Chapter 17 Choice
I walked a few paces behind Klaus, my eyes fixed on the hem of his black greatcoat. It whipped around his boots in the wind, a dark, rhythmic motion that I found myself matching.
My feet were bleeding.
I had run barefoot across the garden path, and the gravel, the crushed teeth and finger bones of my ancestors had sliced my soles to ribbons. I left a trail of faint red footprints on the polished marble of the corridor, but I couldn't feel the pain. The physical sting was nothing compared to the hollow, rotting sensation in my chest.
We reached the spiral staircase.
I stumbled. My knee buckled, weakened by shock and the steep climb.
I threw a hand out to catch myself against the rough stone wall, gasping as my cut foot slid on the step.
Klaus stopped.
He didn't turn around immediately. He stood two steps above me, his back rigid.
"You are bleeding," he said. His voice was flat, echoing in the narrow stairwell.
"It doesn't matter," I whispered.
"It matters to the cleaning staff," he countered coldly.
He turned then. In the flickering light of the wall torches, his face was unreadable. He looked down at my feet, at the blood seeping into the stone. Then he looked at my face, which I knew was pale and streaked with soot and tears.
He sighed. It was the sound of a man who was tired of holding up the sky.
"Up," he commanded.
Before I could process the order, he descended the two steps. He didn't ask for permission. He bent down and scooped me up into his arms, lifting me as if I were made of hollow bird bones.
"I can walk," I protested weakly, my hands instinctively clutching the lapels of his coat to steady myself.
"You are trailing blood across the West Wing," Klaus said, starting to climb the stairs with effortless power. "And you are shaking so hard I can hear your teeth rattling. Save your pride, Nerissa. It’s the only thing you have left."
I rested my head against his shoulder. I didn't want to. I hated him. I hated his empire. I hated that his coat smelled like safety even though he was the one who built the graveyard I had just fled.
But I was so tired.
We climbed in silence. I listened to the sound of his breathing. I felt the cold radiating from his chest, seeping into my side.
He kicked open the door to the tower room.
He carried me inside and kicked it shut behind us. The lock clicked into place automatically.
The sound usually made me feel trapped. Today, it made me feel... hidden.
He carried me to the velvet armchair near the fire and set me down. He didn't step away immediately. He loomed over me, blocking out the light from the windows.
"Stay," he ordered.
He walked to the bathroom. I heard water running. I heard the clinking of glass.
I looked down at my hands. They were covered in white dust. Bone dust.
I rubbed them against the velvet arms of the chair, trying to get it off. It wouldn't come off. It felt like it was embedded in my pores.
Klaus returned. He held a basin of steaming water and a pile of clean linens. He set the basin on the floor and knelt at my feet.
"This will sting," he said, dipping a cloth into the water.
He took my left foot in his hand. His grip was firm, clinical. He began to wipe away the blood and the dirt.
I hissed as the warm water hit the cuts.
"Why?" I asked, looking at the top of his dark head.
He didn't look up. "Why what?"
"Why are you cleaning me?" I asked. "I stole your keys. I tried to escape. I saw... I saw what you did."
He paused. His thumb pressed against the arch of my foot, a pressure point that sent a jolt of relief up my leg.
"You saw the past," Klaus said quietly. "The Garden was commissioned fifty years ago by the previous Emperor. It stands as a monument to the Great Harvest."
"A monument?" I choked out a bitter laugh. "It’s a trophy room. You turned my people into lawn ornaments."
"I didn't," Klaus said. He switched to the other foot, the water in the basin turning pink. "But my kind did. Yes."
"And you protect them."
"I protect the order," he said. "Because the alternative is chaos."
He finished cleaning my feet. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the familiar jar of blue salve, the same one he had used on my shoulder.
He applied it to the cuts. The numbing cold was instant bliss.
"I could have made it to the wall," I whispered, the fight slowly returning to my voice. "If I hadn't stopped at the garden... I could have climbed over. I could have jumped into the sea."
Klaus stopped. He sat back on his heels, resting his hands on his knees. He looked up at me.
His eyes were sapphire ice, hard and unforgiving.
"Do you think the wall is the end of the danger?" he asked.
"It’s the end of the Citadel," I said. "It’s the end of you."
"Nerissa," he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. "Do you know what is waiting outside that wall?"
"The ocean," I said. "Freedom."
He laughed. It was a dark, humorless sound.
"The ocean is five miles away," he said. "Between here and the water lies the Outer Ring. The slums. The black markets. The feral clans who were exiled from the city for being too violent."
He stood up, towering over me. He walked to the window and ripped the heavy curtains open.
"Look," he commanded.
I didn't move.
"Look!"
I pushed myself up from the chair and limped to the window. I looked down.
Below the gleaming black towers of the Citadel, far below in the smog, was a chaotic sprawl of tents, fires, and ruins.
