Chapter 23 The Deep Has Teeth #2
I peer up through the rain at the deep gray sky and the remaining pirates overhead still battling with the sail.
None of them are in any position to let go and help Sabre without compromising the others and the task at hand which, by all accounts, seems vital to saving the ship.
There’s no time to let myself hesitate. I fight my way to the ratlines and climb.
The wind is ravaging, ice cold. The kind of cold that eats through your skin straight down to the bone. The rain makes it all the worse as I use every screaming muscle in my body to hold on and pull myself up without slipping.
Up.
Up.
Up.
Don’t look down at the blackened water, the crashing waves. One slip, one wrong move and I’ll be like the lifeless pirate who fell.
Crack.
Crack.
I can still hear his spine shattering in my ears. The sound his head made when it split over the wood.
Sabre’s struggling, tossed and turned by unrelenting gales.
“Mehr’s harp, Avalon! What are you doing?” she snarls at the sight of me.
“Helping you.” My teeth chatter against the cold and my fingers are shaking around the swaying rope. “Try to swing yourself this way!”
Her position is so precarious any sharp movement could be her last. The part of the shroud that snapped and caught her is pulled tight around her calf. She reaches for me. I dare to let go with one hand to grab hers and jerk her toward me so she can take hold of the intact lines.
“I need a knife to cut you loose!”
“Holster, near my right hip.” Her breaths are ragged as she’s stretched so taut between the dangle line and me, using all her strength to stay that way.
I reach for her shortblade, yank it free so hard I almost lose the slippery hold I have. My heart seems to leap toward my throat. I almost look down.
“I’ll have to climb up higher to reach your leg. When I cut you loose you’re going to swing hard this way. Hold on tight.”
“No shit, Nymph. Just get it done. Quickly!”
The fingers on my right hand twitch violently around the blade hilt.
I try to calm my breathing. Count slowly before pulling myself up, careful to avoid stomping on Sabre’s hand.
Hopefully her grip is strong enough to hold her entire body weight coming down at once.
If not, this was all for nothing and Rowan’s about to watch Sabre die a very gruesome, splattery death.
I can’t think about that. Can’t think about anything but the ropes above me.
Lightning rips along the sky. Howls through the turbulent dark clouds and misses the ship by mere yards, illuminating the dark waves in such a way I can’t help but watch. Oh gods, I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
Nakane's blessing, let it be a quick end.
My eyes cram shut but I pull myself up one more rung so that I’m level with Sabre’s bound leg. Every part of me is vibrating with terror as I lean out as far as I dare to begin sawing through the tough rope. Her blade is sharp and it doesn't take me nearly as long as I feared.
The final thread makes a sharp snapping sound and Sabre drops so fast it's a wonder her arm isn't pulled from the socket. She groans when she catches herself but shoots me a grim look of victory.
We did it, I think, relief hot in my veins, when another, sharper snap sounds above us. A crack like lightning that rails against my ears.
“Look out!” someone bellows from above.
All at once the ship gives a fierce tip and my feet lose purchase. We're dangling over the dark water.
The Nightingale groans ominously as I cling for dear life, certain she's about to flip into the lapping waves.
Sabre shouts something but my heart’s beating too hard to hear her.
When I'm certain it can get no worse, the fates are happy to prove me wrong.
There's a distinct noise of wood splintering when the top of the foremast fissures, breaking away with a great swoop. It comes down swift and wild, the lines attached snapping like strings of a violin, and it’s heading right for us.
Sabre reaches for me but it's too late. Everything seems to slow for a precious, glittering moment before the mast beam hits me square in the chest with such force that I’m ripped away from the ratlines, and Sabre, and the Nightingale herself.
My arms and legs flail wildly. Free falling, but it won't be the deck I hit.
Waves of the sea rise as though in greeting as I’m tossed overboard. The black water is freezing, eager, hungry to swallow me. Someone calls my name just as the riptide pulls me down in a tangle of ropes tethered to the heavy mast.
Already, my lungs are burning for more air. The surface above me ripples with light from streaks of scattered lightning that brighten the sky.
This is it, I think. I’ve failed so miserably.
What becomes of Màma when I don’t return with the crown?
You know. You know what happens…he all but described it, in the most vivid detail. How he would carve the skin from her bones, inch by inch. Layer by layer.
