Chapter 19 Zoric
NINETEEN
ZORIC
She’s still here when I wake.
Not the hollow-eyed woman who came to my door last night.
This Aviora is softer in sleep—her breathing slow and even, her body curved against mine with an ease that shouldn’t feel so natural after a few days.
Her fingers rest against my chest, curled loosely over the spot where my heart beats too fast for a man who’s supposed to be past wanting things.
I don’t move. Don’t want to disturb whatever peace she’s found in these few hours of darkness.
The gray light filtering through my window says dawn is close, and dawn means facing what’s waiting for us—Gyla’s ships anchored in my harbor, the impossible debt hanging over everything, the salvage operation that’s our only hope.
But for now, there’s this. Her warmth against my side. The quiet miracle of someone choosing to stay.
Getting soft, Druger.
Maybe. Probably. Years of keeping everyone at a distance, and it took a few days for her to crack every wall I built.
She stirs. A small sound, her fingers tightening against my chest before relaxing again. Her lashes flutter but don’t open. Still dreaming.
I let myself look. Really look, in a way I couldn’t when she was awake and watching me back.
The sharp angles of her face are gentler in this light—the jaw that sets with such stubborn determination, the mouth that curves into sardonic smiles meant to keep people at a distance.
A bruise yellowing on her cheekbone from the siege.
A scrape along her hairline I hadn’t noticed before.
A few days. That’s all we have before Gyla carries out her threat. A few days to pull fifty-five thousand gold from waters that have been trying to kill people for centuries.
Aviora wakes, blinking up at me in the thin light.
“You’re staring again.” Her voice carries the rasp of sleep, but warmth runs underneath it. A warmth that wasn’t there a few days ago. She stretches against me, her body arching in ways that make my blood heat despite the circumstances.
“You talk in your sleep.”
“Oh, I thought I snored.”
“That too.”
Her laugh catches me off guard—quiet, genuine, the kind that slips out before she can stop it.
“I’ve dreamt about salvage routes and woke up knowing exactly where to dive.
Finn couldn’t believe it.” The mention of his name doesn’t carry the same heaviness it did yesterday—still present, but bearable now. A wound learning to scar.
I file that observation away. Later.
“Show me.” I push up on one elbow, looking down at her. “The charts are in the Great Hall. Show me what you know.”
Her expression sharpens. The sleepy softness gives way to focus—the professional I glimpsed yesterday when she talked about current patterns and debris fields. The woman who ran salvage operations out of Saltmere’s docks for four years.
“Now?”
“Now.” I roll out of bed, already reaching for my shirt. “A few days starts today. Every hour counts.”
She’s moving before I finish speaking, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, her borrowed clothes rumpled but serviceable. The intimacy of shared space, of bodies comfortable in proximity. No awkwardness. No pretense.
Two people preparing for war.
The Great Hall still looks bad.
The cracked flagstones. The scorch marks from ward fires that held back the drowned. More patched canvas covering shattered windows. Every surface carries evidence of what we lost three nights ago, and what we’re still losing—supplies, people, hope.
My charts spread across the main table, pinned down with salvaged debris and the few weapons we managed to recover from the flooding.
Years of obsessive mapping lay out in ink and parchment.
Every wreck I’ve charted. Every debris field I’ve noted.
Every grave marker of ships that trusted the wrong waters.
Aviora circles the table, her eyes moving across the documents with an intensity that reminds me of predators tracking prey. She doesn’t touch anything yet—just looks, absorbing information the way she absorbs everything else. Quickly. Thoroughly.
“You’ve been thorough.” Not quite a compliment from her. An assessment.
“I’ve had time.”
“These depth markings.” Her finger hovers over the Seagrave’s notation. “You charted this years ago?”
“Closer to four. Why?”
“The current patterns suggest shelf collapse.” She traces an invisible line across the parchment. “The Wrecktide’s reefs shift during major storms. Based on where you’ve marked the debris field, I’d estimate the Seagrave has dropped fifteen to twenty feet since you last dove it. Maybe more.”
I study the marks. She’s right. The notation doesn’t account for the storms we’ve had since—the one that took out the Eastern Wing, the three-day gale two winters ago that reshuffled half the known wrecks.
“What else?”
She moves to another chart. The Maiden’s Rose, marked as textiles and spices. “Her last port of call. Where was it?”
“Saltmere. Years ago.”
“During the jade shortage.” Aviora’s mouth curves—not quite a smile, a blade’s edge. “Half the merchants in Saltmere were running gemstones to avoid the tariffs. The Maiden’s Rose was owned by Hector Murker.”
The name lands. Gyla’s dead uncle.
“He never declared an honest cargo in his life,” Aviora continues. “If the Maiden’s Rose was carrying what I think she was carrying, your estimates are low. Maybe double. Maybe triple.”
