Chapter 75 Bone Gardens 1
I sat in the prow, the remains of my charcoal silk dress damp and heavy against my legs. My skin no longer felt like it was burning. The black lines were gone, replaced by a soft, turquoise glow that hummed beneath my flesh. I was a siren again, but a siren who had tasted the rot and survived it.
"The tide is pulling toward the East Gate," Klaus whispered. His voice was a low vibration that barely carried over the lapping waves. "We can't use the docks. Malphas's men will be crawling over the harbor like maggots on a carcass."
"Then where?" I asked. My voice was a clear, sharp bell.
Klaus looked toward the jagged cliffs beneath the Imperial Palace. "The Bone Gardens."
My stomach turned. I remembered looking down from my tower at that patch of white earth—the place where the "failed" experiments were discarded. It was the only part of the Citadel that the vampires avoided. They liked their death organized, bottled, and shelved. They didn't like to be reminded of the waste.
"No one guards the graveyard," Klaus added, his jaw tightening.
We hit the shore twenty minutes later. The sand here wasn't sand; it was a fine, white powder of crushed calcium and ancient shells. It hissed beneath the hull of the boat like a warning.
I stepped out first. My bare feet sank into the cold, chalky dust. The air was still, lacking the salt-breeze of the open sea. It was heavy with the scent of lilies and lime—scents used to mask the underlying sweetness of decay.
Klaus hauled the boat into a thicket of weeping willows whose leaves were grey with ash. He walked over to me, his boots crunching on the white earth. He reached into his belt and pulled out a small, silver dagger, pressing it into my hand.
"Use the resonance if you have to," he said, his eyes searching mine. "But if a guard finds us, this is quieter. We need to reach the Emperor’s private elevator before the sun breaks the smog."
"I'm not afraid of the dark, Klaus," I said.
"I am," he murmured. "In this city, the dark is where he is strongest."
We began to climb.
The Bone Gardens were a labyrinth of terraced slopes and shallow pits. It wasn't just a cemetery; it was a dumping ground. As we moved through the mist, the shapes in the white dust became clearer. A ribcage larger than a whale's curved out of the earth like a bleached archway. Skulls with elongated fangs sat in clusters, their empty sockets staring at the bruised sky.
My hem caught on something sharp. I looked down and choked back a sob. It was a hand—a siren’s hand, skeletal and delicate, the webbing between the fingers still intact but dried like old parchment. It was reaching upward, as if even in death, it were trying to find the water.
"Don't look," Klaus said, his hand catching my elbow. "Keep your eyes on the tower."
"These were my people, Klaus," I rasped. The turquoise glow of my skin flared, illuminating the graveyard in a sickly, beautiful light. "This is what you protected. This is the 'Empire' I sang for."
Klaus didn't answer. He couldn't. He just pulled me forward, his grip bruisingly tight. We moved past a fountain that ran with black, brackish water and into the shadow of the palace’s foundation.
The silence of the gardens was suddenly broken by a wet, rhythmic clicking.
Klaus went rigid. He shoved me behind a massive, moss-covered tombstone. He didn't draw his sword; he stayed perfectly still, his breathing shallow.
From the mist emerged a creature that made the feral vampire in the storage room look like a pet. It was a "Starving One," but it had been fed just enough to stay functional. Its skin was translucent, stretched over a frame of jagged bone. It walked on all fours, its long, needle-like claws scraping against the white earth. Around its neck was a heavy iron collar with a glowing red sigil.
The Emperor’s hounds.
The creature stopped. It tilted its head, its nostrils flaring as it caught the scent of salt and fresh blood. It let out a low, gurgling growl, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of jagged, broken teeth.
Klaus looked at me. He pointed to the dagger, then to his own throat. Wait for my signal.
He didn't wait. He lunged.
Klaus was a blur of shadow. He hit the creature with the force of a falling tree, his hands locking around its throat to keep it from shrieking. They tumbled into a pit of bleached bones, the sound of snapping calcium echoing through the garden.
The creature thrashed, its claws tearing into Klaus’s undershirt, carving deep red furrows into his chest. Klaus didn't let go. He didn't make a sound. He simply twisted, a sharp, sickening sound ending the struggle.
He climbed out of the pit, breathing hard. His shirt was a rag, blood dripping from the gashes on his ribs.
"Klaus," I whispered, reaching for him.
"I'm fine," he grunted, wiping a smear of black ichor from his jaw. "The elevator is just ahead. Under the weeping arch."
We reached the base of the palace. A small, unassuming iron door was set into the living rock. It was guarded not by men, but by a complex lock of brass gears and blood-sensors.
Klaus didn't use a key. He took the silver dagger and sliced his own palm. He pressed his bleeding hand against the sensor. The gears groaned, a deep, mechanical rumble that felt like the palace was waking up. The door slid open.
Inside was a small, velvet-lined cage—the Emperor’s private lift. It smelled of old roses and expensive tobacco.
"Once we reach the top," Klaus said, his voice turning into the Admiral's iron again, "there is no coming back. He will be in the solarium. He likes to watch the dawn burn through the soot."
"I know," I said. I looked at the black fluid on the elevator floor—Klaus’s blood. "I’m not going back to the tower, Klaus. I’m not going back to being a bird in a cage."