"That is the Meat Market," Klaus said, pointing a gloved finger. "That is where the scavengers live. They don't care about politics. They don't care about the Emperor. And they certainly don't care about preserving a rare species."
He turned to face me, grabbing my shoulders.
"If you had made it over the wall," he said, his voice intense, "you wouldn't have made it to the water. You would have been caught within a mile."
"I have my voice," I argued. "I can control them."
"You can control a dozen," Klaus countered. "Maybe twenty. But a hundred? A thousand? starving, feral vampires who haven't tasted high-caste blood in decades?"
He shook me slightly.
"They wouldn't have brought you to the Emperor for a reward," he said. "They would have torn you apart right there in the dirt. They would have eaten you raw, Nerissa. And whatever was left... whatever bones they didn't crack for marrow..."
He leaned in, his face inches from mine. I could see the terror in his eyes—not for himself, but for me.
"They would have sold the rest to the highest bidder," he hissed. "Your skin for leather. Your scales for jewelry. Your eyes for alchemy."
I stared at him, my breath catching in my throat.
"You think I am the villain because I keep you in a tower?" Klaus asked, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. "You think I am cruel because I lock the door?"
He let go of my shoulders and stepped back, running a hand through his hair.
"The outside world wants to mount you on a wall," he said, the words heavy and final. "They want to stuff you and put you in a glass case in a museum. Or grind you into powder for an aphrodisiac."
He looked at me, his chest heaving.
"I am the only thing standing between you and the taxidermist."
The silence that followed was deafening.
I looked at him. Really looked at him.
I saw the dark circles under his eyes. I saw the way his uniform hung slightly loose on his frame, evidence of the starvation he was enduring. I saw the tension in his hands, hands that could kill but had spent the last ten minutes washing the blood off my feet.
He wasn't keeping me here to use me.
He was keeping me here because outside this room, I was meat.
"You knew I took the keys," I realized, the thought striking me like a physical blow.
Klaus didn't deny it. He walked over to the fireplace and poked at the dying embers.
"Rook is clumsy," he said, "but he is not incompetent. He wouldn't leave his keys on the table unless I told him to."
My mouth fell open. "You let me escape?"
"I let you leave the room," Klaus corrected. "I cleared the hallway. I unlocked the garden doors."
"Why?" I demanded, anger flaring up again. "To torture me? To show me the bones?"
He turned, the firelight casting long, dancing shadows across his face.
"Because you didn't believe me," he said simply. "You thought I was just a tyrant holding you captive for sport. You needed to see the reality of your position. You needed to see what my kind is capable of when they don't have a leash."
"So you showed me a genocide to teach me a lesson?"
"I showed you the truth," Klaus said. "It is ugly. It is brutal. But it is the truth."
He walked back to me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the iron keys I had stolen. He held them out.
"Here," he said.
I stared at the keys. "What?"
"Take them," he said. "The door is unlocked. The guards are gone. If you want to leave, Nerissa... go."
He pressed the keys into my hand. They were warm from his body heat.
"Go to the wall," he challenged softly. "Jump. Take your chances with the scavengers. Maybe you'll make it to the ocean. Maybe you'll find a patch of water that isn't poisoned."
He stepped back, giving me a clear path to the door.
"But if you stay," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper, "you stay on my terms. You eat what I give you. You sing when I tell you. And you never, ever try to run from me again."
I looked at the door. It was right there.
I looked at the keys in my hand.
I thought of the white garden. I thought of the ribs fused into trees. I thought of the hungry red eyes of the sailors on the ship.
Then I looked at Klaus.
He was standing still, waiting. He looked like death warmed over, but he was solid. He was the only thing in this entire city that hadn't tried to eat me or hurt me.
I closed my fingers around the keys. The metal bit into my palm.
I walked to the door.
Klaus didn't move. He didn't breathe.
I reached for the lock.
And I turned the key.
I locked it from the inside.
I turned around and threw the keys onto the table. They landed with a heavy clatter, right next to the bowl of fruit.
"I'm staying," I said.
Klaus let out a breath he had been holding for a very long time. His shoulders slumped, just a fraction.
"Good choice," he murmured.
"But not on your terms," I said, lifting my chin.
He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I stay," I said, stepping toward him, ignoring the sting in my feet. "But no more lies. No more tricks. You tell me everything. Everything."
Klaus looked at me. He looked at the locked door, then back to my face. A strange expression crossed his features.
"Very well," he agreed.
He walked over to the chair I had vacated and sat down heavily. He looked old.
"Ask, Little Fish," he said. "But be warned. The truth is sharper than the bones in the garden."
I walked over and sat on the rug at his feet, pulling my knees to my chest.
"I'm not afraid of sharp things," I said. "I'm afraid of the dark."
"Then let's turn on the light," Klaus said.