Chapter 42 Summit
The Council Chamber was a circular room, deep in the heart of the Citadel, where the stone walls were so thick they seemed to swallow the very concept of sunlight. A massive obsidian table dominated the center, its surface polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the flickering orange glow of the wall torches.
I sat to the right of the Emperor’s empty throne, dressed in a gown of structured charcoal silk. The pearls on my bodice—the ones born of my own grief—felt like lead weights against my chest. My throat was dry, a desert of sandpaper and nerves.
To my left sat Klaus.
He hadn't spoken a word to me since we left the tower. He sat with his hands clasped on the table, his posture so rigid he looked like he was held together by wire. The black veins on his neck had branched further, snaking toward his jawline like a winter vine. I could hear his breathing—a thin, wet rattle that he was trying to mask with the rhythmic tapping of one gloved finger against the obsidian.
The Anchor was heavy today. I could feel the pull in my gut, a dull, aching heat that mirrored the rot spreading in his lungs. Every time I looked at him, the scrap of parchment hidden in my bodice—Salt-Kiss—felt like it was burning through my skin.
Across from us sat the Lycan Ambassadors.
There were three of them, massive men with shoulders that strained the seams of their leather tunics. They didn't sit; they loomed. The air around them was thick with a musky, aggressive heat that made my skin itch. They looked at me not with the calculating lust of the vampires, but with a raw, predatory hunger. To them, I wasn't an Arch-Duchess. I was a bird with a broken wing.
"The border disputes in the Grey Marshes are becoming... expensive," the lead Ambassador, a man named Varick with a jagged scar across his nose, growled. He leaned forward, his claws digging shallow grooves into the obsidian table. "Your 'Grand Admiral' promised us land, Falkenstein. All we have found is mud and more of your starving patrols."
Klaus didn't move. He didn't blink. "The marshes are a buffer zone, Varick. You know the treaty. Your clans stay on the windward side."
"The windward side is dying!" Varick slammed his fist onto the table. The vibrations rattled the crystal water carafe in front of me. "The trees are turning black. The water tastes like oil. My people are sick, and your Emperor sits in his tower while the world rots."
"The Blight is a global concern," Klaus said, his voice flat and mechanical. "We are working on a solution."
"You are working on a weapon!" Varick pointed a thick, hairy finger at me. "The Sapphire Witch. We’ve heard the stories. You brought a feral to its knees. You think you can use her to soothe us? To make us forget that our children are coughing up soot?"
I felt the room tilt. The aggression was a physical pressure, a rising tide of heat and anger. The other two Lycans began to growl, a low, guttural sound that vibrated in the floorboards.
Klaus’s finger stopped tapping. He shifted his weight, and I heard the faint, wet sound of a suppressed cough in his chest.
"Arch-Duchess," Klaus said, his voice barely a whisper. "The room is too loud."
It was the signal. My first assignment.
I stood up. The charcoal silk hissed against the stone chair.
The Lycans turned their gaze toward me. Varick sneered, his upper lip curling to reveal elongated, yellowing fangs.
"Going to sing for us, little fish?" he mocked. "Going to tell us a story about the pretty blue water?"
I didn't answer. I didn't look at Varick. I looked at the air between us. I thought about the library. I thought about the Bound Heart. I thought about the black blood on Klaus's handkerchief.
I opened my mouth.
I didn't sing a melody. I didn't summon the storm. I reached for the silence of the deep trenches. The place where the weight is so absolute that sound cannot exist. I pushed that pressure out, a slow, expanding wave of cold, heavy air.
Hummm...
The sound was below the threshold of hearing. It was a vibration that settled in their bones.
The growling stopped.
Varick’s eyes widened. He tried to stand, but his knees seemed to lose their hinges. He slumped back into his chair, his chest heaving as if he were trying to breathe underwater. The other two Lycans bowed their heads, their hands falling limp on the table.
The heat in the room vanished. The musk was replaced by the smell of salt and old ice.
I kept the vibration steady. I watched their heart rates slow. I watched the fury drain out of their faces, replaced by a glazed, heavy-eyed submission. They weren't happy. They weren't peaceful. They were simply... suppressed.
I felt the Anchor pull.