Chapter 16 Zoric
SIXTEEN
ZORIC
Iknow what’s coming. Saw it in Salt Margit’s face yesterday, in the way the other survivors looked at the woman beside me. “Say it.”
“Henek’s brother is a fisherman out of Saltmere.
They’re close. When the supply ship comes in a few days—” Thorne stops.
Starts again. “Word’s going to spread. About the siege.
About the curse. About her.” A nod toward Aviora.
“That bounty’s been posted in every tavern between here and the capital.
Twenty-five thousand gold for information leading to her capture. ”
Twenty-five thousand. That’s more money than most fishermen see in a lifetime. More than enough to make someone forget loyalty, gratitude, basic decency.
“Henek won’t talk.” I make it a statement. Thorne’s expression tells me I’m wrong.
“Henek lost his wife in the flooding. His daughter was in the Great Hall when that thing came through the window.” Thorne speaks without inflection.
“He blames her. Not out loud, not to my face, but I’ve seen the way he looks at her.
If his brother asks what happened here, he’ll tell the truth. All of it.”
“Then Henek doesn’t leave Dreadhaven.”
“Captain—”
“No one leaves.” My voice comes out harder than I intend. “Not until we’ve figured out how to handle this. Anyone who has a problem with that can take it up with me directly.”
Thorne’s jaw tightens. She’s not happy. Can’t blame her—holding people against their will isn’t leadership, it’s tyranny. But the alternative is watching Aviora dragged away to pay for sins that aren’t entirely hers, and I find I’m not willing to let that happen.
“Understood.” Thorne turns to go, then pauses. “The supply ship is a few days out. After that, if people want to leave, I won’t be able to stop them. Neither will you.” Her gaze finds mine. “You might want to think about what happens then.”
She leaves. The silence she leaves behind is thick with implications.
“She’s right.” Aviora’s voice is quiet. “You can’t hold people here forever. And even if you could, someone will talk eventually. A fishing boat that passes too close. A survivor who slips away in the night.” She turns to face me fully. “The word’s going out, Zoric. It’s just a matter of when.”
“I know.”
“So why are you protecting me?” The question has an edge to it. Not accusation—but not acceptance either. “You’ve lost everything. Your people, your fortress, your supplies. All because I washed up on your shore carrying poison. You should be helping them track me down, not—”
“Not what?” I close the distance between us. Three steps. Her chin lifts as I approach, but she doesn’t back away. “Not keeping you safe? Not wanting you here?” My hand curls around her waist. Pulls her closer. “I lost people. I’m not losing you too.”
“Zoric—”
“You didn’t cause this.” I cut her off before she can argue. “Oreth caused this. The curse caused this. You were just—” I search for the right word. “Carrying it. The way a ship carries plague without meaning to infect the port.”
“That’s not exactly a flattering comparison.”
“It’s accurate.” My thumb traces circles against her hip, a small motion I can’t seem to stop. “You didn’t choose the curse. Didn’t ask for it. You were surviving, same as everyone else. Same as me.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Then her hands come up, settle against my chest. Not pushing away—resting there, feeling my heartbeat the way she did this morning.
“I should leave.” Her voice is barely audible. “Before I bring more trouble to your door.”
“No.”
“Zoric—”
“We face what’s coming.” I cup her face, tilt it up so she has to meet my gaze.
“We don’t run. Not from bounty hunters, not from angry survivors, not from whoever’s sailing toward us on that supply ship.
” I let the words sink in. Let her hear what I’m saying and what I’m not.
“We. You and me, in this until the end.”
Her expression changes. The armor cracks. Underneath, I see fear and hope and a raw hunger that mirrors my own.
“You’ve never said ‘we’ before.” Her voice catches. “It’s always been ‘I.’ I’ll handle it. I’ll protect you. My responsibility.”
“It was.” I tilt her chin up, holding her gaze. “It’s not anymore.”
She kisses me. Fierce this time, her fingers fisting in my shirt, pulling me down to her level with a hunger that makes my blood sing. When we break apart, we’re both breathing harder.
“Later,” she says. “When there aren’t dead to burn and survivors to manage.”
“Later.” I steal one more kiss—brief, promising—before stepping back. “Let’s get to work.”
The day passes in a blur of grim labor.
We inventory what’s left. Salvage what can be salvaged.
The Warden’s Spire is dry—a high point in the keep, farthest from the flooding—so we move supplies there, creating a defensible position if it comes to that.
The Great Hall becomes our staging area, its broken windows covered with salvaged canvas, its cracked floor marked with the careful paths of people trying not to fall through.
Aviora works beside me. Not because I ask her to—because she insists.
She has experience with salvage, with inventory, with the unglamorous work of turning disaster into something survivable.
She moves through the keep with purpose, directing the able-bodied survivors, making decisions without waiting for my approval.
I watch her. My eyes keep finding her no matter where I look.
The way she bends to lift a crate, gauging its heft before committing.
The way she pushes hair out of her face with the back of her wrist, hands too dirty to touch her skin.
The way she laughs at something Brek says—a surprised sound, genuine, cracking through the grimness of the day.
Every time she passes close, we touch. A brush of fingers when she hands me a manifest. Her hand on my arm when she needs my attention. My palm at the small of her back as I guide her through a narrow passage. Small gestures. Easily dismissed. Except that neither of us dismisses them.
