Chapter 18 Aviora
EIGHTEEN
AVIORA
The day passes in a blur of tension and useless planning.
Fifty-five thousand gold. We don’t have twenty-eight hundred.
The flooded treasury held maybe five thousand before the water claimed it, and salvaging that would take weeks we don’t have.
The Wrecktide is full of treasure—centuries of shipwrecks, countless fortunes lost to the reefs—but diving it safely requires time and preparation and numbers.
We have a few days and five able bodies.
I pace the Great Hall while Zoric and Thorne review what’s left of their resources. My fingers find my knife hilts without conscious thought.
The memories come whether I want them or not.
Years ago. A ship called the Maiden’s Rose, loaded with cargo worth a small fortune.
Finn at the helm, that crooked smile on his face, telling me this was it—the score that would set us up for life.
No more scraping by on salvage jobs and smuggling runs.
No more looking over our shoulders for creditors and rivals.
Just us, and enough money to build something real.
I believed him. Wanted to believe him so badly that I ignored the weather signs, pushed for speed when caution would have been smarter, took the shorter route through waters I knew were dangerous.
The storm hit at midnight. Came out of nowhere—or came out of somewhere I should have been watching.
The waves were mountains. The wind was a living thing, tearing at the rigging, screaming through the masts.
The Maiden’s Rose was a good ship, solid and well-maintained, but no ship was built to survive what hit us that night.
I remember the moment she started to break apart. Remember the sound of timber splintering, louder than thunder. Remember Finn’s face in the lightning flash—not afraid, exactly, but resolved. He knew. We both knew.
“Swim.” His hand on my arm, pushing me toward the rail. “Get to the surface.”
“Not without you—”
“Aviora.” My name, sharp and final. “Swim.”
The deck tilted. Water rushed in. I saw him go under—saw his hand reaching for me, his eyes wide in the darkness—and then I was swimming, kicking for the surface, my lungs burning and my heart shattering into pieces I’ve been picking up ever since.
I made it. He didn’t.
And Gyla Murker lost twenty-five thousand gold on a venture that was supposed to be safe, and she’s been hunting me ever since.
“Aviora.”
Zoric’s voice pulls me back. I blink, realize I’ve stopped pacing, that I’m standing with my hands fisted at my sides and tears burning in my eyes.
“Sorry.” I scrub at my face. “Got lost.”
He crosses to me. Doesn’t say anything—just pulls me against his chest and holds on. I stiffen for a moment, old instincts screaming that comfort is weakness, that letting someone see me vulnerable is the first step toward getting hurt.
Then I let go.
I press my face into his shoulder and breathe. He smells like salt and smoke and something underneath that’s just him—a scent I’ve started associating with safety, with warmth, with things I shouldn’t let myself want.
“Tell me.” His voice rumbles through his chest. “Whatever you were remembering. Tell me.”
So I do.
The words come slowly at first, then faster—the venture, the cargo, the route I chose and the warnings I ignored. Finn’s face in the storm. His hand on my arm. The terrible moment when I kicked for the surface and felt him slip away.
“I let him die.” The admission scrapes my throat raw. “I swam, and he drowned, and I’ve been running from it for years.”
“You survived.” His arms tighten around me.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. His hands frame my face, thumbs brushing the tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “I’ve made choices like that. Left people behind because staying would have meant dying with them. It doesn’t make you a murderer. It makes you a survivor.”
“And if surviving means Gyla destroys everything you’ve built here?” My voice cracks. “I can’t do that to you. Not again. Not to someone else.”
“Let me worry about what happens to me.”
“Zoric—”
“Aviora.” He says my name the way he did in the alcove—rough and reverent, carrying more meaning than the syllables should hold.
“I’ve spent years building walls. Keeping people at a distance.
Telling myself I didn’t deserve anything more than penance and duty.
” His grip on my face tightens. “You broke through all of it in a few days. You think I’m letting you go without a fight? ”
I want to argue. Want to tell him I’m not worth the cost, that Gyla will destroy him and his people and everyone who depends on this broken fortress if he protects me.
Instead, I kiss him.
It’s softer than usual. Less frantic. My mouth moves against his with a gentleness that scares me more than passion ever could, and when he kisses me back, I feel it in my bones—the click of a lock finding its key.
“I don’t deserve you.” I breathe the words against his lips.
“Good thing it’s not about deserving.”
Night falls, and I can’t sleep.
I lie in the narrow bed Zoric gave me—a room in the Warden’s Spire, small but dry, far from the flooding that’s claimed the lower levels—and stare at the ceiling while my mind runs in circles.
Fifty-five thousand gold. A few days. Five wounded survivors. A merchant queen who’d burn the world to make a point.
