Chapter 2 #2
I follow the route I remember from last night—down the stairs, through the twisting corridors, toward the great hall with its green-fire braziers.
The fortress feels different in daylight.
Older. More worn. The relics on the walls are clearer now: not just cutlasses and figureheads but maps, logbooks, sealed bottles containing things that float in murky liquid.
A pirate’s museum. Or a pirate’s mausoleum.
The great hall opens before me, and I pause at the threshold.
Zoric stands at one of the shattered windows, his massive frame silhouetted against the morning light. He hasn’t noticed me yet—his attention is fixed on something below, in the harbor. His posture is tense. Waiting.
“See something interesting?”
He turns. But his expression isn’t hostile. Just tired. The exhaustion of a man who’s been fighting longer than he can remember.
“They’re gone.” He nods toward the window. “Retreated before dawn. They do that.”
I cross the hall, ignoring the way my ankle protests. The window shows me the harbor—that crescent of sheltered water, the iron chains still stretched across its mouth. No pale shapes. No cold glow. Just dark water and darker stone.
“They’ll be back.”
“Yes.” He doesn’t soften the word. “Soon, if the pattern holds. They don’t attack during daylight. Can’t, maybe. The curse is stronger in darkness.”
“And you’ve been fighting them. All this time. Since you—” I stop. Choose my words carefully. “Since your first mate died.”
“Since I killed him.” Zoric’s voice is flat. “Don’t dress it up. I left him with the gold, sealed the wreck, and walked away. Whatever he’s become, I made him.”
The honesty cuts. I’m not used to people admitting their sins so plainly. In my world, everyone has excuses—circumstances, necessity, the endless justification of survival.
“Why?”
“Why did I leave him?” He turns from the window.
Faces me fully. This close, I can see details I missed last night—the way his hands are marked with deep lines, the slight catch in his breathing when he moves his left shoulder.
Old injuries. Fresh pain. “Because the gold was changing him. Faster than it changed anyone else. And I was afraid.”
“Of what he’d become?”
“Of what I might become if I stayed.” His gaze holds mine. Doesn’t waver. “The curse works on want. On greed. On every dark thing hiding in a person’s heart. Oreth had more darkness than most. But I had enough.”
Oreth.
“He wants the gold back.”
“He wants everything back. The gold. His life. The fleet we built.” Zoric’s jaw tightens. “And he wants me dead. Slowly, if possible. With maximum suffering.”
“Charming man.”
“He was. Before.” Something flickers in Zoric’s expression—grief, maybe, or regret. “We were brothers, in everything but blood. Built the Black Tide from nothing. Ruled these waters for years.” He shakes his head. “Then we found the gold.”
I want to ask more. Want to understand how two pirates went from ruling the sea to one of them dead and vengeful, the other hiding in a fortress, fighting battles that will never end. But there’s a more pressing question.
“What happens now?” I gesture at the window, at the harbor, at everything. “I assume you’re not just going to let me sail away with my cursed gold and my mounting death toll.”
“Can you sail? Do you have a ship?”
“I’ll find one.”
“And go where? Run again?” He crosses his arms. The movement highlights the breadth of his chest, the sheer mass of him. Not threatening, exactly. Just... present. “The gold doesn’t stop calling. Oreth doesn’t stop hunting. You can keep running. Eventually, he catches you.”
“Then what’s the alternative? Stay here and let him catch me faster?”
“Stay here and fight.” His voice drops. Something changes in his expression—calculation replacing fatigue. “I’ve been trying to end Oreth for years. Never had the right weapon. Never had someone who could get close enough.”
There it is.
“You want to use me.”
“I want to help you.”
“Is there a difference?”
He’s quiet for a moment. The green-fire braziers crackle. Outside, I hear the distant cry of seabirds, returning now that the storm has passed.
“You’ve been carrying that gold for months.
” He nods toward my belt, toward the pouch I can’t seem to stop touching.
“The curse has seeped into you. Made you resistant in ways that should be impossible. Most people can’t hold those coins for more than a few minutes without losing themselves. You’ve survived weeks.”
“Lucky me.”
“Maybe. Or maybe the curse has plans for you.” He steps closer. Not threatening—testing. Seeing if I’ll back away. I don’t. “Either way, you’re my best chance at reaching the hoard. At destroying it. At ending this.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then you keep running. Ships keep sinking. People keep dying.” His voice hardens. “Including you, eventually. The curse doesn’t let go.”
I want to argue. Want to tell him I’ve survived worse than curses and dead pirates, that I’ll find my own way out of this mess without his help or his agenda.
But I’m tired. So damn tired. Months of nightmares and death and the constant, grinding fear of what’s behind me. For once in my life, I want to stop running. Want to turn and face the thing that’s chasing me.
Even if facing it means trusting an orc who admits to murder. Even if it means dying in these cursed waters.
“Tell me about the hoard.” I meet his gaze. Hold it. “Tell me about Oreth. Tell me everything.”
Something passes across his features. Approval, maybe. Or surprise that I’m not running.
“It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got nowhere to be.” I gesture at the shattered windows, the storm-gray sky. “And apparently, neither do you.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost.
“Fine. Sit down.” He moves toward a table—scarred wood, salt-stained, clearly salvaged from some long-dead ship. “And for gods’ sake, eat something. You look like the drowned already took you.”
“Charming.”
“I’m not here to charm you.” He pulls bread and dried fish from a cabinet. Sets them on the table with more force than necessary. “I’m here to keep you alive long enough to help me kill a dead man. Charm is extra.”
I sit. Take the food he offers. Start eating, because he’s right—I’m starving, and dead people don’t help anyone.