Chapter 19 First Gift
I sat up. Klaus’s private quarters was empty.
It was a stark, joyless box. A single wooden chair, a desk stacked with maps, and this narrow military cot. There were no personal items. No pictures, no trinkets, no evidence that a living, feeling being occupied this space. It felt less like a bedroom and more like a storage closet for a weapon that needed to be powered down between wars.
I swung my legs over the edge of the cot. My nightgown was wrinkled, and my feet were still tender from the bone shards in the garden, though the salve had done its work.
"Klaus?" I whispered.
I stood up and walked to the desk. I shouldn't snoop, but the emptiness of the room unnerved me.
I looked at the maps. They were detailed charts of the coastline, marked with red ink.
The heavy iron door opened.
I spun around, backing against the desk.
Klaus walked in.
He stopped when he saw me standing there.
He looked... wrong.
He wasn't wearing his pristine uniform. He was wearing loose dark trousers and a heavy wool sweater that clung to him, sodden and dripping. His hair was plastered to his skull, black strands dripping water onto his face. His skin, usually the color of marble, had a translucent, blue-ish tint to it.
And the smell.
He was shivering. It was a subtle, high-frequency vibration that rattled the water droplets off his eyelashes.
"You're awake," he said. His voice was rough, sounding like he had swallowed gravel.
"You're wet," I stated, staring at the puddle forming around his boots. "Where have you been?"
"Out," he said dismissively. He walked over to the single wooden chair and sat down heavily, as if his legs could no longer support him. He didn't look at me. He looked at the floor, focusing on his breathing.
"It’s mid-morning," I said, stepping closer. " The sun is up. You can't go out."
"The smog cover is thick today," he murmured. "And the water... the water is dark."
He reached into the folds of his wet sweater. His hand was shaking, violent tremors that he tried to hide by clenching his fist.
"I brought you something," he said.
He held out his hand.
Wrapped in a scrap of black sailcloth was a heavy, irregular shape.
I hesitated. "What is it?"
"Insurance," he said. "Against my glazing budget."
I reached out and took the bundle. It was heavy, surprisingly so. And cold. It radiated a chill that numbed my fingers through the cloth.
I unwrapped it.
I gasped.
It was a shell. But not the kind you find on the beach, bleached white by the sun.
It was a Midnight Conch.
They only grew in the deepest trenches of the ocean, miles below the surface, where the pressure was strong enough to crush a submarine. It was large, the size of a human heart, and its surface swirled with iridescent colors. It was perfect.
And it was still wet with seawater.
I looked from the shell to Klaus.
"You went to the Trench," I whispered, the realization stealing the air from my lungs.
"I went for a swim," he deflected, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes.
"Klaus, the Trench is three miles down," I said, my voice rising. "The pressure... even for a vampire..."
"The pressure is manageable," he rasped. "The cold is annoying."
"Why?" I gripped the shell, feeling its sharp ridges dig into my palm. "Why would you do this?"
He opened his eyes. The sapphire light was dim, flickering.
"Because you screamed," he said simply. "You screamed that your father was oil. That the coral was bone. You were trapped in a nightmare of the surface."
He gestured weakly to the shell in my hand.
"That is real. It’s from the bottom. Below the blight. Below the rot. The water down there is still clear, Nerissa."
I looked down at the shell. I brought it to my nose. It smelled of pure, uncorrupted ocean. It smelled of home before the sickness.
"Put it to your ear," he said.
I lifted the heavy shell. I pressed the smooth, cold opening against my ear.
I expected the wind. That's what humans said shells sounded like. The blood rushing in your own head.
But this was different.
I heard a low, rhythmic thrumming.
It was the heartbeat of the ocean. The sound of the tectonic plates shifting, the thermal vents hissing, the massive currents moving millions of tons of water. It was a sound of immense, indifferent power.
It was the sound of safety.
My shoulders dropped. The tightness in my chest, which had been there since I woke up from the nightmare, unspooled.
"It’s singing," I whispered, closing my eyes.
"It remembers where it came from."
I lowered the shell, clutching it to my chest like a lifeline. I looked at him.
He was shaking harder now. His lips were tinged with blue.
