Chapter 119 Throne Judgment
A feral, deafening roar tore through the corridor.
Klaus stopped walking. He ignored the heavy chain attached to his neck. He ignored the heavy steel halberds pointed directly at his chest. He turned around, his sapphire eyes burning with a sudden, absolute madness that entirely overrode the suppressor collar for a fraction of a second.
He lunged toward the guard who had struck me.
The heavy iron chains binding his arms snapped perfectly taut. The sheer, terrifying kinetic force of his movement yanked Thorne entirely off his feet. The Commander hit the marble floor hard, the chain slipping from his grasp.
Klaus didn't reach the guard. Three other elite soldiers slammed the heavy wooden shafts of their weapons into his chest and shoulders, forcing him back. Klaus fought them like a cornered beast, a low, guttural snarl vibrating deep in his chest.
Klaus, stop! I screamed through the bond, panic flooding my veins like ice water. They will kill you right here! Please!
The sheer desperation in my mental voice pierced through his blinding rage. He froze, breathing heavily, the muscles in his back tight and corded beneath the iron. He looked at the fresh cut on my cheek, his eyes darkening with a devastating, helpless sorrow.
Thorne scrambled to his feet, his face flushed with humiliated fury. He snatched the chain from the floor and wrapped it twice around his steel gauntlet.
"Break his knees," Thorne ordered the guards, wiping a speck of dust from his armor. "If he wants to crawl to the Emperor, let him crawl."
"No!" I shouted.
Klaus slowly lowered his head. He relaxed his stance, the violent fight draining completely out of his massive frame. He turned back around to face the front, taking a slow, heavy step forward.
"I will walk," Klaus rasped, his voice a broken, gravelly ruin.
Thorne smiled, a cruel, triumphant stretching of scarred skin. "I thought you might."
We resumed the march. The silence in the corridor was now thick with genuine terror. The courtiers who had been sneering moments ago pressed themselves flat against the walls, suddenly realizing just how dangerous the chained animal still was.
We finally reached the antechamber outside the Throne Room.
The massive, towering obsidian doors loomed ahead of us. They were intricately carved with the history of the Empire, depicting victorious battles and kneeling enemies. Today, those doors felt like the entrance to an executioner's block.
The guards forced us to a halt. Thorne stepped forward, speaking in hushed, urgent tones with the sentries guarding the entrance.
I stood ten feet behind Klaus. The air in the antechamber was stagnant and cold. I looked at his broad back, at the heavy iron crossing over his silver scars.
He slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder at me.
The sapphire in his eyes was clouded by the exhausting suppression of the collar, but his gaze was impossibly steady. He didn't look like a man about to face a tyrant. He looked like a man who had already made his peace with the end of the world.
Are you afraid? he asked through the tether. The mental voice was gentle, a stark, heartbreaking contrast to the heavy iron binding him.
Yes, I admitted, focusing entirely on the warmth of his presence in my mind to keep my knees from shaking. What is the Emperor going to do to us?
He is going to try to break the bond, Klaus replied. The certainty in his tone was chilling. He knows I am the Anchor. He knows you fed me your blood to save me. He will not simply execute me, Nerissa. He will try to use my life to force your hand.
I swallowed hard, the cold dread solidifying in my stomach like a swallowed stone. I won't let him.
Klaus shifted his weight, the chains clinking softly in the quiet room. Whatever happens in that room. Whatever he threatens, or whatever he demands... do not sacrifice yourself for me.
We survive together, Klaus, I pushed back fiercely, my hands balling into tight fists at my sides. Or not at all.
A heavy, sorrowful wave of love washed over the bond. He didn't agree. He was a soldier, and he was fully prepared to lay down on the wire so I could walk over him.
The massive obsidian doors suddenly groaned.
The heavy grinding of the stone hinges echoed through the antechamber. Jaundiced, yellow light spilled out from the widening crack as the doors were pushed open by the Imperial servants. The sickly sweet smell of rotting orchids and ancient, oxidized copper flooded my senses.
"The Emperor expects the traitors," a voice called out from the cavernous hall.
Thorne jerked the chain. Klaus stepped forward, crossing the threshold without hesitation. The guards shoved me hard between the shoulder blades, forcing me to follow.
We walked out of the dim antechamber and into the blinding, terrifying glare of the Throne Room.
The High Council was fully assembled. The room was packed with hundreds of the most powerful, ruthless vampires in the Citadel. At the far end of the hall, sitting upon his throne of carved ivory and bone, the Emperor waited.
His blind, milky eyes stared out into the void, but his skeletal face was twisted into a horrific, triumphant smile. He looked exactly like a spider watching two flies struggle in the center of a very old, very strong web.