“Show you what?”
“The gold. I want to see it.”
Reasonable request. Probably. He did just save my life, if “dragging me away from certain death” counts as saving. But something in his voice—an edge beneath the gravel—tells me this is more than curiosity.
I open the pouch. Let the coins spill into my palm.
The pull hits immediately—icy need sliding through my veins, hunger that isn’t mine but feels achingly familiar. The coins glow in the green torchlight, their surfaces etched with symbols I don’t recognize, their metal carrying a chill that goes deeper than temperature.
The orc’s hands curl into fists. His jaw tightens. I see the curse touch him—the flicker in his gaze, the tension that runs through his massive frame. He wants them. The gold is reaching for him the same way it reached for every other poor bastard who’s gotten too close.
But he doesn’t take them.
“Where did you get these?” His voice is gravelly now. Strained.
“Bought them from a man in Saltmere. Didn’t know what they were until—” I stop. Push through. “Until the nightmares started.”
“And then?”
“Then I tried to sell them. He turned up dead a few days later, throat cut and body drained.” I pour the coins back into the pouch, my fingers clumsy with cold and exhaustion. “I ran. Been running for months. Ships keep sinking. Crews keep dying. And those things in the water keep getting closer.”
He watches me for a long moment. I meet his gaze—hold it—refusing to look away first. I’ve stared down debt collectors and harbor masters and the occasional assassin. One orc, however large, isn’t going to break me.
“You need to sleep.” The words come out rough, almost reluctant. “There’s a room in the east tower. Door locks from the inside.”
“Is that where you’re taking me, or where I’m supposed to find myself?”
“I’ll show you. And—” He pauses, something shifting behind his expression. “You’ll be safe.”
I let out a laugh that sounds more broken than I intend. “You’ve already threatened to take what I’m carrying. That usually comes with violence attached.”
“I didn’t threaten. I asked.” His attention drifts to the windows, to the darkness beyond. “What’s out there is more threatening than I am.”
“Interesting.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t deadly.”
Something almost like humor flickers in his voice. Or maybe I’m imagining it. Hard to read with orcs—their expressions don’t map onto human faces the way I expect, and exhaustion is playing tricks with my perception.
“Why?” I ask because I can’t help myself. “Why protect a thief carrying cursed gold? Why not just take it and throw me back to the sea?”
He’s quiet for long enough that I think he’s not going to answer. Then: “Because someone wants you dead. And anything he wants, I’m inclined to refuse.”
Someone. He.
“Who?”
The orc turns toward a passage I hadn’t noticed—another dark opening in stone that seems designed to swallow light.
“Captain of the ship that’s been hunting you. The man whose crew drowned for that gold.” His hands curl at his sides, knuckles white. “My first mate. Or he was, before I left him to die in these waters years ago.”
The words strike like a blade to the chest.
Left him to die.
“And now?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
The orc looks back at me. In the flickering light, his expression is unreadable—stone carved into flesh, yielding nothing.
