Chapter 71 Homecoming
I moved through the currents like a streak of sapphire lightning, my body cutting through the water with a grace I had forgotten I possessed. The charcoal silk of my dress, once a heavy shroud, now trailed behind me like the fins of a predator. I didn't need to breathe. The water itself was feeding my blood, the resonance of the Memory of the Water humming in my lungs.
The deeper I went, the darker the world became, but I wasn't blind. My skin was glowing, a soft, opalescent blue that illuminated the passing ruins of the upper reefs. I saw the bleached white coral. I saw the empty grottoes. But the black sludge was retreating, the Abyssal Gate’s seal still holding, though I could hear the metal groans of the surface world trying to tear it open.
Then, I saw the fleet.
They looked like a forest of iron needles, their massive hulls blocking out what little moonlight reached these depths. Hundreds of vampire ships, their red bioluminescent lights flickering like the eyes of hungry wolves. They had dropped the siphons—massive, barbed tubes of brass and bone that were drilling into the seabed around the rift.
And in the center of the mechanical chaos, at the very bottom of the trench, was the statue.
Klaus stood where I had left him. The obsidian was blacker than the surrounding abyss, light-drinking and absolute. He was a monument of grief, his arms slightly raised as if he were still holding the weight of the world.
He wasn't alone.
Four heavy-duty salvage submersibles were circling him, their mechanical claws extended. They had already looped massive, rusted chains around his neck and his broad, stone shoulders. They were beginning to pull, the iron links straining, the sound of metal grinding against obsidian echoing through the water like a scream.
"Get away from him," I whispered.
The water carried my voice. It didn't sound like a whisper; it sounded like a thunderclap.
The submersibles froze. On the ships above, the sonar pings became frantic, a high-pitched chirping that I felt in my teeth. I didn't wait for them to recover. I kicked forward, landing on the seabed in a cloud of silt.
The pressure here would have crushed a human. It would have flattened a vampire. But I stood in the center of the trench, my feet sinking into the fine, grey sand, and I felt nothing but a mounting, righteous fury.
I walked toward the statue.
A vampire commando in a pressurized diving suit stepped into my path. He was carrying a harpoon-rifle, the tip glowing with a toxic green light. Through his glass visor, I saw his red eyes go wide. He didn't fire. He looked at me as if I were a ghost.
"The Witch," he rasped through the external speaker of his suit. His voice was distorted by the water. "She’s supposed to be dead. The Admiral’s ship imploded."
"The Admiral is right here," I said.
I raised my hand. I didn't sing. I simply pushed the air in front of me.
The commando was thrown back, his heavy suit tumbling through the water like a toy. He hit one of the siphons, the impact making the massive brass tube ring like a funeral bell.
I reached Klaus.
I touched the obsidian of his chest. It was cold—so cold it felt like it was trying to freeze the blood in my fingers. There was no heartbeat. No warmth. Just the silent, immovable weight of the Anchor.
"I found the note, Klaus," I whispered, leaning my forehead against the stone. "The Scribe showed me. You don't have to carry it alone."
From the ships above, the first depth charges were released.
They looked like small, black eggs falling through the water. The Emperor wasn't trying to capture me. He was trying to bury us both. He wanted the secret of the Gate to stay at the bottom of the sea, even if it meant losing his Admiral.
The first charge exploded.
The shockwave hit me like a physical blow, a wall of pressurized water that tried to tear me away from the statue. I gripped Klaus’s stone arms, my fingernails digging into the obsidian. The silt rose in a blinding cloud. The submersibles were tossed aside, their chains snapping with a sound like a gunshot.
I looked up. The iron hulls of the fleet were descending, their engines roaring, the vibration of their propellers churning the water into a frothy, violent mess.
I felt the Song of the First King rising in my throat.
It wasn't a melody I had to compose. It was already there, a deep, ancient rhythm that matched the pulsing of the crystalline heart I had touched in the North. It was the sound of the earth turning. It was the sound of the tides.
I opened my mouth.
I didn't look at the ships. I looked at Klaus’s closed eyes.
"AWAKE."
The first note erupted from me.
It wasn't a sound. It was a ripple in reality. The water around us didn't move; it shattered. The silt on the seabed vanished in an instant, blown away by the sheer force of the resonance.