Chapter 25 Aviora
TWENTY-FIVE
AVIORA
Gyla’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I’ll return,” she said. Two words that should have meant victory. Two words that should have ended this.
Instead, she’s retreating to her longboat, her guards falling into formation around her, leaving us standing on the quay with nothing but quiet and the growing certainty that we’ve miscalculated.
“That’s it?” Brek’s voice carries the confusion we’re all feeling. “She just... leaves?”
“She’s thinking.” Zoric’s palm settles against my lower back, draws me against his side. The gesture is automatic now—comfort and claim in a single touch. “Gyla didn’t build an empire by walking into obvious traps.”
“So she suspects.”
“She knows.” His jaw tightens. “We offered her exactly what she wanted, exactly when she needed it most. No merchant with half her cunning would trust that kind of luck.”
I watch the longboat pull away from the quay, its oars cutting the water with mechanical precision. Gyla sits in the stern, her back straight, her attention already on calculations beyond us. Planning. Deciding whether our offer is salvation or suicide.
“What happens now?”
“Now we wait.” Zoric turns me toward the keep, his hand sliding to the curve of my hip. “And prepare for whatever she decides.”
Dawn comes without an answer.
What comes instead is worse.
I’m standing on the wall walk when I see them—four of Gyla’s five ships weighing anchor, their sails unfurling in the morning light.
For one heart-stopping moment, I think they’re leaving.
Think she’s decided the risk isn’t worth the reward, that ninety-five thousand gold in cursed water is too dangerous even for her greed.
Then they turn.
Not toward open sea. Toward the harbor mouth. Toward the iron chain booms that are Dreadhaven’s only defense against invasion.
“She’s blockading us.” Thorne appears at my side, her weathered face grim. “Cutting off any chance of escape.”
“Or resupply.” I watch the ships maneuver into position—two at the harbor entrance, two more anchoring in the deeper water beyond. A net of wood and canvas and hostile intent, closing around us with military precision. “She’s not attacking. She’s starving us out.”
“Same result, slower death.” Thorne rests her hand on her sword hilt. “The fifth ship?”
I scan the harbor until I find it—Gyla’s flagship, anchored closest to shore, its deck crawling with activity I can’t quite make out at this distance. “Still in the harbor. Within range of our walls.”
“Hostage against our good behavior.” Thorne spits over the battlement. “She sits pretty while her blockade does the work. Clever bitch.”
A longboat launches from the flagship. Eight rowers, plus a figure in the stern that I recognize even at this distance. Gyla, coming to deliver terms.
“Get Zoric.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “She’s not done with us yet.”
Gyla steps onto the quay with the confidence of someone who’s already won.
“I’ve considered your offer.” Her pale eyes sweep across our assembled defenders—Zoric, Thorne, Brek, Margit, the handful of wounded who can still stand. Finding us wanting, from her expression. “It’s intriguing. But you’ll understand if I require... assurances.”
“What kind of assurances?” Zoric stands beside me, close enough that I can feel the tension radiating from his massive frame. His hand isn’t on his weapon, but it doesn’t need to be. The threat is clear in every line of his body.
“Proof that the Fortune exists where you claim. Proof that the treasure is real.” Gyla’s smile is a blade wrapped in silk. “And collateral, to ensure you don’t lead my ships into a trap.”
“Collateral.”
“Miss Larsa comes aboard my flagship.” The words strike like physical blows. “She stays with me while your divers take us to the location. If everything is as you’ve described, she goes free, and we proceed with the salvage. If not...” She shrugs
Zoric’s arm slides around my waist, pulling me behind him. “No.”
“That wasn’t a request, Captain Druger.” Gyla’s voice hardens.
“My fleet controls your harbor. My men outnumber yours forty to one. You have no food, no weapons worth the name, and no hope of rescue.” She steps closer, lowering her voice to intimacy.
“Give me the girl, or I burn your keep to the waterline and take her anyway.”
The quiet that follows is absolute. Even the seabirds have gone still, as if sensing the violence coiled in the space between us.
Gyla’s gaze finds mine over Zoric’s shoulder. “Debts are sacred, Miss Larsa. You knew that when you ran. Now you know what happens when I catch up.”
She turns and walks back toward her longboat. Her guards follow, their hands resting on weapons they clearly hope to use. The message is clear: cooperate, or watch everything burn.
“Twenty-four hours,” Gyla calls over her shoulder. “Deliver Miss Larsa to my flagship by dawn, or I begin the assault. And, Captain?” She stops, her back to us. “Don’t make me kill her in front of you. I’d rather not waste the asset.”
The Great Hall feels smaller than it should.
Maybe it’s the people—all five of our remaining fighters, plus Zoric and myself, gathered around a table built for war councils of fifty. Maybe it’s the suffocating reality of what we’re facing, pressing down until the cavernous space feels like a cell.
Or maybe it’s just the fear.
“We can hold the walls.” Brek’s voice carries the optimism of someone too young to know better.
The young orc paces as he speaks, his cracked rib apparently forgotten in the surge of adrenaline.
“The harbor tower’s still intact. The chain booms are solid.
We’ve got height advantage, defensive positions, choke points at every entrance.
If we concentrate our forces at the main approaches—”
“We’ve got five people,” Thorne’s interruption is gentle but firm, “against professional mercenaries who’ve been fighting for coin since before you were born.”
“Numbers aren’t everything.” Brek’s tusks flash in defiance. “We held against Oreth’s dead. Dozens of them, pouring through every breach. We held because we had to, because there was no other choice. This is the same—”
“It’s not the same.” Margit’s weathered voice cuts through his protests.
“The dead don’t think. Don’t adapt. Don’t wait you out and starve you into surrender.
” She shifts on her crate, her injured leg making her wince.
“Gyla’s mercenaries will probe our defenses, find the weak points, exploit every gap. They’ve done this before. We haven’t.”
“So we learn.”
“We don’t have time to learn.” Henek cuts him off, his grief-sharpened hostility finding a new target. “We’ve got five injured guards and a wanted criminal against two hundred professionals. The math doesn’t work.”
“The captain’s the reason we’re in this mess.” Henek’s glare swings toward Zoric. “If he’d handed her over the first night—”
“Then Gyla would have her money and we’d still be starving when the supply ships stop coming.” Thorne’s voice cuts through the argument. “This isn’t about one woman, Henek. It’s about whether a merchant queen gets to dictate terms to everyone on this coast.”
“High principles for someone who’s not being asked to die for them.”
“I’m being asked to die for them same as you.” Thorne stands, her bound arm making the motion awkward. “We all are. Question is whether we die fighting or die whimpering.”