Chapter 87 Failing
My bare feet slapped against the freezing marble steps of the West Tower, but I didn't feel the cold. I couldn't feel anything except the phantom heat of Klaus’s blackened chest burning against my palms.
I pushed the heavy oak doors open, throwing my entire weight against them to slam them shut. The iron latch clicked into place, a sharp, definitive sound that echoed in the cavernous space. I slid down the rough grain of the wood until my knees hit the stone floor. I curled forward, pressing my forehead against the freezing stone, my fingers digging into the dust of the rug.
The room smelled of stale lavender and dead ashes from the hearth. It smelled empty.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to open my throat and let out a sound so loud it would shatter every pane of glass in the Citadel. I wanted to tear the tapestries from the walls and rip the heavy velvet curtains into shreds.
But I clamped my hands over my mouth, pressing so hard my teeth cut into my inner lip.
“Every time you sing, I die a little more.”
His voice played in my head, a ragged, breathless rasp. It wasn't an accusation. It was a quiet, horrifying fact.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but it only made the image sharper. The necrotic flesh. The thick, pulsing black veins crawling up his collarbone like ivy made of ink. The way his massive shoulders had hunched as he coughed, his body desperately trying to expel the poison I had casually hummed into existence.
Three hundred years.
My great-grandmother had cut him open. She had dragged him to the bottom of the sea, a young, arrogant sailor with sapphire eyes, and she had bound his immortal heart to our bloodline. She had turned him into a living, breathing waste-pit for the toxic exhaust of our magic. My father had known. The entire royal line had known. We paraded through our pristine, turquoise waters, calling ourselves queens and kings, while a man choked on our rot in the dark.
And I had been the worst of them all.
I tasted warm, metallic copper pooling on my tongue from where my teeth had broken the skin of my lip. I swallowed it. It tasted like guilt.
I pushed myself off the floor, my limbs heavy, uncoordinated. The charcoal silk of my dress was stained with dust and my own sweat. I walked toward the small washbasin in the corner of the room. The pitcher was full of cold water. I grabbed it with shaking hands and poured it into the porcelain bowl. The water splashed over the edges, soaking into the rug.
I plunged my hands into the freezing water. I scrubbed them together, digging my short nails into my palms, trying to wash off the phantom sensation of his diseased skin. I splashed the freezing water onto my face, gasping at the shock.
I looked up at the mirror hanging above the basin.
My reflection stared back at me. My eyes were bloodshot, the turquoise irises stark and unnatural against the bruised, exhausted skin underneath. My dark hair was a tangled mess, clinging to my damp cheeks.
I looked like a monster.
I gripped the edges of the porcelain basin until my knuckles turned white. Deep inside my chest, the familiar, comforting itch began to build. It was the biological imperative of the Siren. The grief, the panic, the overwhelming pressure of my own emotions were building up, creating a dense, suffocating smog in my lungs. My body knew only one way to expel it.
I needed to hum.
The vibration was already forming in my vocal cords, an instinctual, involuntary reflex to equalize the pressure inside me. The magic wanted out. It wanted to cleanse my lungs and dump the heavy, toxic ash directly through the Anchor bond. Directly into Klaus’s failing heart.
I stared at my throat in the mirror. I watched the muscles tense.
“And I would die a thousand times to keep you singing.”
I let out a ragged, silent sob.
I bit down on my lip again, harder this time. The pain flared, sharp and grounding. I forced my jaw shut, locking my teeth together. I clamped my hand over my throat, feeling the desperate, frantic flutter of my own pulse against my palm.
"No," I mouthed to my reflection. No sound came out.
I swallowed hard. The urge to hum fought against my restraint. It felt like trying to swallow a mouthful of hot gravel. The pressure in my chest spiked, a dull, aching throb that radiated behind my ribs. The magic, denied its exit, pushed back. It settled in the bottom of my lungs, a heavy, stagnant weight.
I welcomed it. I leaned into the discomfort. Let it burn. Let it fester. It was my poison. I had no right to make him carry it anymore.
A soft rustling sound came from the shadows near the heavy oak wardrobe.