Chapter 81 Observe
The humiliation sat in my stomach like a swallowed stone.
I lay on the rug in the center of my room, staring at the cold, dead ashes in the hearth. Hours had passed since I fled the Grand Atrium, but my skin still burned with the heat of a hundred mocking stares. Vespera’s cruel laughter echoed in my ears, sharp and rhythmic, overlapping with the memory of Klaus’s dead, indifferent eyes.
He looked right through me.
I pressed my palms against my face, inhaling the stale air of the tower. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shed a pile of hard, cold pearls onto the floor and let the grief consume me entirely. But as the silence of the room stretched on, the crushing weight of the sorrow began to harden into something else.
Anger.
A sharp, jagged fury began to pulse in my chest. I sat up, my hands dropping to my lap. Klaus Falkenstein had not just abandoned me; he had humiliated me. He had stripped me of my dignity in front of the very monsters he had sworn to protect me from. He had treated me like a discarded weapon.
I pushed myself off the floor. My knees ached, and my dark skirts were wrinkled and coated in a thin layer of dust. I didn't care. I walked toward the heavy tapestry that hung on the far wall—the tapestry that concealed the connecting door to his private quarters.
I had the key. He had given it to me weeks ago, a heavy brass thing that always felt too cold in my palm. I reached into the hidden pocket of my dress and pulled it out.
If he wouldn't speak to me, if he was going to lock me out of his life without a single word of explanation, then I was going to find my own answers. I was going to find out what had changed between the bottom of the ocean and the polished floors of the Citadel.
I swept the heavy velvet tapestry aside. The iron door loomed in the shadows. I slid the key into the lock and turned it. It gave a loud, metallic groan that made my heart hammer against my ribs. I waited for a shout, for a guard to come running, but the tower remained dead quiet.
I pushed the door open and stepped into his world.
The air in Klaus’s private study tasted of stale ozone, cracked leather, and the sharp, medicinal scent of winter salve. It was freezing. He never kept a fire burning when he wasn't here. The room was cast in deep shadows, illuminated only by the weak, grey moonlight bleeding through the high, narrow window.
I walked to his desk. It was a massive slab of polished obsidian, perfectly organized. A silver letter opener lay perfectly parallel to a stack of sealed missives. A brass inkwell sat next to a rack of dark quills. It was the desk of a man who controlled every aspect of his existence with ruthless precision.
I traced my fingers over the cold stone edge. I wasn't looking for military movements. I didn't care about the Lycan borders or the northern supply lines. I wanted to know about us. I wanted to know what he was hiding behind that mask of ice.
I opened the top drawer. Wax seals, spare nibs, a block of sealing wax. I opened the second. Blank parchment, meticulously stacked.
I moved to the bottom drawer on the right side. I pulled the handle, but it didn't budge. Locked.
I knelt on the cold floor, running my fingers under the lip of the desk, searching the heavy wooden panels. Klaus was a strategist. He wouldn't leave the key to his most private drawer on a hook by the door. I remembered the night he had coughed up the black sludge. I remembered the frantic way he had shoved his ruined handkerchief into his coat pocket, hiding the evidence. He liked false bottoms. He liked hiding things in plain sight.
I stood up and walked to the small, iron-wrought table holding his washbasin. Beneath it sat a heavy, unassuming wooden footstool. I flipped it over. The bottom panel was slightly loose. I pried it open with my fingernails, wincing as one of them tore.
A small, iron key dropped into my palm.
I hurried back to the desk, my breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. I slid the iron key into the bottom drawer. It turned with a smooth, oiled click.
I pulled the drawer open.
It wasn't filled with letters from the Emperor or tactical maps. It was filled with books.
Dozens of them. They were tightly packed, bound in leathers of varying shades of brown and black. The smell that wafted up from the drawer was overwhelming—a dense, suffocating odor of ancient dust, dry rot, and iron gall ink.
I reached in and pulled out the first book on the far left.
The leather was so old it was flaking away like dry skin, leaving brown residue on my fingertips. The spine cracked loudly as I opened it, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the silent room.
I grabbed the brass oil lamp from the corner of the desk, striking a match and touching it to the wick. The flame flared to life, casting long, nervous shadows across the obsidian surface. I held the book under the light.
The handwriting inside was jagged and aggressive, the ink a faded, rusted brown. I recognized the sharp, slanting loops of the letters. It was Klaus’s handwriting, but it lacked the controlled, methodical neatness of his current reports. This handwriting was frantic. Hurried.
I looked at the date at the top of the page.
The Year of the First Eclipse.
My breath hitched. That was three hundred years ago. The year the Imperial Vampire Navy first laid claim to the coastal waters.
I scanned the page, my eyes straining to read the faded script.
The water grows colder near the eastern shelf. The scouts report a new resonance in the deep. It is not the mindless humming of the beasts. It has structure. It has a melody. I tracked the source for three leagues. It is a royal line. The Sirens. They call their current matriarch Queen Ligeia.
I dropped the book onto the desk. It hit the stone with a heavy, hollow thud.
Queen Ligeia. My great-grandmother.
My hands began to shake. I picked the book back up, forcing myself to turn the stiff, yellowed pages.