Gyla’s family vessel. The irony isn’t lost on me—paying off her debt with treasure from her uncle’s smuggling operation.
Footsteps in the corridor. Multiple sets, moving with the tired rhythm of people who’ve spent the night on watch rather than sleeping. Thorne appears first, her injured arm still bound, her expression carved from exhaustion and determination. Behind her: Brek, Margit, Ven with his bandaged hand.
And Henek. Whose wife and daughter burned on the clifftop two days ago. Whose hatred I can feel from across the hall.
“Captain.” Thorne’s gaze flicks to Aviora, then back to me. No judgment visible, but I know her well enough to recognize the questions she’s not asking. “You wanted to see us.”
“Salvage operation.” I gesture at the charts. “A few days of diving. We need to pull fifty-five thousand gold from the Wrecktide before Gyla carries out her threat.”
Quiet settles over the hall. The kind that carries unspoken objections.
“Permission to speak.” That’s Ven, his voice flat.
The fingers he lost make him useless for diving—we both know it.
But he’s still calculating odds the way any veteran does.
“We just fought off an army of the dead. Lost half our people. The keep is flooded. And now you want us to risk more lives diving cursed waters for—” his eyes slide to Aviora, “—one woman’s debt? ”
“The curse is gone.” I keep my voice steady. “Oreth is destroyed. The Wrecktide is just water and reef now.”
“Maybe.” Henek speaks for the first time. His tone carries grief sharpened into blame. “Or maybe whatever made that curse is still down there. Waiting.”
Aviora doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t react at all, her expression carefully neutral under Henek’s stare. But I see her fingers drift toward her knife hilt—old instinct, the reflex of someone who’s spent years expecting attacks.
“Gyla controls shipping along this coast.” I step forward, putting myself between her and the hostile gazes.
“If she declares us harbor to criminals, we lose our supply lines. Our trade contacts. Everything that keeps Dreadhaven functioning. The coastal villages that depend on our patrols will suffer.” I let my eyes sweep across each of them.
“This isn’t about one woman’s debt. It’s about whether we see spring. ”
“With respect, Captain.” Henek’s voice holds no respect at all. “Your judgment’s been compromised. We can all see it.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides—the old instinct, the pirate captain who would have killed for less. I force it down. Swallow it.
“My judgment is none of your concern.”
“It is when you’re asking us to die for her.”
“I’m not asking anyone to die.” I close the distance between us. He’s taller than most, but grief has hollowed him out, made him smaller somehow. “I’m asking you to dive. To salvage. To do work that might save every person on this coast, including yourselves.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then you refuse.” The words cut sharper than I intended. “No one’s being forced. Anyone who doesn’t want to be here can leave today. I won’t stop you.”
His jaw tightens. For a moment, I think he’s going to take me up on it—walk out the door, take his chances with Gyla’s ships or the coastal road or whatever else is waiting beyond Dreadhaven’s walls.
Instead, he turns and walks to the far side of the hall. Not leaving. Not agreeing. Just... removing himself.
“I’m in.” Brek’s voice cuts through the tension. The young orc steps forward, his cracked rib making him slump, his eagerness undimmed by pain or politics. “Whatever you need. I can hold my breath longer than anyone here.”
“Same.” Margit limps toward the table, her weathered face unreadable. “These old lungs have more dives left in them than you’d think.”
Thorne nods once. “I’ll coordinate from shore. Someone needs to manage equipment and rotations.”
Ven hesitates. His bandaged hand is useless for diving. But there’s more than one way to help.
“I can handle the lines,” he says finally. “Check the gear, splice rope. I’m no good in the water, but I can make sure you don’t die from equipment failure.”
Four volunteers. Five if I count myself. Not enough for what we need to do, but more than I expected.
“The Maiden’s Rose is our primary target.
” Aviora’s voice draws everyone’s attention.
She’s moved to the center of the table, commanding the space without asking permission.
“Based on the debris patterns and current flow, she’s sitting at roughly thirty feet—shallow enough for extended dives.
If I’m right about her cargo, we could pull five to ten thousand gold on the first day alone. ”
Brek moves to her elbow, studying the charts with undisguised curiosity. “How can you tell what she’s carrying from current patterns?”
“Smugglers sink differently than legitimate cargo.” Her hands move across the parchment, tracing lines I can’t read.
“Heavy contraband settles faster, creates different debris fields. The way Zoric’s marked the scatter pattern suggests concentrated mass in the main hold—consistent with gemstones or precious metals, not textiles. ”
Margit grunts. Approval, maybe.
I watch Aviora work. Watch her take command of my people, my charts, my operation—and do it better than I could have done alone. Her hands are sure, her voice steady. This is who she was before years of running stripped it away. A professional. A partner.
Extraordinary.
The word settles in my chest. I don’t push it away.