Chapter 122 Kingdom First
"Magnificent," the Emperor whispered, his skeletal hands gripping the carved ivory armrests of his throne. He leaned back, his thin, grey lips stretching into a smile that exposed the full length of his yellowed fangs. "A rational queen. A sovereign who understands the necessary price of power."
I finally allowed my eyes to drop to the base of the dais.
Klaus was still kneeling on the polished black stone.
He hadn't moved. The heavy iron chains wrapped around his torso and arms weighed him down, but it wasn't the metal that had broken him.
He stared up at me. The fierce, terrifying pride that usually burned in his sapphire eyes had been entirely extinguished. In its place was a vast, hollow devastation. He looked at my face, searching desperately for a crack in my cold expression, searching for a single, tiny sign that I was lying.
He found nothing. I kept the mask completely flawless.
I watched the exact moment the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Fleet surrendered to the dark.
His broad shoulders slumped. The rigid tension in his neck vanished. He lowered his head, his chin coming to rest against his chest, right above the dark, necrotic veins of the curse that were slowly killing him. He didn't yell. He didn't curse my name. He simply accepted it.
He believed I had traded his life for clear water.
The silence from his end of the severed blood-bond was a physical agony, an aching, empty void right in the center of my chest.
"The ocean will be purged," the Emperor announced, his papery voice rising to address the eager gallery. "The Anchor will be severed, and the rot will die with the traitor. The commercial fleets will sail unhindered by tomorrow's dawn."
A ripple of polite, gloating applause broke out among the lords and ladies. Lady Vespera stood at the front of the crowd, snapping her black lace fan shut and tapping it against her palm with a rhythmic, delighted clack.
"Commander Thorne," the Emperor called out over the noise.
Thorne stepped out from the shadows of the massive obsidian pillars, his scarred face alight with cruel satisfaction. He bowed deeply. "My Emperor."
"Take the Admiral to the holding cells beneath the arena," the Emperor ordered, waving a dismissive, skeletal hand toward Klaus. "Leave the heavy suppressor collar on him. Give him no water. Give him no blood. Let the feral hunger weaken whatever resolve he has left."
Thorne nodded, gripping the heavy iron chain attached to Klaus’s neck.
"And the execution, my Emperor?" an older lord called out from the gallery, his red eyes gleaming with morbid curiosity. "Will it be done now?"
"No," the Emperor smiled, a terrifying, theatrical expression. He turned his blind gaze back toward me. "An event of this magnitude requires the proper ceremony. It is not every day a Siren saves an empire. We shall hold the execution tomorrow night, at the stroke of midnight. The entire court will gather to watch the Queen of the Sea drive the dagger into the beast's heart."
My stomach turned violently, a cold, sickening nausea rising in my throat, but I forced myself to nod slowly, as if I agreed with the spectacle.
"Drag him away," the Emperor commanded.
Thorne yanked the heavy chain with brutal, unforgiving force.
Klaus was dragged up from the marble floor. He stumbled, his bare feet slipping on the smears of his own silver blood, but he caught his balance before he fell. The heavy iron links clanked loudly in the quiet hall.
Thorne didn't lead him toward the side doors immediately. He pulled Klaus directly past me, forcing the chained vampire to walk within inches of where I stood.
As he passed, Klaus stopped.
Thorne jerked the chain again, but Klaus planted his bare feet on the stone, refusing to move. He turned his head and looked down at me.
His face was inches from mine. I could smell the dried blood on his skin, the sharp, burnt ozone from the hissing collar, and the clean, deep salt of the ocean that always lingered beneath it. The dark circles under his eyes were bruised and heavy.
I met his gaze, my heart hammering so hard I thought my ribs would crack. Please, I begged him silently, trapped behind my own mental wall. Please don't hate me. Just wait.
Klaus didn't look angry. He didn't look hateful.
"You made the right choice," Klaus whispered. His voice was a ruined, gravelly scrape that barely carried over the space between us.
I stopped breathing.
"Do not mourn me, Nerissa," he said softly, a drop of silver blood falling from his split lip to stain the white marble between our feet. "Save your people."
He didn't wait for my response. He turned his head forward and began to walk, following Thorne toward the heavy oak doors leading to the subterranean holding cells.
I stood completely frozen, my fingernails digging into my own palms so hard they broke the skin. I watched his broad, scarred back disappear into the shadows. I watched the heavy doors slam shut behind him with a booming, final crash.