Chapter 4
FOUR
ZORIC
We spend the morning walking the keep.
I show her the ward fires—braziers positioned at every entrance, filled with fuel that burns blue when lit, driving back the drowned with light they can’t tolerate.
I show her the armory, such as it is—weapons salvaged from wrecks and raids, maintained by guards who know better than to let their blades rust in the constant salt spray.
I show her the Great Hall’s defenses, the shutters that can seal the windows, the chains that can barricade the doors.
She takes it all in. Asks questions I don’t expect—about patrol routes, signal systems, evacuation procedures. Questions that reveal a tactical mind underneath the survivor’s instincts.
“You’ve planned sieges before.” I don’t mean it as a question.
“I’ve survived them.” She runs her hand along a shutter mechanism, testing the hinges. “Different skills, but there’s overlap.”
“Where?”
“Here and there. Saltmere, mostly. The docks aren’t peaceful territory.” She moves to the next window, not looking at me. “Turf wars, debt collections, the occasional naval raid. You learn to read a battlefield or you end up part of it.”
I store the information. Saltmere. The dock-scum tattoos make sense now—the coiled rope, the anchor. Marks that identify her to people who know the codes. She came up hard in a world that eats the weak and spits them out.
Like me.
“The guards.” She’s moved on, her attention shifting to the men visible through the hall’s windows—my crew, such as they are, going about the morning’s work. “How many?”
“Thirty. Former pirates, most of them. Survivors who had nowhere else to go.” I join her at the window. “They’re loyal enough. They know what’s out there, and they know Dreadhaven is the only thing standing between the Wrecktide and the coast.”
“Thirty against an army of the drowned.”
“Thirty against whatever Oreth throws at us. The drowned are deadly, but they’re not clever.
They follow his commands, but they can’t think for themselves.
” I watch Thorne cross the courtyard below, barking orders at two younger guards.
“Kill enough of them, and the rest lose focus. Destroy Oreth, and they fall apart entirely.”
“So you’ve been holding them off. For years. With thirty people and some blue fire.”
“It’s not about holding them off.” I turn from the window.
“It’s about protecting what I can while I figure out how to end this.
The coastal villages depend on Dreadhaven—depend on me—to keep the Wrecktide contained.
Every ship I warn away, every sailor I pull from the water, that’s one less body in Oreth’s army. ”
“Penance.”
The word lands harder than a boulder. I don’t flinch—can’t afford to, not in front of her—but my chest clenches.
“Yes.” No point denying it. “For what I did as a pirate. For what I did to Oreth. For all the people who died because of choices I made.” I meet her gaze.
She’s quiet for a long stretch. Studying me with an intensity that makes me want to look away. I don’t.
“I had a partner once.” The words come out soft, almost reluctant.
“Finn. He taught me the salvage trade, gave me skills that have kept me alive. We were going to build something—a real operation, not just scraping by.” She looks away.
“Years ago, our ship went down. My fault. Bad route, bad timing. I swam for the surface.” Her jaw tightens. “He didn’t make it.”
Ah.
“The curse feeds on it.” It’s not a question. “Uses him against you.”
“In my dreams. His voice. His face.” Her hands curl at her sides. “Promising that if I just let go, just stop fighting, I can see him again.”
“The curse lies.”
“I know. Doesn’t make the dreams easier.”
We stand in silence. Shared guilt hangs between us—different circumstances, same poison. She left someone to drown. So did I. We’re both still paying for it.
“The sea-witch.” I break the silence, my voice steadier now. “Thalira.” I move away from the window, grateful for the change of subject. “She knows things. About the gold, about Oreth, about the deeper magic that powers it all.”
“Can she help us?”
“Maybe. Her help comes with a price, and she doesn’t explain her prices in advance.” I’ve dealt with Thalira before—traded information, purchased charms, listened to warnings that usually proved true. “But if anyone knows how to destroy the hoard, it’s her.”
“Then we should talk to her.”
“Her cave is only accessible at low tide. We have a few hours before—”
A bell rings. Sharp and urgent, cutting through the morning quiet.
I’m moving before the sound fades, muscle memory carrying me toward the main corridor. Behind me, I hear Aviora’s footsteps matching my pace.
“What is it?”
“Warning bell. Something’s approaching the harbor.”
We emerge onto the wall walk, the wind hitting us in a rush of salt and cold. Below, guards are gathering at the chain mechanism, their attention fixed on the water.
Thorne meets us halfway, her face grim. Forty years old, human, former quartermaster before she joined my crew. I’ve trusted her with my life a dozen times over.
“Ship coming in.” She points toward the harbor mouth. “Emerged from the west ten minutes ago. No flag, no hail.”
I follow her gesture. And my blood turns to ice.
The ship is wrong. Everything about it is wrong.
Its hull is crusted with barnacles and sea growth, its sails rotted to gray tatters, its masts listing at angles that should have snapped them years ago.
But it moves anyway—cutting through the water with purpose, guided by something that doesn’t need wind or current.
The ghost ship. Oreth’s flagship. The same vessel we used to raid, before everything went wrong.
“He’s early.” My voice comes out flat. Controlled. “The drowned don’t move during daylight.”
“Something changed.” Thorne’s hand rests on her blade. “The men are ready. What are your orders?”
I study the approaching ship. No crew visible on deck—no movement at all except the impossible slide of that ruined hull through the waves. But I know they’re there. Waiting. Watching.
And at the prow, a figure stands motionless. Too far to see clearly, but I know the shape. Know the posture. Know the man who used to stand in that exact spot, scanning the horizon for ships to raid.
“Hold the chains.” I push myself to think tactically. To ignore the sick twist in my gut. “Nobody opens the gate. If he wants to talk, he can do it from the water.”