He had gone into the ocean. The ocean that was currently toxic to his kind. The ocean that I was poisoning. He had dived into the dark, cold crushing depths, just to find a piece of the world that wasn't broken, so I wouldn't wake up screaming.
He hadn't done it to save his windows. He had done it to save my mind.
"You're freezing," I said.
"I am cold-blooded," he muttered. "It takes time to regulate."
I set the shell down on the desk, right on top of a map marking the death of the coastline.
I walked over to the chair.
"Get up," I said.
He looked at me warily. "Why?"
"Because you are dripping salt water all over your floor, and you look like you're about to pass out."
"I do not pass out," he argued, but he let me pull him by the arm. He stood up, swaying slightly. He was freezing to the touch. It was like touching a corpse that had been on ice.
"Sit on the bed," I ordered.
"Nerissa, I am dirty. I am wet. The linens..."
"Sit."
He sat. He looked defeated. The great General, the predator of the night, brought low by a midnight swim.
I walked to the small iron stove in the corner of the room. It was unlit. I opened the door, shoved in some kindling from a basket, and grabbed the flint.
"I can do that," Klaus said, starting to get up.
"Sit down!" I snapped.
I struck the flint. A spark caught. The fire flared to life.
I fed it logs until it roared. The room began to warm up.
I turned back to him. He was watching me with a strange expression. Confusion? Awe?
"Take off the sweater," I said.
"Excuse me?"
"It’s wet wool, Klaus. It’s keeping the cold against your skin. Take it off."
He hesitated. "I am not decent underneath."
"I have seen you drag a man by his throat," I said. "I have seen you hold a knife to a deserter. I think I can handle seeing your chest."
He held my gaze for a moment, then sighed. He reached down, grabbed the hem of the sodden sweater, and pulled it over his head.
He dropped it on the floor.
I stopped breathing.
His chest was... mapped.
His skin was pale, yes, but it was covered in scars. Silver lines, jagged tears, burn marks. A history of violence written on his body.
But that wasn't what stopped my heart.
It was the black veins.
Radiating from his heart, spreading out across his pectoral muscle and up toward his neck, was a spiderweb of black lines. They pulsed beneath his skin, ugly and bruised.
The Anchor mark.
It looked like gangrene. It looked like rot.
"Don't look," he said harshly, reaching for a blanket.
"No." I stepped forward, catching his wrist before he could cover himself.
I stared at the black web. It was right over his heart. My magic. My poison.
"It’s worse than yesterday," I whispered.
"I went for a swim," he said, his voice tight. "Immersion accelerates the reaction. It will fade."
"You did this for a shell?" I asked, looking up at his face. "You let the poison spread... for a shell?"
"I did it for silence," he said stubbornly. "You were loud."
I reached out. I placed my hand flat against the black veins over his heart.
He hissed, his muscles contracting under my palm.
"Does it hurt?" I asked.
"It feels like acid," he admitted through gritted teeth. "But your hand... your hand is warm."
I didn't move my hand. I let the warmth of my skin seep into his freezing chest. I felt the erratic, shuddering thrum of his heart beneath the corruption.
"You are an idiot," I whispered, tears pricking my eyes again. "A noble, stupid idiot."
"I am a strategist," he argued weakly. "A calm asset is a functional asset."
"I am not an asset!" I shouted, the emotion bubbling over. "I am the woman who is killing you! And you are bringing me gifts from the murder scene!"
He looked at me. The defiance in his eyes softened, melting into something exhaustion couldn't hide.
"You are not killing me, Nerissa," he said softly. "You are the only thing keeping me awake."
He reached up and covered my hand with his. His fingers were icy, but his grip was gentle.
"The shell," he said. "Do you like it?"
I looked at him, at the ruin of his chest, at the water dripping from his hair.
"It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," I choked out.
"Good."
He leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes slipping shut.
"Then maybe tonight," he murmured, "we can both get some sleep."
I stayed there. I stood between his knees, my hand on his heart, watching the firelight dance across the scars and the rot.
He had gone to the bottom of the world for me.
I looked at the shell sitting on the desk. A piece of the deep, brought to the surface.