Chapter 10
TEN
ZORIC
Around us, the guards are forming defensive positions, blocking entrances, preparing for the assault that must be coming. Thorne moves among them, issuing orders, keeping discipline. My people. My responsibility.
And in the harbor below, visible through the shattered windows, Oreth’s fleet waits. Four ghost ships anchored in the churning water, their decks empty now because their crews are already inside our walls.
“We need to evacuate.” The words taste like surrender. “Get to the boats, make for the mainland—”
“And leave him with the hoard?” Aviora’s voice sharpens. “With access to every coastal village between here and Saltmere?”
“Better that than dying here for nothing.”
“It won’t be nothing.” She grabs my arm again, harder this time. Forces me to look at her instead of the devastation around us. “We stick to the plan. Get to the caves, overload the curse, end this.”
“The caves are flooded.”
“Then we swim.”
She says it like it’s simple. Like diving into cursed water, surrounded by the drowned, is just another obstacle to overcome. Like the woman in front of me hasn’t already survived more than anyone should have to.
“Zoric.” Her voice softens. Her hand moves from my arm to my face, palm rough against my jaw. “If we run, he follows. If we fight here, we lose. The only chance is in the water.”
“His territory.”
“But also where the hoard is. Where we can hurt him.” Her eyes hold mine. Fierce. Resolute. Unwavering. “You know I’m right.”
I do know. That’s the worst part. Every tactical instinct tells me to run, to preserve what forces we have, to fight another day.
But there won’t be another day. Oreth has been building toward this for years.
If we flee now, he’ll hunt us across the coast. He’ll take village after village, growing stronger with every soul he claims.
The only way to stop him is to end him in the waters where I made him.
“The underwater passages.” The words come out slowly. “There’s a route from the harbor to the deep caves—takes you past most of the reefs. I used it when I sealed the hoard.”
“Can you find it again?”
“In the dark? In flooded tunnels full of the dead?” I let out a breath. “Maybe. If we’re fast enough.”
“Then we’re fast enough.”
She makes it sound so certain. So simple. And standing here, with her hand on my face and her body close enough to feel her heat, I almost believe it.
“The coins in the vault,” I say. “We’ll need to retrieve them first. And we’ll need—”
Glass explodes inward.
The windows behind me shatter in a spray of shards and spray, something massive crashing through them with force that sends guards flying. I’m moving before I think, shoving Aviora behind me, blade coming up to face whatever—
It lands in a crouch. Water streams from its form, pooling on the flagstones in a spreading stain. Bigger than a man. Bigger than me. Shaped wrong, limbs too long, proportions twisted by the curse that animates it.
When it rises, I see the face.
Young. Human. Features preserved with the same terrible clarity as Oreth’s, though this one shows different signs of time in the deep.
Barnacles cluster at his temples. Seaweed tangles in hair that might once have been brown.
His eyes glow with that cold curse-light, empty of everything except hunger.
I don’t recognize him. But Aviora does.
“Finn.” Her voice cracks. The name comes out broken, raw, the sound of something shattering behind her composure.
The thing wearing Finn’s face turns toward her. Its empty eyes find hers across the chaos. And it smiles.
“Hello, love.” The voice is wrong—wet and resonant, carrying harmonics no human throat should produce. But the words are tender. Intimate. The words of a lover greeting someone he’s missed. “You cut your hair shorter after the voyage. I liked it longer.”
Aviora doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. I can feel her behind me, frozen in a way I’ve never seen—the survivor who escaped the drowned reduced to stillness by a face from her past.
“Finn.” Her voice comes out small. Wrong. “You’re dead. I watched you—”
“Drown?” The thing laughs, and the sound fills the hall with cold. “You watched me drown, love. While you swam for the surface. While you chose yourself, like you choose yourself every time.”
I step forward, putting more of my body between them. “This isn’t your partner, Aviora. It’s a puppet—Oreth’s using him to break you.”
“Is he?” The Finn-thing tilts its head, and the gesture is so human it makes my skin crawl. “Or did Oreth just find what the sea already held? Years on the bottom. Years of waiting. Hoping you’d come find me. Hoping you’d at least try.”
“I couldn’t—” She’s moving forward now, pushing past my arm. “The ship was going down. There was no time—”
“There’s time. For the things that matter.” The monster’s smile widens. “But I didn’t matter, did I? Not enough. Not as much as survival.”
I grab Aviora’s arm, yanking her back. She fights me. Not hard. Not enough.
“Listen to me.” I keep my voice low. Steady. “Whatever he was, he isn’t that anymore. The curse has him. Everything he’s saying is designed to hurt you. To make you vulnerable.”
“I know what he is.” Tears stream down her face now, cutting tracks through the blood on her cheek. “But that doesn’t make him wrong.”
The Finn-thing moves closer. Guards try to intercept it, and it throws them aside like dolls—casual strength, horrifying ease. Its attention never leaves Aviora.
“Oreth found me in the deep.” Its voice drops to something almost intimate. “All those years on the bottom, waiting. He gave me purpose. Gave me a reason to keep holding on.” The smile turns sharp. “You. Finding you. Making you understand what it feels like to be abandoned.”
“I didn’t abandon you.” The words tear out of her. “The ship was going down. I couldn’t reach you. I tried—”
“You didn’t try. You decided.” The thing reaches toward her, one rotting hand extended. “You decided you were worth more.”
I attack before it can touch her.
My blade catches the thing in the shoulder, biting deep into flesh that should be too solid to cut. It screams—a sound that shakes dust from the rafters—and turns on me with speed I can barely track. Claws rake my armor, finding gaps, opening lines of fire across my chest.
