“You did it.” His palm cups my face, tilting it toward him. His touch is rough and cold and steady against my jaw. “Oreth. The curse. All of it.”
“We did it.” I lean into his touch. Can’t help it. “I couldn’t have scattered those coins without you keeping him busy.”
His face changes. The guard drops, just for a moment—a crack in the wall he keeps between himself and the world. “Aviora?—”
“Captain!” The shout comes from the cliffs above. I look up and see figures descending the treacherous path from the keep—guards, by their silhouettes, moving as fast as they dare on stone slick with spray. “Captain, you’re alive!”
Zoric’s hand drops from my face. The mask slides back into place—warden, commander, the man responsible for everyone in that fortress. He rises, and I watch the shift happen: from the man who touched my face with something close to tenderness to the captain who has people depending on him.
“Brek.” He identifies the lead figure. “Report.”
The young orc guard stumbles to a halt at the waterline, chest heaving. His face is bloody, one arm hanging at an angle that suggests he should be lying down instead of running. But his eyes are bright with relief as he takes in Zoric’s survival.
“The drowned—they just collapsed. An hour ago, maybe less. One moment they were everywhere, and then...”
“Oreth.” Zoric’s tone carries no emotion. “We destroyed him.”
Brek’s gaze swings to me. I can read the calculation in it—putting the pieces together, realizing that the woman who brought the curse to Dreadhaven also helped end it. The relief in his expression wars with resentment. With grief, he doesn’t know where to aim.
More guards are arriving. Thorne among them, practical and bloody, her expression grim as she surveys the two of us dripping on the black sand. Salt Margit limps behind her, supporting a younger guard whose leg is wrapped in makeshift bandages.
“How bad?” Zoric asks. Just two words, but I hear what’s beneath them.
Thorne’s jaw tightens. “Half the keep is flooded. The lower levels are gone—armory, stores, the vault. When you collapsed the hoard chamber, it took a lot of the eastern foundations with it.” She pauses. Gathers herself. “We lost over a dozen. Out of the twenty-three who survived Oreth’s first assault.”
So many dead.
“Who?” Zoric’s voice is too controlled. The voice of a man who’s learned to receive casualty reports without flinching.
Thorne lists names. I recognize some of them—guards I fought beside at the Eastern Collapse, faces I saw in the Great Hall when Finn’s ghost came through the window. Each name lands like a blow, and I watch Zoric absorb them with no visible reaction.
But I see his hands. The way his fingers curl into fists at his sides. The white of his knuckles showing through.
“Secure what’s left of the keep.” His orders come out clipped. Precise. “Salvage what you can from the flooded levels. Anyone too injured to work—get them to the Warden’s Spire. Should be dry.”
“Captain,” Thorne hesitates. Her gaze flicks to me, then back to Zoric, “There are questions. About what happened. About—” Another glance in my direction. “About the curse.”
“Later.” Zoric’s voice brooks no argument. “Right now, we secure the keep. Everything else can wait.”
The guards move off, climbing back toward Dreadhaven with the weary determination of people who’ve survived something terrible and aren’t sure yet if they’re grateful. Brek lingers a moment, his eyes on me with an expression I can’t quite read, before turning to follow the others.
We’re alone on the beach. The storm clouds overhead are thinning. The sea behind us whispers against the shore—a gentler sound than I’ve heard from these waters. A sound without hunger.
“Eighteen.” The word scrapes from Zoric’s throat. “Eighteen more.”
“You didn’t kill them.” I step closer, close enough to touch if I dared. “Oreth killed them. The curse killed them.”
“The curse I let loose when I abandoned Oreth in those caves.” His hands are still fisted at his sides. “The curse you carried here because I failed to destroy it properly the first time.”
“We can stand here all night assigning blame.” I reach up, press my palm flat against his chest. His heartbeat thuds against my hand—fast, strong, evidence that we survived. “Or we can acknowledge that we’re alive, and they’re dead, and there’s nothing fair about it, and guilt won’t change reality.”
He looks down at my hand. Then at my face. His expression changes—that guarded hardness giving way to something rawer underneath.
“Aviora—”
“I’m tired of talking.” I grab his collar, the same way I did on the wall walk before the siege. Yank him down to my level. “I’m tired of thinking. And right now—” I pull him close until our mouths are inches apart, his breath hot against my lips. “Right now, I just want to feel something that isn’t fear.”
His hands grip my waist. Massive hands, scarred and rough, holding me with a pressure that borders on pain. “This isn’t the place.”