The numbers don’t work. I’ve run them a hundred times since dawn, looking for angles, for solutions, for any path that doesn’t end with me surrendering to Gyla or watching Zoric’s people starve. There isn’t one.
I should leave. Slip out in the night, steal a boat from the harbor, take my chances with Gyla’s ships. If I’m not here, she has no reason to carry out her threat. Dreadhaven survives. Zoric survives. Everyone wins except me, and when has that ever been the priority?
My feet hit cold stone before I’ve made a conscious decision. I’m moving through the dark corridors of the spire, following a path my body seems to know even though my mind is still arguing with itself.
His door is unlocked. Of course, it is. He’s expecting me—or hoping. The distinction doesn’t matter.
Zoric is sitting on the edge of his bed, still dressed, his head in his hands. He looks up when I enter. In the candlelight, he looks exhausted. Worried.
“Couldn’t sleep either.”
“No.” I close the door behind me. Stand there in my borrowed nightshirt, suddenly unsure why I came. “I keep thinking—”
“That you should leave.” His tone carries no judgment. He’s already thought of it. Of course, he has. “Disappear before dawn, let Gyla chase you somewhere else.”
“It’s the smart play.”
“It’s the lonely play.” He rises, crosses to me. His palms curve around my waist the way they did that first night in the alcove—like they belong there, like touching me is the most natural thing in the world. “You’ve been making the smart play for years. Where’s it gotten you?”
“Here.” I manage a weak smile. “Surrounded by enemies, out of options, facing a woman who wants to destroy everyone who helps me.”
“Here.” He repeats the word differently. “With someone who’d fight the entire coast to keep you safe. In a place that could be home if you let it.” His hands slide up my sides, pulling me closer. “The smart play isn’t the only play, Aviora.”
I press closer against him. Let myself feel the solid warmth of his body, the steady beat of his heart against my cheek. “I should go.” The words come out barely above a whisper. “Before I cost you everything.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. His hand strokes up and down my back—slow, soothing, nothing like the frantic touches we’ve shared before. This is something else. Something gentler and more dangerous.
“You are everything.” His voice is low. Raw. “Whatever happens with Gyla—you’re not a cost, Aviora. You’re the reason any of this matters.”
The words hit me like a wave. I pull back to study him—searching his face for any sign that he doesn’t mean it, that it’s just pretty words designed to make me stay.
There’s nothing but truth in his gaze. Truth, and want, and something deeper that I’m not ready to name.
“Stay with me.” His hand cups my face. “Not for sex. Just—stay. Let me hold you until morning.”
I should say no. Should maintain some semblance of the walls that have kept me alive for years of running.
Instead, I let him lead me to his bed.
We settle into bed—him on his back, me curled against his side with my head on his shoulder. His arm wraps around me, holding me close without holding me down. My hand rests on his chest, feeling the rhythm of his breathing slow as the tension drains from his muscles.
It’s the most intimate thing I’ve done in years. More intimate than sex, in some ways. More vulnerable. I’m trusting him not just with my body but with my sleep, my unconscious hours, the parts of me that can’t guard themselves.
I should be terrified.
I’m not.
“We’ll find a way.” His voice is a rumble in the darkness. “The Wrecktide is full of salvage. Ships that went down carrying treasure. If we can dive enough wrecks in a few days—”
“We’d need to find fifty-five thousand gold in waters you’ve spent years avoiding.” But something stirs in my chest. Hope, maybe. Or just the refusal to give up that’s kept me alive this long.
“The curse is gone. The drowned are quiet. For the first time in years, the Wrecktide is just water and reef and lost treasure.” His hand strokes through my hair. “I know those wrecks, Aviora. Know where the richest ships went down. If anyone can find that much gold in a few days, it’s us.”
I think about it. Finn taught me salvage—taught me to read currents, to identify promising debris fields, to know the difference between a wreck worth diving and one that’s already been picked clean.
It’s insane. Even with the curse gone, the Wrecktide is dangerous. Currents that can trap you against hull fragments. Debris that shifts without warning. Depths that require more breath than human lungs can hold.
But it’s a chance. The only one we have.
“Show me the charts in the morning.” I press closer against his side. “Show me where the best wrecks are. We’ll make a plan.”
“We will.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Now sleep. We’ll need every hour of rest we can get.”
Sleep comes easier than it should. Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s the warmth of his body beside mine, the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm. Maybe it’s the knowledge that, for the first time in years, I’m not facing my problems alone.
I drift off with his arms around me, his heartbeat in my ears, and the faint warmth of hope kindling somewhere deep.
A few days. Fifty-five thousand gold. An impossible task.
But I’ve survived impossible before.