“You’re staring again.” Salt Margit’s voice is dry as she settles onto a crate beside me, her injured leg stretched out in front of her. “Not sure if you know that.”
“I know.” No point in denying it. Margit’s survived too many years to be fooled by lies.
“She’s trouble.” The old woman’s gaze follows mine to where Aviora is helping Brek secure a tarp over the damaged roof. “Twenty-five thousand gold worth of trouble, if Thorne’s reports are accurate.”
“Thorne’s reports are always accurate.”
“Then you know what’s coming.” Margit shifts, grimacing as her leg protests. “Whoever posted that bounty isn’t going to stop looking. They’ll send people. Professionals. And when they find her here, with us—” She shrugs. “We don’t have the numbers to fight them off. Not anymore.”
“You think I should let her go.”
“I think you should let her make her own choice.” Margit’s voice softens. “She’s not cargo, Captain. She’s not a hostage. If she wants to run, you can’t stop her. If she wants to stay—” She pauses. “Then she stays knowing what it might cost.”
“She knows.”
“Does she?” Margit heaves herself upright, steadying herself against a pillar.
“Does she know you’d die for her? Does she know what that means to you?
Because from where I’m sitting, Captain, you’ve been alone for years.
Punishing yourself for sins that were never entirely yours.
And now there’s someone who sees you—really sees you—and you’re terrified of what happens if you let yourself want her. ”
The words land harder than they should. “Since when do you give relationship advice?”
“Since I watched you build walls so high even you couldn’t see over them.” She squeezes my shoulder as she passes.
She limps away, leaving me with her words and the sight of Aviora laughing at something across the hall.
Sunset comes too fast.
We gather on the clifftop above the Eastern Collapse—the only flat ground large enough for what needs to happen. Bodies wrapped in sailcloth, laid with the dignity they deserved in life.
The surviving guards stand in a loose semicircle.
Brek, his cracked rib making him hold himself carefully.
Thorne, her arm still bound, her face carved from stone.
Margit, leaning on a makeshift crutch. Ven, his bandaged hand tucked against his chest. Henek, whose wife and daughter are among the dead, whose hatred I can feel like heat from across the gathering.
And Aviora. Standing at my side. Close enough that our shoulders touch.
“These were our people.” My voice carries across the clifftop, lifted by the wind that never stops blowing. “They died defending this keep. Defending each other. They deserved better than the deaths they got.”
I look at the wrapped bodies. Try to see past the sailcloth to the faces underneath.
Korin, who told terrible jokes and made better fish stew.
Lena, who’d been with me since the Black Tide days, who’d followed me into retirement because she believed I was trying to be better.
Marta, Henek’s daughter, who’d been barely twenty and had her whole life ahead of her.
“The sea will have their ashes.” I take the torch Thorne offers. “Let it carry them home.”
I light the first pyre. The flames catch slowly, then spread—consuming the wood, the cloth, the bodies beneath. One by one, the other survivors step forward to light the remaining pyres, until smoke rises into the evening sky.
Aviora’s fingers slip through mine. She doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, holding on, as we watch everything we couldn’t save turn to ash.
The ceremony ends. The survivors drift away, returning to the keep to continue the work of survival. Soon it’s just the two of us, standing above the fading pyres, watching the smoke blend with the darkening sky.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice is quiet. “For what that’s worth.”
“You didn’t kill them.”
“I brought the curse to your door.”
“And helped destroy it.” I pull her against my side. She comes willingly, her head settling against my shoulder.
We stand there as darkness falls, as the pyres burn down to embers, as the wind carries ash out over the water.
I should be thinking about supplies, defenses, the supply ship that’s a few days away.
Instead, I’m thinking about the woman in my arms and how much harder it’s going to be to lose her now that I’ve let myself want her.
“Zoric.” Her voice changes. Sharpens. “Look.”
I follow her gaze to the horizon. It takes a moment to see what she’s seeing—the light is failing, the sea and sky blending into uniform gray. But then I catch it. A shape on the water. A sail.
Then another.
Then three more.
Five ships. Coming from the south. From the direction of Saltmere.
“That’s not a supply run.” Aviora’s voice is flat. “Supply runs don’t bring five ships.”
“No.” I watch the sails grow larger against the fading light. Watch them tack toward the Wrecktide’s passage, the route that’s suddenly navigable now that Oreth’s curse no longer guards it. “They don’t.”
Saltmere colors fly from the lead ship’s mast. Merchant colors. But merchants don’t travel in fleets of five, and they don’t sail at night unless they have very good reasons.
Someone talked. Earlier than we expected. Faster than should have been possible.
“Zoric.” Aviora’s hand tightens in mine. “What do we do?”
I stare at the approaching ships. Five vessels. Probably forty crew each. Hundreds of people against our handful of wounded survivors.
A few days ago, I would have told her to run. Would have bought her time with my life and called it a fair trade.
Now, with her hand in mine and the memory of this morning still warm in my chest, running isn’t an option.
“We face it.” I draw her against me, turning her toward the keep. Toward the ruins we’ve spent the day trying to rebuild. Toward the handful of people who might or might not stand with us when those ships make harbor. “Whatever it is. We face it as one.”
The ships grow larger on the horizon. Someone’s coming to collect.
And we’re in no shape to stop them.