Chapter 91 Emperor’s Doubt
"The Emperor commands the presence of the Arch-Duchess in the Throne Room," the lead guard stated. His voice was devoid of emotion, a flat, mechanical drone.
I didn't acknowledge him. I stood up slowly, my joints aching with a deep, unnatural stiffness. I smoothed the heavy fabric of my dark grey mourning dress. The air in the room tasted of stale dust, but I breathed it in deeply, locking my jaw. I walked past the guards, stepping out into the freezing corridor.
The walk to the Throne Room felt like a march to the gallows. Every step required a conscious, agonizing effort. The magic inside me was a cornered animal, clawing at my throat, begging to be let out in a hum, a whisper, a scream. I pressed my thumb hard against the tight black knot on my wrist. The sharp spike of pain grounded me.
I will not kill him, I reminded myself. I wouldn't give them a single won of my voice.
The massive obsidian doors of the Throne Room loomed at the end of the grand hall. They were pushed open by four servants, revealing the cavernous, sickly yellow expanse of the Emperor’s domain.
The room was packed. The High Council, the Lycan ambassadors, and the elite vampire lords were clustered along the polished black marble walls. The air was thick with the suffocating stench of rotting orchids and the coppery tang of old blood. It was a suffocating, predatory atmosphere.
At the far end of the hall, the Emperor sat on his throne of carved ivory and bone. His blind, milky eyes stared out into the void, his skeletal fingers drumming a slow, restless rhythm on the armrests.
And standing at the base of the dais, rigid and perfectly still, was Klaus.
My heart gave a violent, painful lurch. I hadn't seen him since the morning he stormed into my tower, since the moment he begged me to speak. He was in his full military regalia, the dark wool coat adorned with silver medals, his hair brushed back in that severe, aristocratic style.
But he looked terrible.
From a distance, he maintained the illusion of the indomitable Grand Admiral. But as the guards escorted me down the center aisle, pulling me closer to the dais, the cracks in his armor became devastatingly obvious.
His skin was the color of old chalk. The sharp, striking lines of his jaw were tight with a suppressed, agonizing tension. Underneath the heavy wool of his coat, I could see the minute, erratic rise and fall of his chest. He was fighting for air. The curse was starving without my voice to feed it, but the centuries of accumulated rot inside his dead heart were tearing his body apart. A fine sheen of cold sweat glistened at his temples.
He didn't look at me as I approached. He kept his gaze fixed on the heavy bronze chandeliers above, his jaw locked.
"The Arch-Duchess Nerissa," the Emperor announced, his dry, papery voice slithering over the silent crowd.
The guards forced me to a halt a few feet away from Klaus. I kept my chin high, staring directly at the Emperor.
"I am receiving disturbing reports from the harbor masters," the Emperor began, leaning forward on his throne. The silk of his midnight robes rustled like dead leaves. "The eastern bay is turning black. The commercial frigates are corroding at the docks. The sludge is so thick the fish are floating to the surface, boiled in their own scales."
He tilted his head, his blind eyes narrowing as he focused on the space where I stood.
"The ocean rots, my little fish. And you have been utterly silent."
I didn't flinch. I didn't open my mouth. I kept my hands folded neatly over my stomach, my fingers brushing the silk knot on my wrist.
"Speak to me," the Emperor commanded.
The silence in the Throne Room deepened until it rang in my ears. Off to the side, I saw Lady Vespera leaning against a marble pillar, a cruel, expectant smirk playing on her lips. She was waiting for me to break. She was waiting for the Admiral’s discarded toy to be punished.
"She is defiant, Your Eminence," Klaus said.
His voice shocked me. It was a low, gravelly rasp that sounded like stone grinding against stone. It lacked the booming, resonant authority it usually carried.
The Emperor shifted his gaze to Klaus. His skeletal fingers stopped drumming on the ivory.
"Defiant," the Emperor repeated softly. "Is she? You are the Grand Admiral, Peregrine. You broke the Northern Lords. You slaughtered the Lycan alphas who refused to kneel. Are you telling me you cannot extract a single note from a spoiled Siren?"
"She is locking her jaw," Klaus replied, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling. I could see the muscles in his neck straining. "Isolation will break her spirit eventually."
"We do not have the luxury of 'eventually,'" the Emperor hissed. He stood up, his frail frame trembling slightly as he descended the first two steps of the dais. He walked slowly, gliding over the marble until he was standing directly in front of Klaus.
The Emperor raised a hand and pressed his long, yellowed nails against the center of Klaus’s chest.
I sucked in a sharp, terrified breath through my nose. I knew what was under that heavy coat. I knew the black, necrotic flesh and the pulsing veins of ink that were festering there.
Klaus flinched. It was a microscopic movement, a tiny jerk of his shoulders, but in the dead silence of the room, it was as loud as a scream.
The Emperor’s milky eyes widened. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his grey, sagging face.
"You do not cough today, Peregrine," the Emperor whispered, trailing his fingers down the silver braid of Klaus’s uniform. "For weeks, you have hacked black blood into your handkerchiefs. But today, your lungs are quiet. Yet... you look as though you are carrying the entire weight of the sea on your back. You are trembling, my loyal hound."