I'm too paralyzed by fear to even thrash or kick. I don’t dare look down into the opaque deep I’m sinking further and further into. Móeir always said it was the thing that would be my end if I didn't heed her word and stay away. Now we would both pay the price.
The dark thickens and the pressure inside of my lungs grows to dizzying heights. My fear strangles me like a vice, like cords gripped tight around my throat.
Above, the world falls silent.
Air I desperately need is replaced by a cold, suffocating embrace.
Panic is all that’s left. Numbness and fear.
The light dims; playful streaks of lightning that danced above are now a distant memory, replaced with inky black that presses in from all sides.
And the sea, once a vast, endless expanse, is now a cage that will suffocate me, relish in my ending.
In our unfinished business from the night Harlow's Shadow Weaver went down.
I should have had you then, it seems to hiss around me.
My limbs float uselessly. Vision tunneling, swirling with strange dark spots, every instinct screams for the surface, but the tangled rope, binding me to the mast, is heavy and waterlogged.
I'm sinking, lower and lower.
Just as the world begins to lose its edges, a flicker of movement drives through the water like a spear. A dark shape, moving with powerful, determined strokes swims toward me, but somehow I know they won't reach me in time.
It's over. All over. The cold recedes. Even the burning in my lungs stops. I can't feel anything. Relief ebbs at the lingering edge of my consciousness.
I can rest. I can finally rest.
My lips part and I taste the salt of the sea flood my mouth, slips across my tongue, as I relent and suck in a lung full.
Choking. Dying.
I should be choking. Dying.
Why am I not dying?
Something tugs from deep behind my breastbone. It moves through me, a tingling. A rushing.
What is this?
Bright light. Brilliant light, as stark and true as the glowing that came from Rhyland's skin that night we fought the kepra. Only this isn't golden and warm, but cool and silver and coming from me.
Me.
My hands lift toward my face, the silver pours out, half blinding. It ignites the entire dark sea around me. There's a burning in my chest, more scalding than flame. I look down and a symbol sparks to life there. The rune, Laguz.
Startled, I suck in a breath and find that my lungs work despite the deep I'm submerged in.
I'm breathing. I can breathe as surely as if I'd broken the surface.
I hardly register how I'm continuing to sink, weighed down by a piece of the mast, until two strong hands hook me under the arms. In the shock of the feeling, the glowing silver light saps out—vanishes—returning the sea around us to darkness, turning the water heavy in my chest.
Blurry features come into focus. His powerful grip moves to my shoulders and then he kicks downward. There’s the flash of a blade. Aurelian steel that cuts through the ropes like clay. With a forceful shove, he pushes me up.
Swim! he mouths.
I can’t. My arms are leaden sludge. Any movement is erratic and uncoordinated. I struggle with little success. His growl of frustration rips through the water with a trail of bubbles before he hooks my arm, more of his powerful strokes slicing into the current. The deadly riptide.
When we break the surface I choke on air and seawater. Coughing it from my lungs. There's only a moment's reprieve before another monstrous wave crashes over our heads, with it a floating piece of the mast that wallops me in the side of the head. My vision dances with starlight and white hot pain.
There are rising waves in every direction: ravaging, endless sea as the storm continues to rage and swell around us. The Nightingale has gotten so far away I'm not sure how we'll make it back before the vengeful deep takes us as its prize.
Rhyland holds tight to me. Everything seems to quiet and still for a moment—the rain, the waves, the beating wind. His eyes search my face, brutal, scorching, anguished. Those calloused hands are hot against my skin when he reaches for my face and asks, “What are you?”
A flash of the silver rune dances behind my eyes.
Lightning shivers overhead. Thunder claps so viciously my head echoes with it, but despite it all, he doesn't look away.
My lip quivers. I feel undone— unraveled in a million awful ways.
I don't know. I don't know.
Maybe I said it out loud. Maybe tears poured from me and I screamed it. Maybe we lived in that frozen moment for an eternity.
But it fractures when another towering wave beats down over our head, forcing us under. Rhyland struggles, never letting me go. He's a true match for the tempest and carves our way back to the surface.
He makes several powerful strokes toward the ship.
“Hold on, Nymph.” His voice is deep and comforting as he drags me along the wild current, fighting each white cap and swell with an almost practiced ease.
