But I’m doing it anyway.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” Oreth’s voice drops, intimate despite the distance. “What you really are. What we did, before you found your convenient conscience. The villages we burned. The merchants we gutted. The screaming, Zoric—do you still hear it at night?”
Every night.
“I know what I am.” I draw my blade. Its weight settles into my palm. “Do you know what you’ve become?”
For a moment, something flickers in Oreth’s expression. Something almost human—pain, maybe, or the memory of pain. Then it’s gone, drowned in the cold light of the curse.
“Sundown, Zoric.” He steps back from the rail. “Sundown, I come for what’s mine. The girl. The gold. And your head.”
The ghost ship begins to retreat—sliding backward through the water, defying every law of wind and current. In seconds, the fog swallows it, leaving only the memory of that terrible face and the promise of violence to come.
Silence. The guards exchange glances, fear and determination mixing on their faces. Thorne waits for orders, her knuckles white on her sword hilt.
“You heard him.” I sheathe my blade. “Sundown. That gives us six hours. I want every ward fire ready to light, every entrance sealed, every weapon in fighting condition.”
“Yes, Captain.”
The guards scatter, moving with the efficiency of people who know death is coming and plan to meet it standing. I watch them go, command settling onto my shoulders.
“Under your protection?” Aviora’s voice cuts through my thoughts. I turn to find her watching me, her expression unreadable. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“No.” I don’t apologize. “You didn’t.”
“Then why?”
The question I’ve been asking myself since the words left my mouth. Why protect a stranger? Why refuse a trade that might save my people? Why throw away years of careful strategy for a woman I met yesterday?
“Because I’m tired.” The truth, or part of it. “Tired of people dying for my mistakes. Tired of trading lives to keep the peace.” I meet her gaze. “And tired of giving Oreth anything he wants.”
Something passes across her features. Surprise, maybe. Or something deeper—recognition of a feeling she understands too well.
“That’s a terrible reason.”
“I know.”
“It’s going to get people killed.”
“Probably.”
She’s quiet for a moment. The wind pulls at her hair, her clothes. She looks small against the massive stones of Dreadhaven, fragile in a way I know is deceptive.
“Then we’d better make sure they’re not our people.” She turns toward the corridor. “Come on. You mentioned a sea-witch. I think it’s time we had a conversation about how to kill something that’s already dead.”
I watch her walk away. Strong stride despite her exhaustion. Straight spine despite the burden she’s carrying. Fire in her voice despite the fear I know she’s hiding.
Trouble.
And I follow her anyway.
FIVE
AVIORA
The path to the witch’s cave nearly kills me twice before we’re halfway down.
The cliff face drops three hundred feet to churning water, and the route Zoric follows is less a path than a suggestion—narrow ledges, eroded handholds, stretches where the only option is to press flat against the rock and shuffle sideways while the wind tries to peel me off and feed me to the sea.
