Chapter 7
SEVEN
ZORIC
Four ships now.
I count them from the wall walk as Aviora and I return from Thalira’s cave.
The original ghost ship, still anchored at the chain boom, and three more wreck hulls dredged up from the Wrecktide’s depths.
Their sails hang in tatters, their masts list at impossible angles, and their decks crawl with pale shapes that glow even in the gray afternoon light.
Oreth isn’t testing our defenses anymore. He’s massing his forces.
“How many drowned can those ships hold?” Aviora’s voice is steady, but I catch the tension beneath it.
“Fifty each. Maybe more.” I do the math I don’t want to do. “Hundreds against our thirty.”
“Those odds are terrible.”
“The odds have been terrible since you washed up on my shore.” I turn from the harbor, from the ghost fleet that’s been years in the building. “Come on. We have work to do before sundown.”
The next hours blur into preparation. I move through the keep on muscle memory, issuing orders I’ve rehearsed a hundred times in my head. Reinforce the sea gate. Stockpile weapons at every choke point. Light the ward fires and keep them burning. Seal the lower passages before the tide rises.
Thorne falls into step beside me, her practical presence steadying. “The men are ready, Captain. Scared, but ready.”
“Good. Fear keeps people sharp.” I check the barricade across the Eastern Collapse—the section of wall that crumbled into the sea years ago, now our most vulnerable point. “Post extra guards here. If they breach the harbor, this is where they’ll try to flank us.”
“And the woman?”
I don’t have to ask which woman she means. “She stays with me.”
Thorne’s expression doesn’t change, but I can read the question she’s not asking. Why protect a stranger? Why risk Dreadhaven for one thief carrying cursed gold?
I don’t have an answer that makes tactical sense. So I don’t give one.
“Sundown,” I say instead. “Make sure everyone knows. When the light goes, they come.”
She nods and moves off to relay orders. I watch her go, then turn back to the work that won’t save us.
Because that’s the truth I’ve been circling since Thalira laid out our options. The ward fires will slow the drowned, not stop them. The barricades will buy us time, not victory. And Oreth himself—the thing that used to be my first mate—won’t fall to steel or fire or anything mortal.
The only solution is sacrifice. Someone taking his place in the curse, binding themselves to the gold while he walks free.
I know who it should be.
I made Oreth what he is. Led the crew that found the cursed gold, ordered the raid that claimed it, abandoned my first mate when the curse began showing its teeth. Everything that’s happened since is my fault. The math is simple: my life for everyone else’s.
But every time I think about offering myself, I see her face. The fury in her eyes when she told me she didn’t need my death. The way she looked at me on that cliff, pressed against my chest, her heart racing as fast as mine.
No one has looked at me like that in years. I’d forgotten what it felt like—being seen as something other than a monster or a warden or a man serving out his penance.
“You’re brooding again.”
Her voice cuts through my thoughts. I turn to find Aviora approaching along the wall walk, her clothes replaced now with gear from our armory—leather vest, belt heavy with throwing knives, a longer blade riding her hip. She moves differently in it. More lethal. More herself.
“Big tactical brain working overtime?” She stops beside me, close enough that I can smell the salt still clinging to her hair from our climb.
“Something like that.”
“Want to share with the class?” She leans against the battlement, her attention drifting to the ghost fleet in the harbor. “Because I’ve been thinking too. And I might have an idea that doesn’t involve anyone dying.”
I turn to face her fully. “I’m listening.”
“The witch said the curse can be scattered. Dispersed until it loses cohesion.” Aviora pulls one of the cursed coins from her pouch, turning it between her fingers.
The metal catches the light, its surface etched with symbols.
“She also said the gold wants to be near me. That every piece in the hoard will feel the pull if I get close enough.”
“You want to use yourself as a lure.”
“I want to use the curse against itself.” She meets my gaze.
“Something might work.” The words come out slowly. “But it requires getting into the sea caves. Past Oreth’s fleet. Through waters full of wraiths.”
“The route Thalira showed us. The warded passages from the eastern cliffs.”
“And it requires you being close enough to Oreth that he thinks he’s won.” My jaw tightens. “Close enough for him to start the binding.”
“I’ve talked my way out of worse situations.”
“Have you?” I step closer, and she doesn’t back away. “Because this isn’t a debt collector or a rival smuggler. This is a dead man who’s been hunting you for months. Who needs your blood to live again. He won’t bargain. He won’t hesitate.”
“Then I’ll be faster than him.”
“You’ll be in the water. His territory. Surrounded by his crew.”
“With you backing me up.” She holds my gaze. “Unless you’re planning to let me go alone?”
“Never.” The word comes out gritty. Almost angry. “I don’t let people go into danger alone. Not anymore.”
“Then trust me.” She steps closer still. I can count the flecks of gray in her eyes, see the pulse jumping in her throat. “The way I’m trusting you.”
My breath catches. This close, I feel the heat of her body despite the wind off the water. My hands want to reach for her. My whole body wants to close the remaining distance.
“Aviora—”
“Shut up.”
She grabs my collar and pulls me down. I lift her against me. She wraps her legs around my waist, and a sound rumbles in my chest—half growl, half surrender.
She tastes like salt and determination. Her teeth catch my lower lip, and heat spikes through me—sharp and sweet and completely overwhelming. I’ve wanted women before. I’ve taken women before. But this is different. This feels like drowning and breathing at the same time.
We break apart, gasping. Her forehead rests against mine, her breath coming ragged, her fingers still tangled in my collar.
“If you die in those caves—” I start.
“I won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.” She pulls back enough to meet my eyes. Her lips are swollen from the kiss, her cheeks flushed despite the cold. “But I can promise I’ll fight. And if that’s not enough—” She takes a shaky breath. “Then at least we tried. That’s more than I’ve been able to say in years.”
I want to argue. Want to tell her that trying isn’t good enough, that I need her to survive, that something has cracked open in my chest that I don’t have a name for, and losing her now would be worse than anything Oreth could do to me.
But the words won’t come. I’ve spent too many years burying everything soft, everything vulnerable. The language of want has rusted in my mouth.
So I kiss her again instead.
This time it’s slower. Deeper. I learn the shape of her mouth, the catch in her breath when my hands slide up her back, the way she sighs against my lips when I pull her closer.
She’s warm and solid and alive in my arms, and for one perfect moment, the rest of the world falls away—the drowned fleet, the coming battle, the guilt I’ve been carrying for years.
There’s just her. Just this. Just the impossible thing happening between two people who should know better.
A horn sounds across the water.
We pull apart, both of us turning toward the harbor. The sun is touching the horizon, painting the sky in shades of blood and rust. And below, in the churning water, Oreth’s fleet is moving.
Ghost lights blaze at every prow. The chains at the harbor mouth groan as dead hands begin to work them, testing the mechanism, looking for weaknesses. On the flagship’s deck, a figure in tattered finery raises one rotting arm in a gesture that might be a salute or mockery.
The siege of Dreadhaven has begun.