“And if he attacks?”
“Light the ward fires. Fall back to the keep. Standard siege protocol.” I don’t look away from the ship. Can’t look away. “This is what we’ve been preparing for. Years of waiting, and now he’s come to collect.”
Aviora appears at my shoulder. I feel her presence before I see her—warmth in the cold wind.
“Oreth?”
“Oreth.”
The ship reaches the chain boom. Stops. For a long moment, nothing happens—just the creak of ruined wood, the slap of waves against the hull, the distant cry of seabirds fleeing the wrongness.
Then the figure at the prow moves.
He steps forward, into the light, and I see what years of death have made of my first mate.
He was beautiful once. I remember that—remember the face that charmed merchants and terrified rivals, the easy smile that hid ambition sharp enough to cut.
That face is still there, but wrong now.
Preserved but twisted. Skin the color of drowned flesh, gray-white and faintly luminescent.
Water streaming from his hair, from his clothes, pooling around his feet in a perpetual reminder of how he died.
Barnacles clustered along his jaw and temples, shells growing from his own flesh.
And the gold. Chains of cursed coins wrapped around his torso, fused into his skin, glinting with that sickly phosphorescence I remember from the cavern. He’s become part of the hoard. The hoard has become part of him.
“Zoric!” His voice carries across the water—wrong, wet, resonant in ways that human voices shouldn’t be. “My old friend! It’s been too long!”
My hands curl into fists. Beside me, I feel Aviora tense.
“You know why I’m here!” Oreth spreads his arms, chains clinking. “The girl stole from me. My gold. My property. I want it back.”
I glance at Aviora. Her face is pale but composed, her attention fixed on the dead man who’s been hunting her for months.
“The gold isn’t yours.” I pitch my voice to carry. “It belongs to the sea.”
“The sea gave it to me. Rewards for faithful service.” That smile—gods, that smile.
The same one I remember from a thousand raids, now twisted into something nightmare.
“The sea and I have an understanding, old friend. I bring it sacrifices; it gives me power. The girl’s crew was a start.
Your little fortress will be the main course. ”
“Try taking it.”
“Oh, I will.” Oreth’s gaze shifts, finding Aviora with predatory precision. “But I’m not unreasonable. Send her out. Just her and the coins. I’ll let the rest of you live. For now.”
The offer hangs in the air. One life against all of Dreadhaven. The mathematics of command—cold, brutal, logical.
I should consider it. Should weigh the lives of my guards, the fishermen who depend on our protection, the coastal villages that look to Dreadhaven as their shield. One thief, weighed against dozens of innocents.
But I look at her—at the woman standing beside me, defiant despite her fear, carrying guilt that mirrors my own—and something in my chest refuses.
“She’s under my protection.” The words come out before I can stop them. “You want her, you come through me.”
Oreth’s laugh echoes across the water—wet and wrong, the sound of something that shouldn’t exist anymore. “Still playing hero, Captain? After everything you’ve done? After everyone you’ve killed?”
I don’t answer. Can’t. Because he’s not wrong. The blood on my hands would fill this harbor. The lives I’ve taken, the ships I’ve burned, the crews I’ve sent to the bottom—none of it justifies playing protector now.
But I’m doing it anyway.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” Oreth’s voice drops, intimate despite the distance. “What you really are. What we did, before you found your convenient conscience. The villages we burned. The merchants we gutted. The screaming, Zoric—do you still hear it at night?”
Every night.
“I know what I am.” I draw my blade. Its weight settles into my palm. “Do you know what you’ve become?”
For a moment, something flickers in Oreth’s expression. Something almost human—pain, maybe, or the memory of pain. Then it’s gone, drowned in the cold light of the curse.
“Sundown, Zoric.” He steps back from the rail. “Sundown, I come for what’s mine. The girl. The gold. And your head.”
The ghost ship begins to retreat—sliding backward through the water, defying every law of wind and current. In seconds, the fog swallows it, leaving only the memory of that terrible face and the promise of violence to come.
Silence. The guards exchange glances, fear and determination mixing on their faces. Thorne waits for orders, her knuckles white on her sword hilt.
“You heard him.” I sheathe my blade. “Sundown. That gives us six hours. I want every ward fire ready to light, every entrance sealed, every weapon in fighting condition.”
“Yes, Captain.”
The guards scatter, moving with the efficiency of people who know death is coming and plan to meet it standing. I watch them go, command settling onto my shoulders.
“Under your protection?” Aviora’s voice cuts through my thoughts. I turn to find her watching me, her expression unreadable. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“No.” I don’t apologize. “You didn’t.”
“Then why?”
The question I’ve been asking myself since the words left my mouth. Why protect a stranger? Why refuse a trade that might save my people? Why throw away years of careful strategy for a woman I met yesterday?
“Because I’m tired.” The truth, or part of it. “Tired of people dying for my mistakes. Tired of trading lives to keep the peace.” I meet her gaze. “And tired of giving Oreth anything he wants.”
Something passes across her features. Surprise, maybe. Or something deeper—recognition of a feeling she understands too well.
“That’s a terrible reason.”
“I know.”
“It’s going to get people killed.”
“Probably.”
She’s quiet for a moment. The wind pulls at her hair, her clothes. She looks small against the massive stones of Dreadhaven, fragile in a way I know is deceptive.
“Then we’d better make sure they’re not our people.” She turns toward the corridor. “Come on. You mentioned a sea-witch. I think it’s time we had a conversation about how to kill something that’s already dead.”
I watch her walk away. Strong stride despite her exhaustion. Straight spine despite the burden she’s carrying. Fire in her voice despite the fear I know she’s hiding.
Trouble.
And I follow her anyway.