Chapter 2
TWO
AVIORA
Ipull the pouch from my belt, weighing it in my palm. Fifteen pieces. I counted them when I bought them from that gent in Saltmere. Fifteen pieces of gold that have killed more people than I can remember and are probably responsible for the drowned things pressing against the harbor chains.
“Show me.”
The orc has returned, silent as a shadow despite his massive frame. He stands between me and the passage, blocking any exit, his attention fixed on the pouch in my hand.
“Show you what?”
“The gold. I want to see it.”
Reasonable request. Probably. He did just save my life, if “dragging me away from certain death” counts as saving. But something in his voice—an edge beneath the gravel—tells me this is more than curiosity.
I open the pouch. Let the coins spill into my palm.
The pull hits immediately—icy need sliding through my veins, hunger that isn’t mine but feels achingly familiar. The coins glow in the green torchlight, their surfaces etched with symbols I don’t recognize, their metal carrying a chill that goes deeper than temperature.
The orc’s hands curl into fists. His jaw tightens. I see the curse touch him—the flicker in his gaze, the tension that runs through his massive frame. He wants them. The gold is reaching for him the same way it reached for every other poor bastard who’s gotten too close.
But he doesn’t take them.
“Where did you get these?” His voice is gravelly now. Strained.
“Bought them from a man in Saltmere. Didn’t know what they were until—” I stop. Push through. “Until the nightmares started.”
“And then?”
“Then I tried to sell them. He turned up dead a few days later, throat cut and body drained.” I pour the coins back into the pouch, my fingers clumsy with cold and exhaustion. “I ran. Been running for months. Ships keep sinking. Crews keep dying. And those things in the water keep getting closer.”
He watches me for a long moment. I meet his gaze—hold it—refusing to look away first. I’ve stared down debt collectors and harbor masters and the occasional assassin. One orc, however large, isn’t going to break me.
“You need to sleep.” The words come out rough, almost reluctant. “There’s a room in the east tower. Door locks from the inside.”
“Is that where you’re taking me, or where I’m supposed to find myself?”
“I’ll show you. And—” He pauses, something shifting behind his expression. “You’ll be safe.”
I let out a laugh that sounds more broken than I intend. “You’ve already threatened to take what I’m carrying. That usually comes with violence attached.”
“I didn’t threaten. I asked.” His attention drifts to the windows, to the darkness beyond. “What’s out there is more threatening than I am.”
“Interesting.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t deadly.”
Something almost like humor flickers in his voice. Or maybe I’m imagining it. Hard to read with orcs—their expressions don’t map onto human faces the way I expect, and exhaustion is playing tricks with my perception.
“Why?” I ask because I can’t help myself. “Why protect a thief carrying cursed gold? Why not just take it and throw me back to the sea?”
He’s quiet for long enough that I think he’s not going to answer. Then: “Because someone wants you dead. And anything he wants, I’m inclined to refuse.”
Someone. He.
“Who?”
The orc turns toward a passage I hadn’t noticed—another dark opening in stone that seems designed to swallow light.
“Captain of the ship that’s been hunting you. The man whose crew drowned for that gold.” His hands curl at his sides, knuckles white. “My first mate. Or he was, before I left him to die in these waters years ago.”
The words strike like a blade to the chest.
Left him to die.
“And now?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
The orc looks back at me. In the flickering light, his expression is unreadable—stone carved into flesh, yielding nothing.
“Now he’s dead. Has been for years.” A pause. “Turns out death didn’t stick.”
He walks into the darkness without waiting for a response. After a moment, I follow—because what choice do I have? Behind me, the storm rages. Below me, the dead press against iron chains. And somewhere in this fortress of salt and shadows, answers wait.
The coins pulse against my hip. Hungry. Patient.
What have I gotten myself into?
The passage twists upward, stairs appearing and disappearing in the intermittent torchlight.
The orc moves with the surety of someone who knows every stone, every turn, every shadow.
His stride is steady despite the steepness—the rolling gait of a man who learned to walk on shifting surfaces. A sailor’s walk. A captain’s walk.
