Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(64)

At twenty-nine, he felt the ropes binding his legs go slack, then tighten again more gently. That was it—the ocean floor. It didn’t look like much—nothing looked like much this far below the surface, just a world of blue-black forms and murky shadows—but he could make out the jagged shapes of a few large rocks. In a practiced motion he folded at the waist, grasped the cord around his ankles, and, neatly inverted, pulled himself the last few feet to the silty bottom. It was easy enough to wedge his hip between the rocks, and then he went to work on the knots.

The rope was the thickness of his thumb, supple, the kind that coiled easily on a deck and felt good to work between the fingers. Annick had cinched the knots as tight as possible, however, and they had swollen with water during the long, slow plunge to the bottom. Valyn forced himself to go slowly, to test the rope with his fingers, to work through the various loops and twists. The mistake most people made was to just start tugging and pulling before they understood the knot. That was a good way to stay tied up, a good way to drown.

Double bowline, he realized, his heart beating a little faster with anticipation. Bowlines were easy to loose, even when they’d been doused and pulled tight. Maybe Annick had gone easy on him. He should be able to just … no. Valyn gritted his teeth. Of course it wasn’t easy. The damn thing was a bowline all right, but the bitter end was wrapped up in some bastard of a follow-through that Valyn didn’t recognize. If he’d gone about trying to loose it in the standard way, he would have fouled the thing up past all hope of retrieval. You’re a lucky shit for noticing it, he told himself, but he didn’t feel lucky. He’d been under for more than a minute, the air was starting to burn in his lungs, and what he felt was the first prick of the sharp claws of fear. Annick’s eyes, hard as chips of flint, filled his mind—those eyes and the memory of the slaughtered girl in the garret.

Slowly, he reminded himself as he traced the devious loop between his thumb and forefinger. Do it once and do it right. The coil looped back on itself once, twice, disappeared down through the loop until it came out.… He felt an icy sickness lurch in his gut. Even in the blackness, even beneath the tons of water, he knew what kind of knot he was facing now: a double bowline with the extra loops, just like the knot that had bound Amie as she died. It was another piece to the puzzle, but he forced it out of his mind. If he died here at the bottom of the bay, his discovery would die with him.

Fathoms of water pressed down on him like an anvil. The low burn in his lungs had become a fire. There’s still time, he told himself, clamping down on the animal panic. Think about what it means later. Just get it untied.

His abdomen had started to spasm, the muscles of his chest and stomach trying to override his brain, to haul in more air where there was no air to be had. Valyn closed his eyes—they weren’t doing him any good down here anyway—and tried to concentrate on the knot. The first loop came free with a reluctant lurch, but there were two more to go.

Stars started to fill his vision, stars that had no business on the bottom of the ocean. He felt his heart lunge again, like a panicked horse stabled in a burning barn. He was getting the knot, but too slowly. Once the stars started, there wasn’t much time left, not more than a dozen or so heartbeats. It would take him that long to return to the surface. The thought of the icy water sliding into his lungs and strangling him filled his brain, and he lost the bitter end of the rope. Shapes swam around him, sinister shapes circling and drawing closer. Sharks, Valyn realized, and clawed frantically at the knot. It was the wrong response. Even if there had been time left, which there wasn’t, that kind of desperate action would only tighten the bonds digging into his ankles. You idiot, he cursed himself, trying once more to find the loops, to make sense of them as his mind went dull and the blood blazed in his veins, in his heart. You stupid, ’Kent-kissing idiot.

Darkness closed around him, cold, and black, and limitless as the sea.

*

He awoke on the deck of the Night’s Edge, heaving a vile mixture of salt water and hardtack into the scupper. Another spasm brought up a second lungful of the briny muck, and then another, and another. He felt like someone had been at his ribs with their bare knuckles. His head throbbed, and each breath dragged gravel through his lungs. So the black shapes circling down around the ocean floor hadn’t been sharks; they were trainers. Someone had waited for him to pass out and then cut him loose. They should have let me drown, he thought to himself, curling into a ball on the dry deck. I was through the hard part already.