Chapter 64 Finished
I didn't hum. I didn't drone. I sang.
It was a high, piercing note that shattered the glass in the resonance chamber. The sound didn't stay in the room; it vibrated through the iron hull, passing through the water like a physical wave. I felt it hit the Abyssal Gate. I felt the rift shudder.
Klaus kissed me.
The impact was a tidal wave. The moment our lips met, the vacuum opened.
The black fluid in my lungs didn't just move; it screamed. It was being pulled out of me by the force of his will, but it wasn't going back into him. We were the conduit. The rot was flowing through our joined mouths, through our tangled hearts, and being projected into the glass sphere.
I felt the flaying. It felt like my skin was being peeled back by a thousand hooks. I heard the screams of the dying reefs in my marrow. I felt the weight of the Trench, the crushing pressure that wanted to turn my bones to dust.
Klaus groaned into my mouth, his body jerking with the force of the saturation. The black veins on his neck didn't just return; they exploded, turning his skin into a map of darkness. But he didn't pull away. He held me tighter, his fingers digging into my back, anchoring me to the world as the storm tore through us.
Seal it, I thought, pushing every bit of my magic, my grief, and my love into the note.
The Abyssal Gate responded.
The toxic green light began to fade, replaced by a brilliant, sapphire blue. The rift began to close, the jagged edges of the sea floor grinding together as the resonance forced the wound shut. The black bile stopped pouring out. It began to retreat, being sucked back into the heart of the world.
The feedback was a thunderclap.
The iron hull of the Obsidian Star buckled. The glass sphere in the center of the room shattered, spraying us with pressurized water and shards of crystal.
We were thrown apart.
I hit the far wall, my head spinning, my lungs burning with the sudden, sharp intake of air. I gasped, but for the first time in weeks, the air was clear. The weight was gone. The mercury sloshing in my chest had vanished.
I coughed, but only clear salt water came out.
I looked at my arms. The black lines were gone. My skin was opalescent, glowing with a soft, healthy turquoise light. I felt light. I felt alive.
"Klaus?" I croaked.
I scrambled across the wet floor, my charcoal silk clinging to my legs.
Klaus was lying by the ruined pedestal. He wasn't moving.
I reached him and turned him over. My heart stopped.
He was black.
Not just the veins. His skin had turned the color of obsidian, hard and cold to the touch. The black fluid was leaking from his eyes, his nose, his ears. He looked like he had been dipped in ink and frozen.
But his eyes were open.
The sapphire was still there, a tiny, flickering spark in the center of the darkness. He looked at me, and I saw the agony—a constant, crushing weight that he was now carrying alone.
"Did... it... work?" he wheezed. His voice was a grinding sound, like stone on stone.
"It worked," I sobbed, pulling his heavy, obsidian head into my lap. "The Gate is sealed, Klaus. The water is clear."
"Good," he murmured.
He reached up, his hand feeling like a block of iron. He brushed a strand of hair from my face. His touch didn't burn anymore. It was just cold.
"You... look... beautiful," he rasped.
"Klaus, we have to get you to the surface. The Scribe... he'll know what to do. We can fix this."
"No fix... for a... statue," he said, a ghost of a smile touching his black lips.
A loud, rhythmic thudding started from outside the hull. The secondary fleet. They were here.
"They're coming," I said, panic rising in my throat.
"Go," Klaus commanded, his grip on my hand tightening one last time. "The escape pod... behind the... tapestry. Rook knows... the way."
"I'm not leaving you!"
"You are... the Voice," he whispered, his eyes beginning to glaze over. "You have to... tell them... what happened. You have to... save the rest."
He coughed, a thick, black sludge splattering onto my dress.
"I am... the Anchor," he said, his voice fading into a low, final rattle. "I hold... the weight. You... fly."
His hand fell from my face, hitting the iron floor with a heavy, metallic sound. The sapphire in his eyes flickered once, then went dark.
"Klaus? Klaus!"
I shook him, but he was solid. He was a monument of obsidian, cold and indifferent to my screams.
The door to the resonance chamber was blown open. Vampire commandos in silver armor burst in, their red eyes wide as they saw the ruined room and the obsidian statue in the center.
"Admiral!" one of them shouted.
I stood up. I didn't cower. I didn't run.
I looked at them through the haze of my grief, my skin glowing with the sapphire light of the deep. I felt the resonance in my throat—pure, powerful, and lethal.
The Anchor was gone. The weight was sealed.
But the Siren was awake.
I looked at Klaus one last time—the man who had drowned so I could breathe.
"I'm going to finish it, Klaus," I whispered. "I'm going to finish the war."