Chapter 74 Hull
Klaus didn't waste a second. He moved through the frozen soldiers like a scythe through wheat. He didn't use the rifle; he used his hands. He was a blur of violence, snapping necks and throwing bodies into the sea with a strength that was no longer anchored by the Blight.
He reached Malphas.
Klaus grabbed the Duke by the throat, lifting him into the air. Malphas thrashed, his claws scratching at Klaus’s forearms, but Klaus didn't even flinch.
"You wanted a harvest?" Klaus hissed, his face inches from the Duke's. "I'll give you a harvest of iron and blood."
"You... you can't... save her..." Malphas choked out, his face darkening. "The Blight... it's... in the air..."
"Then we'll stop breathing," Klaus said.
He threw Malphas across the deck. The Duke hit the heavy brass siphon equipment with a bone-shattering thud.
Klaus turned to me. He was covered in silver blood, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. He looked like a god of the abyss. He walked to me and grabbed my shoulders, his hands hot against my cold skin.
"The engines," he said. "We have to blow the boiler. If this ship goes down, the rest of the fleet will lose the command link. They’ll be blind in the mist."
"I'll do it," I said.
"No, Nerissa. The heat down there—"
"I am the Song of the First King, Klaus!" I shouted, pulling away from him. "I can vibrate the molecules of the iron until they melt! Get the lifeboats down. Get the crew off if you want to be a hero, but I'm ending this ship."
Klaus stared at me. He saw the fire in my eyes—the same fire he had seen in the Trench. He realized he couldn't protect me anymore. I wasn't the little fish. I was the storm he had helped unleash.
"Five minutes," he said, his voice thick with a sudden, raw emotion. "I’ll be at the secondary launch. Do not be late."
"I won't."
I ran for the hatch.
The lower decks were a nightmare of steam and red emergency lights. I passed vampires who were still clutching their heads, incapacitated by the resonance of my command. I didn't stop to kill them. I had a bigger target.
I reached the engine room. It was a cathedral of brass and fire, the massive pistons pounding with a rhythmic, mechanical heartbeat. The scent of coal and grease was overwhelming, clogging my nose and throat.
I walked to the center of the walkway, overlooking the main boiler.
I thought of my father. I thought of the Southern Rift. I thought of the bone garden in the Citadel. And I thought of the man who had turned to stone to keep me alive.
I took a deep breath. I didn't sing. I screamed.
It was a frequency of pure destruction. I felt the iron beneath my feet begin to hum. The brass pipes began to glow. The steam valves hissed and exploded, spraying the room with scalding mist. I didn't feel the heat. I only felt the resonance.
The main boiler split open. A wall of white-hot fire erupted, but the sound of my voice pushed it back. I watched as the molecules of the flagship began to vibrate themselves apart.
The ship was dying.
I turned and ran back the way I came. The floor was tilting sharply now, the Crimson Talon taking on water as the hull disintegrated from the inside out.
I reached the deck just as the first explosion ripped through the stern.
The air was filled with flying metal and the screams of the dying. I saw the lifeboats hitting the water, filled with confused, terrified vampires. I saw Klaus.
He was standing by a small, wooden cutter, holding the ropes. He was the only one left on the deck. He looked at the hatch, his face a mask of agonizing worry.
When he saw me, he let out a sound that was half-sob, half-growl. He reached out and caught me as I stumbled over a fallen mast.
"Now!" he shouted.
We leaped.
We hit the water just as the Crimson Talon was hollowed out by a final, massive explosion. The shockwave rolled over us, a wall of heat and pressure that pushed us deep into the indigo water.
We stayed under until the surface stopped raining iron.
We broke the water ten yards from the cutter. Klaus hauled me onto the wood, his hands shaking as he pulled me against his chest. We sat there, drenched and gasping, watching the pride of the secondary fleet vanish into a cloud of steam and sinking red iron.
The other ships were in chaos. Without the flagship’s signal, they were colliding in the dark, their commanders shouting contradictory orders into the mist.
Klaus looked at the sinking wreck, then at me.
"We did it," he whispered.
"No," I said, looking at the black lines that were no longer on my arms, but at the dark, bruised sky above the Citadel in the distance. "We just started."
Klaus leaned in, his forehead resting against mine. He smelled of smoke, salt, and the future.
"Then let's finish it," he said.