the shadows and trying to outsmart a three-thousand-year-old tyrant.
I wiped my bloody hands on the ruined silk of my skirt. I sat up straight, crossing my legs on the velvet cushion, forcing my spine into a rigid, perfect line.
I took a slow, deep breath, pulling the stale, dust-filled air of the Throne Room deep into my empty lungs.
I didn't have any unshaped magic left to melt metal. But I didn't need it. I was a Siren. I had my voice.
I knew exactly what would happen if I sang. The magic would funnel directly through the tether, flooding Klaus’s chest with the dark, toxic sludge of the Ligeian curse. It would kill him.
Unless I changed the Anchor.