The strength from whatever happened beneath the water has left me so that I'm limp and useless now, clinging to him. His runes glow bright blue and I know he’s using his godly power to keep us afloat. To battle the swells that keep pounding down over our heads that would kill mere mortals.
I splutter and jerk, digging for the blinding silver light again. It could help, I know it. It saved me down there. But it won't come back.
Did I imagine it?
“Almost there, Nymph.”
Rhyland's words eat through my thoughts. I blink against the salty sea water that burns in my eyes to find he's made incredible progress toward the ship.
Figures lean over the gunwale, shouting at one another. A thick rope is tossed to us.
Rhyland closes the distance to it in a few more cutting strokes.
Three times he wraps it tight around his arm before they begin heaving us up; the harsh wind pushes us this way and that.
Battering us into the sleek hull. Rhyland twists to take the brunt of each strike.
Angrily, the waves seem to lunge toward us like gnashing hounds, furious to lose their prey.
Not soon enough, we’re hauled over the rail. I slap onto the deck next to Rhyland, coughing and retching water from my lungs and nose. His strong palm pounds the space between my shoulders.
“Breathe!” he shouts, and there’s fury in his voice. Fury like I’ve never heard. “Damn you,” he adds, these words almost imperceptible. “You would take everything from me. All of it, wouldn’t you?”
I turn, still sputtering and gasping but aware enough to wonder if he’s lost his mind.
What is he talking about? The crown pieces?
Or does he think I’ve somehow caused this storm?
But when I look at him, his midnight eyes are fixed skyward and realization settles heavy in place.
He’s talking to his father. Ireus may well be the culprit behind this sudden tempest.
Thunder rumbles, shaking the Nightingale again.
Rhyland stands, the veins in his arm risen and almost as blue as his glowing runes when he clenches his fists. “Fuck you, Father! You fucking coward.”
“Talon,” Briggs’ voice is low with warning. Rain soaks his strong frame, glistening off the tattoos that decorate his bald head. “We should get below. Wait out what’s left of the storm.”
Rhyland doesn’t look at him, eyes set defiantly on the sky as though he wishes Ireus would appear and fight him this very moment.
I wipe the edge of my mouth, arms shaking beneath my weight when I try to push myself up. Reave moves toward me.
“He’s right, Captain. Avalon needs to be warmed immediately. She’s turning blue.”
“Leave her,” Rhyland growls when Reave attempts to lift me upright. He pauses, studying Rhyland until he turns and addresses him. “I’ll tend to her. Get below, the both of you. See that the men have what they need.”
Reave nods slowly and stands, finding his footing as the vessel rocks beneath us. Briggs follows after shooting a final worried look toward the damage done to the ship, and they heave themselves along the rigging line to the latticed door.
When Rhyland finally turns to stare down at me a sharp jolt trails through my veins in synchrony with a strike of lightning overhead. Alone, with no one but the gods to witness, I wonder if he might chuck me overboard out of sheer spite. Or if he'll ask me again…what are you?
By all accounts I should be dead.
My hand trails to my chest. I wince at the pain, and the raised skin I can trace under my finger.
Laguz.
The silver rune flashes again in my mind.
Water. House Aethelmaer of the sea line. But they are gone, hunted into oblivion by the father of the man standing in front of me.
“We had an agreement.” His whisper is deadly soft.
The rain splatters down hard against my cheeks, drenching my already soaked hair. Chilling me to the bone. I don’t say a word. My voice feels lost with the wind. I don't even have the strength to shiver.
“You would listen, follow my orders on this ship. Stay below. Wear the godsdamned cloak. What was so hard about that?” His voice shifts, the rage tapering down to something else.
Something hollow and wholly exhausted. “You were just sitting there when I dove in. Not even trying to save yourself until—” he cuts himself off sharply, avoiding the next words.
Until the light. Until the power of the sea line saved you.
His lips press together so hard they go white.
“Swim. Swim up. Do you have a death wish? Not even the sense to kick your legs and save yourself? Are you that eager to thwart me that you’d let yourself die? ”
If there was any heat left to warm them, the hollows of my cheeks might burn.
If my brain wasn’t numb with cold, a better excuse might form and present itself before the pirate like a shield of reason.
Instead, three mortifying words slip out.
Words I desperately want to take back the moment they’re spoken.
“I can’t swim.”