Chapter 15 Zoric
FIFTEEN
ZORIC
Iwake before dawn. Old habit. The kind that keeps you alive when the sea decides it wants you dead.
For a moment, I don’t move. Just lie there in the gray half-light filtering through the arrow slit that serves as my window, listening to the sounds of the keep settling around me.
Water dripping somewhere in the damaged levels below.
The distant crash of waves against the cliffs.
Wind moaning through gaps in the stone that weren’t there a few days ago.
And breathing. Soft. Even. Coming from the woman curled against my side.
Aviora.
I turn my head slowly, careful not to wake her.
She’s burrowed into the hollow of my shoulder, one arm draped across my chest, her fingers curled loosely against my ribs.
Her hair has dried in a tangled mess across my pillow—dark against the faded linen, carrying the salt smell of the sea we nearly died in.
In sleep, her face loses the sharp edges it carries when she’s awake. The wariness smooths away. The calculating assessment that lives in her gaze goes quiet. She looks younger. Softer. The kind of woman who might have had a different life if the world hadn’t broken her early and often.
I shouldn’t be here. Should have taken the floor, given her the bed, maintained some semblance of the distance that kept me sane for the past years.
Instead, when she stumbled into my quarters last night—exhausted, hollow-eyed, still wearing clothes stiff with salt and blood—I pulled her down beside me and held her until she stopped shaking.
We didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. The words would have been inadequate anyway. What do you say after you’ve watched a man destroy a curse, burn your people, and then take her against cold stone because the alternative was drowning in the truth of how close you both came to dying?
Nothing. You say nothing. You just hold on and hope the morning brings something worth surviving for.
She stirs against me. A small sound—not quite a word, not quite a protest. Her fingers tighten on my ribs, then relax. She’s dreaming. I hope it’s not about what happened in that cavern. Not about the drowned thing wearing her dead lover’s face.
My hand moves of its own accord. Brushes hair back from her face. Traces the line of her jaw, the curve of her cheek. She leans into my touch even in sleep, and a tightness settles behind my ribs that has nothing to do with her arm across my chest.
You’re in trouble.
Years I’ve kept myself apart. Years of sleeping alone, eating alone, shouldering the burden of this coast and everyone on it without letting anyone close enough to become a vulnerability. Years of penance for the man I used to be.
A few days. That’s all it took for her to crack every wall I built.
She opens her eyes. For a heartbeat, confusion crosses her face—where am I, whose bed is this—and then memory floods back. I watch her process it. The siege. The dive. The beach.
“Morning.” Her voice comes out rough. Scraped raw by salt water and everything else.
“Morning.”
Neither of us moves to pull away. She’s still pressed against my side, her head still using my shoulder as a pillow, and I find I have no desire to change that arrangement. My hand is still resting against her face. Her fingers are still curled against my ribs.
“How long have you been awake?” she asks.
“Few minutes.”
“Watching me sleep?” A faint smile tugs at her mouth. “Should I be concerned?”
“Probably.” I let my thumb trace her cheekbone. The gesture feels natural now—touching her, learning her. “You snore.”
“I do not.”
“You do. Soft. Like a cat with a chest cold.”
Her laugh is quiet, startled out of her. “That’s the worst compliment I’ve ever received.”
“Wasn’t a compliment. Tactical observation.” I pull her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple. The gesture feels natural in a way that should terrify me. “The keep won’t rebuild itself. We need to move.”
“I know.” But she doesn’t move either. Her hand slides up my chest, settles over where my heart is beating faster than it should. “Zoric.”
“Aviora.”
“Last night. On the beach.” She meets my gaze directly. No deflection, no armor. “That wasn’t just adrenaline. Not for me.”
The words settle somewhere deep. I’ve spent years training myself not to want things. Not to need them. Wanting makes you weak. Needing makes you dead.
“Not for me either.” The admission costs something. I’m not sure what yet.
She rises onto her elbow, her hair falling around her face, and kisses me.
Slow. Deliberate. Nothing like the frantic collision on the beach.
This is exploration. Declaration. Her mouth moves against mine with a patience that makes my blood heat, and when she finally pulls back, her eyes are darker than before.
“Good.” She rolls away, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Now let’s go count the dead.”
The keep is worse in daylight.
I knew it would be. Darkness hides the full scope of damage—makes it easier to pretend the cracks aren’t that deep, the flooding isn’t that extensive, the losses aren’t that permanent. Morning strips away the mercy of shadows and shows you exactly what you’ve lost.
The lower three levels are gone. Not damaged—gone. Water has claimed them completely, black and still and carrying the debris of everything stored there. The armory. The food stores. The vault where I kept the salvaged gold that paid for Dreadhaven’s upkeep.
All of it. Swallowed by the sea.
“How bad?” Aviora stands beside me at the third-floor landing, looking down at water that reflects the greenish light of the few torches still burning. Her shoulder brushes mine. Neither of us steps away.
“Bad.” I run through the inventory in my head. Weapons. Food. Medicine. Coin. “We have maybe a few weeks of supplies if we ration carefully. Less if the wounded need intensive care.”
“The wounded being everyone who’s left.”
“More or less.” I turn away from the flooded levels, heading up the stairs toward the Great Hall. She falls into step beside me, close enough that our arms brush with every stride. I don’t tell her to give me space. Don’t want to.
The Great Hall looks like a battlefield.
Which it was, I suppose. The flagstones are cracked, buckled upward in places where the water pressure from below warped the ancient foundation.
The braziers have been relit, their green flames casting wavering light across the scattered remains of our defense—broken weapons, bloodstains no one has had time to clean, the charred remnants of ward fires that held back Oreth’s dead.
Thorne is waiting for me. She looks like she hasn’t slept—hollow-eyed, grim, her arm bound in a makeshift sling that suggests the injury is worse than she’s admitting.
“Captain.” Her gaze flicks to Aviora, then back to me. If she has thoughts about our obvious proximity, she keeps them off her face. “The bodies are prepared. We burn at sunset.”
“Who can still fight?”
“Define fight.” She shifts her injured arm. “Brek’s got a cracked rib but he’s mobile. Salt Margit’s leg is bad—she won’t be running anywhere, but she can still shoot. Ven lost three fingers on his shield hand.” A pause. “That’s everyone.”
“Four.” Four fighters, plus me. Out of the forty who held these walls a few days ago. “What about the flooding?”
“Contained for now. The water’s not rising anymore—whatever Oreth did to the foundations, it stopped when he died. But everything below the third level is underwater, and I don’t see how we pump it out without equipment we don’t have.”
I nod. Expected as much. “Food?”
“Salvaged what we could from the kitchens before the lower levels flooded completely. Dried fish, hardtack, a few barrels of ale. Enough for a few weeks, maybe three if we’re careful.” Thorne’s mouth thins. “The fresh water cisterns are intact. Small mercy.”
“Weapons?”
“What we’re wearing. The armory’s gone.” She glances at Aviora again. This time, the look lingers. “There’s something else.”