I count them from the wall walk as Aviora and I return from Thalira’s cave. The original ghost ship, still anchored at the chain boom, and three more wreck hulls dredged up from the Wrecktide’s depths. Their sails hang in tatters, their masts list at impossible angles, and their decks crawl with pale shapes that glow even in the gray afternoon light.
Oreth isn’t testing our defenses anymore. He’s massing his forces.
“How many drowned can those ships hold?” Aviora’s voice is steady, but I catch the tension beneath it.
“Fifty each. Maybe more.” I do the math I don’t want to do. “Hundreds against our thirty.”
“Those odds are terrible.”
“The odds have been terrible since you washed up on my shore.” I turn from the harbor, from the ghost fleet that’s been years in the building. “Come on. We have work to do before sundown.”
The next hours blur into preparation. I move through the keep on muscle memory, issuing orders I’ve rehearsed a hundred times in my head. Reinforce the sea gate. Stockpileweapons at every choke point. Light the ward fires and keep them burning. Seal the lower passages before the tide rises.
Thorne falls into step beside me, her practical presence steadying. “The men are ready, Captain. Scared, but ready.”
“Good. Fear keeps people sharp.” I check the barricade across the Eastern Collapse—the section of wall that crumbled into the sea years ago, now our most vulnerable point. “Post extra guards here. If they breach the harbor, this is where they’ll try to flank us.”
“And the woman?”
I don’t have to ask which woman she means. “She stays with me.”
Thorne’s expression doesn’t change, but I can read the question she’s not asking. Why protect a stranger? Why risk Dreadhaven for one thief carrying cursed gold?
I don’t have an answer that makes tactical sense. So I don’t give one.
“Sundown,” I say instead. “Make sure everyone knows. When the light goes, they come.”
She nods and moves off to relay orders. I watch her go, then turn back to the work that won’t save us.
Because that’s the truth I’ve been circling since Thalira laid out our options. The ward fires will slow the drowned, not stop them. The barricades will buy us time, not victory. And Oreth himself—the thing that used to be my first mate—won’t fall to steel or fire or anything mortal.
The only solution is sacrifice. Someone taking his place in the curse, binding themselves to the gold while he walks free.
I know who it should be.
I made Oreth what he is. Led the crew that found the cursed gold, ordered the raid that claimed it, abandoned my first mate when the curse began showing its teeth. Everythingthat’s happened since is my fault. The math is simple: my life for everyone else’s.
But every time I think about offering myself, I see her face. The fury in her eyes when she told me she didn’t need my death. The way she looked at me on that cliff, pressed against my chest, her heart racing as fast as mine.
No one has looked at me like that in years. I’d forgotten what it felt like—being seen as something other than a monster or a warden or a man serving out his penance.
“You’re brooding again.”
Her voice cuts through my thoughts. I turn to find Aviora approaching along the wall walk, her clothes replaced now with gear from our armory—leather vest, belt heavy with throwing knives, a longer blade riding her hip. She moves differently in it. More lethal. More herself.
“Big tactical brain working overtime?” She stops beside me, close enough that I can smell the salt still clinging to her hair from our climb.
“Something like that.”
“Want to share with the class?” She leans against the battlement, her attention drifting to the ghost fleet in the harbor. “Because I’ve been thinking too. And I might have an idea that doesn’t involve anyone dying.”
I turn to face her fully. “I’m listening.”
“The witch said the curse can be scattered. Dispersed until it loses cohesion.” Aviora pulls one of the cursed coins from her pouch, turning it between her fingers. The metal catches the light, its surface etched with symbols. “She also said the gold wants to be near me. That every piece in the hoard will feel the pull if I get close enough.”
“You want to use yourself as a lure.”
“I want to use the curse against itself.” She meets my gaze.