I don’t stop. Can’t stop. If I give ground, it reaches Aviora, and whatever it wants from her won’t end in survival.
We trade blows across the Great Hall, the thing’s unnatural strength matched against my decades of training. It’s faster than me. Stronger. But it fights with hunger, not skill—every attack aimed at getting past me, getting to her.
That gives me an advantage. It’s not trying to kill me. It’s trying to move through me.
I use that. Bait strikes. I know it will try to bypass. Position myself to force its attacks into angles where I can deflect rather than absorb. My blade finds flesh again and again—shoulder, ribs, the meat of its thigh—and each wound slows it slightly.
But it doesn’t stop. The wounds don’t bleed. And I’m tiring.
“Zoric!” Thorne’s voice cuts through the chaos. “Down!”
I drop without thinking. Something whistles over my head—a throwing axe, buried to the haft in the Finn-thing’s face. It staggers back, hands clawing at the blade lodged in its skull, and for a moment, I think it’s over.
Then it pulls the axe free.
The wound closes as I watch, flesh knitting over bone with wet sounds that make my stomach turn. The thing smiles again, broader now, pleased by our futile resistance.
“You can’t kill what’s already dead, Captain.” It drops the axe. Steps forward. “But I can kill you. And when you’re gone, when she has no one left to hide behind—”
“She’s not hiding.”
Aviora’s voice comes from my left. I turn—and she’s there, standing in front of a brazier, her hand wrapped around one of the iron poles we use to stoke the flames. Ward fire blazes at its tip, blue and hungry.
“You want me, Finn?” Her voice is steady now. Cold. The tears have dried, replaced by something harder. “Try and catch me.”
The thing lunges. Aviora moves.
She’s fast—faster than I expected, faster than the creature anticipated.
The blazing pole catches it across the chest, and the ward fire does what our blades couldn’t.
The monster screams as blue flame eats into its flesh, consuming the curse that animates it.
It thrashes, trying to extinguish itself, but Aviora doesn’t let up.
She follows it across the hall, driving the fire deeper, her face set in an expression I’ve never seen—grief and rage and grim resolve.
The thing that used to be Finn collapses.
It doesn’t die—not completely. The fire burns away its limbs, its torso, but the face remains. That horrible, preserved face, staring up at Aviora with something that might be hatred or might be relief.
“You still choose yourself,” it whispers. “You’ll choose yourself against everyone. That’s what you are.”
“No.” She stands over the remains, the pole still blazing in her hands. “That was who I had to be.” She glances at me. Just for a moment. But long enough. “I’m choosing who I want to become.”
The light fades from the thing’s eyes. The face goes slack. And then there’s just ash and saltwater spreading across the flagstones.
Silence. The other dead have retreated or been killed.
The guards stare. Even Thorne looks shaken, and I’ve never seen her upset.
Aviora drops the pole. Her hands are shaking—from exertion or emotion, I can’t tell. She turns away from the remains, her face pale, her composure cracking at the edges.
I’m beside her before I realize I’ve moved. My arms close around her, pulling her against my chest, and she doesn’t resist. Doesn’t pull away. Just stands there, trembling, her breath coming in ragged gasps that might be sobs.
“He was right.” Her voice is muffled against my armor. “I left him. I swam for the surface and I left him.”
“You survived.”
“Same thing, isn’t it?” She pulls back enough to look at me. Her eyes are red, her face streaked with tears and blood. “That’s what I’ve been telling myself for years. Survival means leaving people behind. Choosing yourself.”
“And now?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Her gaze drifts past me, to the shattered windows, to the storm raging outside, to the cursed water rising through Dreadhaven’s foundations.
“Now, I’m tired of running.” Her hands find mine. Grip hard. “Now, I want to fight for something instead of just against it. Even if that gets me killed.”
“It might.”
“I know.” Her chin lifts. “But at least I won’t die running. At least I won’t leave anyone behind.”
I want to promise her she won’t die. Want to tell her I’ll protect her, keep her safe, make sure we both walk out of this. But promises are lies in a siege, and she deserves better than lies.
So I kiss her instead.
Not frantic this time. Not born of fear or adrenaline. This is slower. Deeper. I taste salt on her lips, feel the tremor in her body as she presses close. Her fingers thread through my hair, pulling me down, and for a moment, the rest of the world disappears.
We break apart. Her forehead rests against mine.
“The underwater passages,” she whispers. “You said you could find them.”
“I said maybe.”
“Then let’s make maybe into definitely.” She steps back, her composure settling back into place. The survivor returning, but different now. Harder. More certain. “Get the coins from the vault. Gather whoever’s willing to dive. And let’s go end this.”
I look at her—this woman who washed up on my shore carrying curses and guilt and more courage than anyone I’ve met in years. Who faced down the ghost of her dead lover and didn’t break. Who kissed me like I was worth saving.
“Thorne,” I say without looking away from Aviora. “The vault. Bring everything.”
“Captain—”
“We’re going into the water. We’re going to find the hoard. And we’re going to destroy Oreth before this night is over.” I finally turn to face my guards. “Anyone who wants to stay behind, stay. This is volunteer only.”
No one stays behind.
I don’t know why that surprises me. These are people who’ve fought the drowned for years. People who know exactly what we’re facing, exactly how bad the odds are. But they’re moving anyway—gathering weapons, preparing for a dive that might kill them all.
“Ready?” Aviora appears at my side, blades at her belt, determination in every line of her body.
“No.” I reach for her, fingers threading through hers. “Ready’s never been a requirement.”
We head for the water. And the dead wait below.