Chapter 65 Silent
I knelt on the freezing iron floor, my hands pressed against the obsidian statue that used to be Klaus Falkenstein. He was hard. He was cold. The skin that had been ivory and scarred was now a seamless, light-drinking black. He looked like he had been forged in the heart of a dying sun and then quenched in the Abyssal trench.
"Klaus," I whispered, but the word didn't even echo.
The air in my lungs was clear—terrifyingly clear. The weight, the mercury, the sludge—it was all gone, pulled into him during that final, devastating kiss. I could breathe, but every breath felt like a theft. I was alive because he had agreed to stop being a man and start being an Anchor for the entire world’s rot.
The sound of boots reached the door. Heavy, rhythmic, and numerous.
"Admiral!" a voice barked.
I didn't turn around. I didn't look at the vampire commandos bursting through the ruins of the hatch. I just stared at Klaus’s face. Even in stone, he looked defiant. His eyes were closed, his lips set in that hard, military line. He had saved the ocean. He had sealed the Gate. And he had left me alone in the wreckage.
"Arch-Duchess?"
The lead commando, a man with a jagged scar across his throat, stopped five feet away. He lowered his harpoon-rifle, his red eyes wide as he looked at the obsidian figure and the clear, blue water swirling around our ankles.
"What happened here?" he demanded. "Where is the Admiral? Who did this to him?"
I stood up slowly. The charcoal silk of my dress was shredded, soaked, and heavy, but it didn't matter. I felt light. I felt the sapphire hum in my throat, vibrating with a frequency that could liquefy stone. The Anchor was gone. There was no one to absorb the feedback now. If I sang, the ship would tear itself apart.
"He did what you were too afraid to do," I said. My voice was no longer a rasp. It was a bell, pure and resonant, echoing off the iron walls with a power that made the commandos flinch. "He sealed the Gate. He saved the world from the Emperor’s greed."
The commando’s eyes narrowed. He looked at the shattered resonance sphere, then at the obsidian statue. "He sabotaged the harvest. The secondary fleet is behind us, and they have no oil. The Emperor will have his head for this."
"He already took it," I said, gesturing to the statue. "Look at him. He is the weight now. He is the debt you all owe."
The commando stepped forward, his hand reaching for my arm. "You're coming with us. The Emperor will want to know exactly how a Siren broke a Grand Admiral."
I didn't let him touch me.
I took a single breath, drawing in the salt and the cold. I didn't reach for a lullaby. I reached for the roar of the deep.
"STAY."
The word hit the room like a physical shockwave. The commandos didn't just stop; they were slammed back against the iron bulkheads as if hit by a tidal wave. The harpoon-rifles clattered to the floor. They stood frozen, their muscles locked, their red eyes blown wide with a terror they couldn't name.
I looked at the lead commando. He was shaking, his jaw locked in a silent scream.
"The Obsidian Star is sinking," I told them, my voice calm and terrifyingly clear. "The resonance shattered the hull. In ten minutes, this room will be at the bottom of the trench. If you want to live, you will get to the pods. Now."
I turned my back on them. I didn't care if they stayed or ran.
I knelt back down beside Klaus. I leaned my forehead against his obsidian chest. I couldn't hear a heartbeat. I couldn't feel the Anchor. There was just the cold, indifferent silence of the stone.
"Rook," I whispered.
A small, wet head popped up from behind a pile of crates in the corner. Rook was shivering, his green skin pale, his eyes dinner-plate large. He was clutching a small leather bag—the maps and the missing page.
"M-m-mistress," he stammered. "The Admiral... he said... he said the pod behind the tapestry."
"I know," I said.
I looked at Klaus. I couldn't leave him here. I couldn't let him sink into the dark alone. But he weighed tons now. He was a piece of the earth itself.
"Help me move him," I said to Rook.
"Mistress, he’s... he’s stone! We can't!"
"We have to!"
I grabbed Klaus’s arm. It felt like cold marble. I pulled, my muscles straining, but he didn't budge. The ship groaned again, a deep, structural scream of metal being twisted. Water was pouring in through the door now, reaching our knees.
"Nerissa."