Chapter 146 Darkness Below
He was breathing heavily, his broad chest covered in a mixture of his own silver ichor and the bright crimson blood of the men he had killed. The spear wound in his thigh bled sluggishly, the immortal healing struggling to close the gap while his body was under such massive physical distress.
The lead guard on the landing stepped slightly forward, his voice muffled behind his heavy visor.
"Halt, Admiral," the guard commanded. "Throw the weapon down. There is no path forward."
Klaus didn't drop the sword. He tightened his grip on me, pulling me so flush against his side that I could feel the violent, erratic hammering of his heart against my cheek.
Through the bond, I felt his mind working with frantic, desperate speed. He was calculating angles, calculating the speed of the crossbow bolts, calculating exactly how many he could kill before a steel shaft pierced my skull.
The answer settled into his chest like a heavy, suffocating stone. Zero. If he charged the shield wall while carrying me, they would fire, and I would die instantly.
A slow, devastating despair washed through the tether. It was a cold, absolute realization that our escape had failed. We had fought our way out of the flooded cell, we had survived the first wave, but we were completely boxed in.
"The Emperor wants you alive," the lead guard called out, his tone shifting into something cautious. He didn't want to fight the feral monster standing on the stairs if he didn't have to. "Surrender the Siren, and we will not fire."
Klaus’s grip on my waist became bone-crushing.
"If you want her," Klaus rasped, his voice vibrating with a dark, terrifying promise, "you will have to dig her out of my chest."
He raised his short sword, pointing the bloody steel tip directly at the lead guard. He was going to charge. He was going to throw himself onto the shield wall, taking as many bolts as his flesh could absorb, hoping to carve a tiny, bleeding gap for me to run through.
It was suicide.
No, I whispered aloud, dropping my glass dagger. The shard shattered against the stone steps.
I reached up with both of my chained hands, grabbing his thick, blood-stained wrist. I pulled his arm down, forcing the tip of the sword toward the floor.
Klaus looked down at me, his sapphire eyes wide with desperate, frantic confusion. Nerissa, what are you doing? Let me clear the landing.
You can't, I pushed back through the bond, tears welling in my eyes, spilling hot against my dirt-streaked cheeks. There are too many. If you charge, they will kill you. I will not watch you die on these stairs.
I am already dead without you, he fired back, the thought raw and bleeding. I will not let them put you back in that cage.
"Drop the sword!" the guard yelled from the landing, raising his hand to signal the crossbowmen. The heavy metal gears of the weapons clicked ominously.
I looked at the twenty steel bolts pointed directly at Klaus’s broad chest. I looked at the dark veins of the curse still sitting over his heart.
I let go of his wrist. I turned my body, stepping directly in front of him on the narrow stone stair. I stood between Klaus and the raised crossbows, using my own fragile, human body as a shield.
The guards hesitated, their fingers tightening on the triggers, uncertain if the Emperor’s orders allowed them to shoot the Siren.
"Nerissa, move," Klaus commanded, his voice breaking. He grabbed my shoulders, trying to pull me back behind him, but I locked my knees.
"Shoot me," I shouted up at the guards, my voice cracking but ringing loud in the echoing stairwell. "Shoot me right now! If I die, the Anchor breaks! The curse detonates right here in his chest, and your entire Citadel burns in black rot before the bell stops ringing!"
The lead guard froze. He knew the rumors. He knew why the Admiral had been imprisoned. The threat of Ligeia's curse was the only thing holding the Empire hostage. If they killed me, they risked triggering the apocalyptic magic.
"Stand down," a new, smooth voice echoed from the top of the stairs behind the shield wall.
The guards instantly parted, creating a narrow opening in the center of their line.
Lady Vespera walked through the gap. She stood at the edge of the landing, looking down at us. Her crimson riding habit was spotless, her dark hair perfectly pinned. She looked at Klaus’s bleeding, ruined body, and then at me, standing barefoot on the bloody stone with iron shackles on my wrists.
"You are a very dramatic creature, little fish," Vespera sighed, resting her hands on the velvet railing of the landing. "No one is going to shoot you. The Emperor wants his pets alive."
"Let us walk out," I demanded, glaring up at her.
Vespera laughed, a sharp, genuine sound of amusement. "Walk out? To where? The harbor is locked. The lower gates are sealed with solid iron. You have nowhere to go, Nerissa. You put up a valiant fight, but the game is over."
She snapped her fingers.
From the dark stairwell behind us, the heavy splashing of boots hit the water. More guards were coming up from the flooded cells. We were entirely surrounded, trapped between the shield wall above and the rising tide of armor below.
Klaus realized it the same moment I did.
The fight drained out of him entirely. The short sword slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly down the stone steps until it splashed into the dark water far below.
He didn't look at Vespera or the guards. He stepped forward, wrapping his massive arms entirely around me. He pulled me flush against his scarred, bleeding chest, burying his face in my dark, tangled hair.
He didn't care about the blood. He didn't care about the crossbows pointing at us. He just held me, his body shaking with a profound, quiet devastation.
"I am sorry," Klaus whispered into my ear, his voice breaking completely. "I couldn't get you to the surface."
"I am right here," I answered, wrapping my chained arms tightly around his waist, burying my face in his neck. I breathed in the smell of his skin, the blood, and the raw ozone. "We are together. That is all that matters."
"Take them," Vespera ordered coldly from the landing above. "Put the beast back in the deepest hole you can find. And bring the Queen back to her cage."
The guards swarmed us. Rough, steel-clad hands grabbed my arms, tearing me violently away from Klaus’s chest.
I screamed, fighting against their grips, but the sheer physical exhaustion and the heavy iron shackles rendered me entirely helpless. I watched as six guards tackled Klaus, using their heavy halberd shafts to beat him back down to the bloody stone. He didn't fight back this time. He just looked at me as they dragged us in opposite directions, his sapphire eyes filled with a dark, heavy sorrow that I knew would haunt me until the end of my days.