I notice details because that’s what keeps me alive. The way his shoulders fit the corridor with inches to spare on either side. The salt stains on his leather armor, the careful placement of weapons at his belt and back. The gold beads in his hair catching light whenever we pass a torch.
Trophies.
He’s a pirate. Former pirate, maybe, given the fortress and the patrols and the way he talked about protecting people from the drowned.
But the history is written in his posture, in the casual way he checks corners before entering them, in the weapons that look more natural on his body than clothes.
I should be afraid. Any sensible person would be afraid, trapped in a strange fortress with an orc who admits to abandoning men to die and carries enough blades to arm a small crew.
Instead, I’m... curious. And something else, something I don’t want to examine too closely. Something that pulses in my chest when I watch him move, when I remember the feel of his hand on my waist, steady and warm despite the storm.
Don’t.
The stairs end at a heavy wooden door, iron-banded and scarred. The orc produces a key—where from, I can’t tell—and works the lock with practiced efficiency.
“The room.” He pushes the door open, stepping aside. “There’s dry clothes in the chest. The window’s too small to climb through, so don’t bother trying.”
“You’ve hosted unwilling guests before.”
“I’ve made mistakes before.” His gaze meets mine. Holds. “Letting people run into danger they can’t handle. Trusting them to make smart choices.”
“And you think I can’t make smart choices?”
“I think you bought cursed gold from a gent in Saltmere. I think you’ve spent months running from things you don’t understand.
I think you nearly drowned and your first instinct was to reach for your knives.
” He tilts his head, studying me with those storm-cloud eyes.
“You’re a survivor. But smart? That remains to be seen. ”
I want to argue. Want to snap back with something sharp and cutting, the way I do when men try to put me in boxes. But he’s not wrong. Nothing about the last few months has been smart. I’ve been reacting, running, surviving moment to moment without ever asking why.
“Get some sleep.” He’s turning away. “We’ll talk in the morning. When the dead have retreated and the sun makes everything slightly less terrible.”
“Wait.” The word escapes before I can stop it. He pauses, his back to me. “I don’t even know your name.”
A beat of silence. Then, without turning: “Zoric.”
“Aviora.”
“I know.” He starts walking again. “The gold told me.”
And then he’s gone, swallowed by the dark passage, leaving me alone with questions I don’t have answers for and a pouch full of hungry metal that apparently knows my name.
I step into the room. Lock the door behind me.
The space is small but functional—a bed with blankets that look reasonably clean, a chest that does indeed contain dry clothes, a window barely wider than my shoulders that shows nothing but rain and darkness. The walls weep moisture, but it’s better than the sea. Better than the dead.
I strip out of my sodden clothes, pulling on a loose shirt and breeches that are too large but blessedly dry. My injuries protest—the gash on my hip, my twisted ankle, the dozen smaller cuts and bruises I acquired in the wreck. I should tend to them. Clean them, at least, before infection sets in.
Instead, I collapse on the bed.
The coins sit on the table beside me. I can feel their hunger even through the leather, that icy pull that never stops, never rests, never lets me forget what I’m carrying. Months of running, endlessly running, because staying means becoming like them.
Like Finn.
The thought slices through me. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can still see him—his grin, his hands, the way he looked at me when we first met. Before the shipwreck. Before I chose to save myself.
Before I left him to drown.
The orc’s words echo in my head.
We’re alike, Zoric and me. Both carrying ghosts. Both running from drownings we caused. The realization should disturb me. Instead, it settles into my chest with something almost like relief.
You’re not the only monster.
Sleep takes me before I can examine the thought further. And in my dreams, the dead are waiting.
I wake to silence.
The storm has passed. Gray light filters through the narrow window, painting the room in shades of ash and bone. For a moment, I just lie there, taking stock of aches and injuries, letting my body remember what it went through.
Still alive. Still human. Still carrying cursed gold in a fortress I don’t understand, guarded by an orc who admits to murder.
Perfect.
I dress in my own clothes—dried stiff by the fire someone lit while I slept, a detail I deliberately don’t examine—and check my weapons. Both knives still at my belt. Both blades still sharp. Small mercies.
The door is still locked from the inside. I unlock it carefully, half expecting guards or worse on the other side. The passage is empty. Quiet.
Too quiet.