The corridor splits ahead. Most of the guards take the right fork, heading for the hall as ordered. Thorne and I take the left, toward the breach, because I need to see it. Need to understand what we’re facing before I can figure out how to survive it.
The east tower stairs are slick with water. Not spray—actual water, pooling on the steps, streaming down from somewhere above. The smell hits me next: brine and rot, the distinctive reek of the deep Wrecktide. Whatever’s happening, it’s not just an attack.
It’s an invasion.
I round the final corner and stop.
The tower’s lower chamber is gone—flooded to the ceiling, black water pressing against the door that barely holds it back. Through the cracks, I can see movement. Pale shapes. Cold light. The drowned have filled the caves beneath us, and now they’re filling Dreadhaven itself.
“How long?”
“Before we drown?” Thorne shrugs, the gesture heavy with resignation. “An hour. Maybe two. The keep’s built on solid rock, but rock has cracks. Water finds cracks.”
I stare at the flooded chamber. At the shapes moving behind the door. At the steady stream of water pouring through gaps in the ancient stone.
Oreth isn’t trying to breach our defenses anymore. He’s making Dreadhaven uninhabitable. Flooding us out, forcing us into the water where his army waits.
“The Great Hall,” I say. “We consolidate there. It’s the highest point in the keep.”
“And then what?”
I don’t have an answer. Every plan I made assumed we’d have walls to defend, ground to hold. Without that?—
“Then we figure out what comes next.” I push past her, back toward the stairs. “Move. Get everyone to the hall. Now.”
The Great Hallis chaos when I arrive.
Guards pour in from every entrance, some wounded, some carrying wounded. The braziers burn green-bright, casting everything in submarine hues. Rain lashes through the shattered windows—the storm that’s been building all night finally breaking, as if the sky itself wants to drown us.
I count heads as I push through the crowd. Forty defenders when the night started. Now?—
Twenty-three. We’ve lost almost half our strength, and the real assault hasn’t even begun.
“Zoric!”
Aviora appears from the chaos, blood on her blades and a gash across her cheekbone that she doesn’t seem to notice. Her hair has come loose from its knot, dark strands plastered to her face. She moves toward me with that sharp-edged graceI’ve come to recognize, checking threats even as she closes the distance.
“The lower halls are flooded.” She stops in front of me, close enough that I can see the pulse jumping in her throat. “Water’s rising through the drainage channels, pouring up from the caves. I’ve never seen anything?—”
“The curse.” I cut her off. “Oreth’s pulling the sea into the foundations. Filling every space he can reach.”
Her expression shifts. Processing. Calculating. “Then the lower levels are already gone. The armory, the stores, the—” She stops. “The coins. I threw them into the water near the Eastern Collapse. If the tide’s risen?—”
“They’re part of the hoard now. The curse will have claimed them.”
“Claimed, or—” She grips my arm, her fingers digging in with surprising strength. “The plan. We needed the coins I had to throw into the harbor. Without them?—”
“Without them, we find another way.” The words come out steadier than I feel. “We still have the coins in Dreadhaven’s vault. Forty-seven pieces. And we still have you.”
“Me.”
“The curse wants you. Thalira said you’re attuned to it, more than anyone else alive.” I meet her gaze, hold it. “That hasn’t changed.”
“No.” Her jaw tightens. “It hasn’t.”
TEN
ZORIC
