Chapter 127 Cold Choice
I kept my spine perfectly straight, forcing my chin up. The stiff, structured boning of my corset dug mercilessly into my ribs, restricting my breath to shallow, painful gasps, but I refused to let my shoulders slump.
"Walk," the lead Imperial guard commanded softly from behind my left shoulder.
I forced my legs to move. My soft black leather slippers glided silently over the stone, but the heavy silk skirt dragged with a loud, distinct rustle that echoed off the high, domed ceiling.
Every step felt like wading through freezing mud. I kept my eyes fixed dead ahead, refusing to look at the sneering faces in the gallery. I focused entirely on the raised ivory dais at the far end of the room.
The Emperor was already seated on his throne of carved bone. He wore robes of dark, opulent crimson tonight, his blind, milky eyes staring out over the silent court. His skeletal hands rested patiently on the armrests. He looked exactly like a spider vibrating in the center of an enormous, inescapable web.
But my cold, dead facade nearly shattered when my eyes dropped to the space directly in front of the dais.
A massive, rectangular block of raw, uncut obsidian had been dragged into the center of the Throne Room. It was a crude, brutal altar, standing two feet off the ground, its jagged edges sharp enough to draw blood.
Klaus was chained to the center of it.
The breath caught in my throat, a jagged knot of glass forming behind my collarbone. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep my face completely blank.
He was kneeling on the hard, jagged rock. His dark trousers were torn and stained with dirt and silver ichor. His broad, bare chest was a canvas of absolute devastation. The four deep, raised silver scars from the Trench-Stalker stretched tightly across his ribs, rising and falling with his ragged, uneven breathing. Over his heart, the dark, necrotic veins of my ancestor’s curse sat stark and bruised against his pale skin, a visible, toxic rot that was slowly eating him alive.
The heavy iron chains wrapped multiple times around his waist and torso, pulling his arms violently backward, bolting his wrists to heavy iron rings embedded in the base of the obsidian block.
But the worst part was the collar.
The heavy iron suppressor locked around his throat was glowing with an angry, hissing red heat. It had burned a ring of raw, weeping blisters into his flesh. It was suffocating his immortal magic, stripping away the blood I had fed him, reducing the most lethal predator in the Northern Seas to a broken, starving animal.
He didn't look up as I approached. His chin rested near his chest, his silver hair plastered to his forehead in dirty, sweat-soaked strands.
Commander Thorne stood exactly where Lady Vespera had promised he would be. He was positioned directly to Klaus’s left, wearing full, gleaming blackened steel armor. He held a thick, heavy iron leash in his gauntleted hand, the metal chain attaching directly to the back of Klaus’s burning collar.
I stopped walking ten feet away from the obsidian block, taking my position on Klaus’s right.
I was perfectly angled. If I turned my hips, my right arm would have a clear, unobstructed path to Thorne’s throat. I locked the physical layout into my mind, calculating the distance, the weight of the silk skirt, and the exact traction of my leather slippers on the polished marble.
"The Queen of the Sea arrives," the Emperor’s papery voice slithered across the dead silence of the hall.
The Emperor slowly pushed himself up from the ivory throne. He glided down the steps of the dais, his crimson robes pooling behind him, until he stood directly in front of the obsidian altar. He looked down at Klaus, then turned his blind, milky eyes toward me.
"You wear the black silk well, Arch-Duchess," the Emperor purred, a cruel, mocking smile stretching his grey skin over yellowed fangs. "It is a fitting garment for the savior of the Empire. The color of mourning, and the color of an executioner."
I didn't blink. I kept my face a mask of cold, unfeeling stone. Inside my mind, I pressed my hands flat against the massive wall of freezing ice I had built around the blood-bond, ensuring not a single drop of my terror leaked through the tether.
"The ocean rots because of the beast chained before you," the Emperor announced, raising his voice so it carried to the highest tiers of the gallery. He gestured broadly to Klaus’s kneeling form. "For three centuries, he has hidden the truth. He absorbed the Siren’s poison to protect his own selfish obsession, leaving our commercial fleets vulnerable, holding our economy hostage to the whims of a singing Witch."
A low, angry murmur rippled through the vampires in the court. They looked at Klaus with naked, burning hatred. They didn't care that he had absorbed the rot to save their water; they only cared that he had kept a secret from the crown.
"But tonight, the deception ends," the Emperor declared. He stepped closer to the obsidian block. "Tonight, we sever the Anchor. We cut the rot from the ocean forever. And it is only fitting that the Siren herself delivers the final blow."
The Emperor snapped his skeletal fingers.
Thorne yanked the heavy iron leash with brutal, unforgiving force.
The chain went completely taut. Klaus was jerked violently backward, the burning iron collar digging deep into his windpipe. He let out a hoarse, rattling choke, his head forced up so he was looking directly at the jaundiced, high-vaulted ceiling.
"Keep your head up, traitor," Thorne snarled, wrapping the chain tighter around his steel gauntlet. "Let the court see the face of the man who sold them out."