Chapter 55 Thrown
"The water was black," I whispered. My voice sounded like dry leaves skittering over a grave. "The palace was... dying."
"Dying is not dead," the Emperor said.
He walked to the sideboard and picked up a crystal goblet. He didn't fill it with wine. He walked back to Klaus and held the empty glass over him.
"You brought back no oil, Peregrine. No hearts. No pearls."
The Emperor’s face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated malice.
"Since you value the Siren's people so much more than my decree, perhaps you should share in their fate."
He didn't call the guards. He didn't draw a sword.
The Emperor reached for the air itself. I felt the magic in the room shift, a violent, crushing pressure that made my ears pop. He wasn't attacking Klaus; he was attacking the bond.
"The Anchor is a heavy thing," the Emperor murmured. "Let us see how much more you can carry."
He slammed his hand onto Klaus’s head.
Klaus let out a sound that didn't belong to a human or a vampire. It was a guttural, wet shriek of pure agony.
The Anchor bond flared between us, no longer a thin wire, but a burning iron chain. I was thrown to my knees, my chest feeling like it was being crushed by a leviathan. I coughed, and this time, a massive spray of black oil hit the floor, thick and shimmering.
But Klaus... Klaus was being destroyed.
The black veins erupted across his skin. They tore through his neck, his face, his hands. He doubled over, his forehead hitting the stone, his body convulsing as the Emperor forcibly pumped the Blight back into him—the very poison I had taken out.
"Klaus!" I screamed, forgetting his warning.
I tried to crawl toward him, but the pressure in the room pinned me down.
"Look at your protector, Little Fish," the Emperor cackled, his voice rising over Klaus’s ragged gasps. "He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to save your father. Now he will be the vessel for every drop of rot in the Southern Rift."
Klaus was hacking now, the sound wet and terrifying. He vomited black sludge onto the pristine floor, his hands scrabbling at the stone as if trying to claw his way out of his own skin. The sapphire in his eyes was fading, being swallowed by a sea of murky ink.
The Emperor released him.
Klaus collapsed into a heap, his breathing a shallow, whistling rattle. He looked like a corpse that had been pulled from the bottom of a stagnant pond.
"He lives," the Emperor said, wiping his hand on his robe. "For now. But the Anchor is reset. He will carry the weight of your home’s death until his heart finally turns to stone."
The Emperor looked at me, his smile wide and jagged.
"And you, Arch-Duchess... you will sing for the Northern Lords tomorrow. If you miss a single note, I will add another century of rot to his lungs."
He turned and walked back to the window, dismissing us as if we were nothing more than broken furniture.
"Guards," the Emperor called. "Take the Admiral to the infirmary. And take the Witch to the tower. Seal the doors."
They had thrown Klaus onto a stone table. He wasn't moving. The black veins were pulsing like living things beneath his skin. His shirt had been cut away, revealing the ruin of his chest—the Anchor mark was no longer a spiderweb; it was a black sun, radiating darkness across his ribs.
I managed to bribe a guard with one of the pearls I’d coughed up during the ordeal. He let me stay for five minutes.
I sat by the table, my hand trembling as I touched Klaus’s forehead. He was freezing. colder than he had ever been.
"Klaus," I whispered.
His eyes flickered open. They were almost entirely black, the sapphire just a tiny, dying spark in the center. He looked at me, and I saw the pain—a raw, constant agony that made him flinch when I touched him.
"I... told you..." he wheezed. Each word brought a bubble of black fluid to his lips. "Not... to speak."
"I couldn't watch him do that to you," I sobbed, the tears falling onto his chest.
"He... didn't do it... to me," Klaus rasped, a ghost of a smile touching his bruised lips. "I... did it... to myself... the moment... I brought you... that shell."
He reached out, his hand heavy as lead, and brushed a tear from my cheek.
"I'm sorry, Nerissa," he whispered. "I couldn't... save... any of it."
"You saved me," I said, clutching his hand to my heart. "You’re the only thing that’s ever been real in this place."
He closed his eyes, his breathing slowing into that terrifying, thin rattle.
"Go," he murmured. "The guards... are coming."