Zoric keeps Oreth engaged, his blade finding flesh again and again, buying me the seconds I need. The dead captain thrashes, tries to throw me off, but we’re beyond tactics now. Beyond strategy. This is butchery, pure and simple, two people dismantling a monster one piece at a time.
The last chain falls.
So does Oreth.
The curse leaves in a rush—a wave of cold that knocks us both to our knees. The gold finishes dissolving, centuries of accumulated treasure becoming rust and salt and nothing. Oreth’s body collapses into itself, rot accelerating without the magic to sustain it.
In seconds, he’s gone. Just a stain on the cavern floor.
I kneel in the wreckage, gasping, bleeding, alive.
Zoric appears beside me. His hands find my face, turn me toward him, and I see the same stunned relief I’m feeling reflected in his eyes.
“We did it.” My voice is hoarse. “We actually did it.”
“You were insane.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “That bluff?—”
“Wasn’t entirely a bluff.” I turn my hand in his, interlace our fingers. “If it had failed, I would have let him take me. To save you.”
“Why?”
The question hangs between us. Simple. Terrifying. Demanding an answer I’ve been running from since the moment he pulled me out of the sea.
“Because you’re worth it.” The words come out rough, broken. “Even though I barely know you. Even though everything I’ve ever learned says trusting people gets you killed.” I squeeze his hand. “You’re worth the risk.”
He kisses me.
This kiss is slower at first, almost tentative, like he’s asking permission even now. Then deeper, hungrier, his hands sliding into my hair as I pull him closer. The terror and violence of the last hour melt away until there’s nothing but his mouth on mine, his body warm against my cold skin, his heartbeat hammering in time with my own.
When we finally break apart, we’re both shaking.
“After,” he says. “You told me to save it for after.”
“I did.”
“This is after.” He presses his forehead to mine. “And what I wanted to say—what I’ve been wanting to say since you washed up on my shore carrying curses and defiance and more courage than anyone I’ve ever met?—”
The chamber shakes.
We pull apart, both of us looking around. The cavern is destabilizing—water pouring in from cracks in the walls, the sea reclaiming its territory now that the magic holding it back is gone.
“We need to move.” Zoric pulls me to my feet. “Back the way we came.”
But the way we came is flooded—completely submerged, the passage buried under tons of cold black water.
We’re trapped. In a collapsing cave. With the sea rising around us.
“There.” I look into the water around us. “A current. Feel it?”
He feels it—a tug at our legs, water flowing toward the cavern’s far end. Where there’s current, there’s passage. Maybe.
“It could go anywhere. Open water, into more caves?—”
“Or up.” My fingers find his in the dark water. “We follow it. Only way forward.”
His grip tightens around mine. “Whatever happens?—”
“Tell me on dry land.” I manage a smile despite everything. “You promised.”
