Chapter 21 Aviora
TWENTY-ONE
AVIORA
Dawn breaks gray and cold over Dreadhaven.
I stand at the harbor quay, checking dive lines for the third time.
The repaired equipment passed inspection last night, but my hands need occupation while my mind runs through calculations I’ve already finished.
Depth estimates. Current patterns. The mathematics of pulling gold from water that doesn’t want to give anything back.
Gyla’s ships sit at anchor fifty yards out, their lanterns still burning in the pre-dawn murk. Watching. Waiting. The silk dress she sent hangs in Zoric’s quarters—a reminder of what happens if we fail.
Two days left.
The thought settles in my chest, heavy and cold. Even with every wreck I’ve identified, even with optimal conditions and zero complications, the numbers barely work.
“Ready?”
Zoric’s voice comes from behind me. I don’t turn—don’t need to. I’ve learned his footsteps over the past few days, the particular rhythm of his gait on stone. My body recognizes him before my mind catches up.
“As I’ll ever be.”
He moves to stand beside me, close enough that his arm brushes mine. The contact sends warmth through me despite the morning chill. After everything—the beach, the nights in his bed, the stolen moments between crises—touching him has become natural. Necessary.
His palm settles at the small of my back. Casual possession that makes my pulse jump.
“The others are gearing up.” His breath fogs in the cold air. “Brek’s practically vibrating. Think he’s been waiting for this his whole life.”
“First real salvage dive?”
“First dive period. He’s learned to swim in the harbor, never gone deeper than ten feet.” Zoric’s thumb traces a small circle against my spine. “I’m putting him with Margit. She’ll keep him alive.”
I lean into his touch without thinking. “And us?”
“The Maiden’s Rose. You know her better than anyone.” His arm slides around my waist, drawing me against his side. We stand there for a moment, watching the sky lighten over water that looks deceptively calm. “Whatever we find down there—”
“I know.” I turn my head, press a kiss to his jaw. Feel the muscle flex beneath my lips. “Let’s go rob your girlfriend’s dead uncle.”
His laugh is low, rough. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“The dress suggests otherwise.”
“The dress suggests she’s a manipulative merchant who thinks she can buy loyalty.” His grip on my waist tightens. “She can’t buy what’s already claimed.”
The word sends heat through me. Claimed. I should bristle at it—years of running have made me allergic to anything that sounds like ownership. But from him, it doesn’t feel like possession. It feels like a promise.
The water closes over my head, and everything changes.
Cold hits first—deeper cold than the surface temperature suggested, the kind that seeps through skin and settles in your soul. I’ve done hundreds of dives in my life, but the Wrecktide is different. Wrong in ways I can’t name but can’t ignore.
Zoric swims beside me, his massive form cutting through the murk with surprising grace. Orcs aren’t natural swimmers—their muscle density works against buoyancy—but he moves with the ease of someone who’s spent years adapting to disadvantage. His presence is a comfort I didn’t expect to need.
The Maiden’s Rose emerges from the gloom below us. Masts reaching upward like skeletal fingers. Hull intact but listing, barnacles and growth turning her lines into an organic mass. She’s been down here years, and the sea has started claiming her as its own.
I signal Zoric to follow me.
The main cargo hold is our target. I’ve calculated the likely distribution based on Hector Murker’s smuggling patterns—gemstones hidden in textile bales, precious metals disguised as ballast. The kind of tricks that work on customs officials but mean nothing to salvagers who know what they’re looking for.
We descend through a breach in the deck. Darkness swallows us.
My lungs are starting to ache—two minutes down, maybe three remaining before I need to surface.
The light filtering through the breach fades as we go deeper, replaced by the greenish phosphorescence that clings to everything in the Wrecktide.
Not enough to see by. Just enough to remind you that you’re somewhere light doesn’t belong.
Zoric produces a glow-stone from his belt. The pale illumination catches on scattered cargo—bolts of fabric rotting in the salt water, crates split open by pressure, the debris of a voyage that never reached its destination.
There.
I spot it before he does. A chest wedged beneath a fallen beam, its brass fittings corroded but recognizable. Hector Murker’s personal seal stamped into the metal. I grab Zoric’s arm, point.
He nods. Moves toward the chest with powerful strokes.
The beam is heavy—water-logged timber that would take three men to shift on land. Zoric braces himself against the hull and pushes. Muscles cord in his arms. The beam groans, shifts, finally slides free with a cloud of silt that temporarily blinds us both.
I dart forward while he’s still recovering. My fingers work the chest’s latches—rusted shut, but the mechanism is simple. A firm twist, a harder pull, and the lid creaks open.
Gold.
Not coins—ingots. Stacked in neat rows, each one stamped with the mint mark of the northern kingdoms. Tribute, probably. Taxes collected from a dozen provinces meant for royal coffers that never received them.
I grab three ingots—all I can carry and still swim—and signal Zoric.
Up. Now.
We surface gasping. The morning light feels impossibly bright after the murk below.
“How much?” Zoric treads water beside me, the ingots clutched against his chest.
“Six, maybe seven hundred gold. Just in what we grabbed.” I’m already calculating. The chest held at least a dozen ingots. There might be more chests. “We need to go back down.”
“Rest first.” His grip closes on my arm underwater, squeezes. “You’re shaking.”
He’s right. The cold has gotten into me deeper than I realized, my muscles trembling with the effort of maintaining body heat.
I want to argue—every minute we spend on the surface is a minute not spent filling our quota—but I know better than to push past physical limits.
Finn taught me that. The sea doesn’t forgive exhaustion.
We swim for the patrol boat anchored at the dive site. Brek and Margit are already there, hauling themselves over the gunwale, their own salvage clutched in numb fingers.
“Anything?” I call out.
Brek’s grin is answer enough. “Jewelry of some kind. Margit thinks it’s worth a few hundred.”
Margit herself looks less enthused. She’s staring at the water with an expression I recognize—the wariness of someone who’s felt wrongness and can’t explain what.
“The current’s off,” she says as I climb aboard. “Pulled south when it should be running north. And the temperature...” She shakes her head. “I’ve been diving these waters for thirty years. Never felt cold that deep in the shallows.”
Zoric exchanges a glance with me. We both felt it. Both chose not to mention it.
“The curse is gone,” I say. “Oreth is destroyed.”
“The curse, maybe.” Margit wraps herself in a salvaged blanket, her weathered face troubled. “But curses come from somewhere. And whatever made that one...”
She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to.