The words land harder than they should. “Since when do you give relationship advice?”
“Since I watched you build walls so high even you couldn’t see over them.” She squeezes my shoulder as she passes.
She limps away, leaving me with her words and the sight of Aviora laughing at something across the hall.
Sunset comes too fast.
We gather on the clifftop above the Eastern Collapse—the only flat ground large enough for what needs to happen. Bodies wrapped in sailcloth, laid with the dignity they deserved in life.
The surviving guards stand in a loose semicircle. Brek, his cracked rib making him hold himself carefully. Thorne, her arm still bound, her face carved from stone. Margit, leaning on a makeshift crutch. Ven, his bandaged hand tucked against his chest. Henek, whose wife and daughter are among the dead, whose hatred I can feel like heat from across the gathering.
And Aviora. Standing at my side. Close enough that our shoulders touch.
“These were our people.” My voice carries across the clifftop, lifted by the wind that never stops blowing. “They died defending this keep. Defending each other. They deserved better than the deaths they got.”
I look at the wrapped bodies. Try to see past the sailcloth to the faces underneath. Korin, who told terrible jokes and made better fish stew. Lena, who’d been with me since theBlack Tidedays, who’d followed me into retirement because she believed I was trying to be better. Marta, Henek’s daughter, who’d been barely twenty and had her whole life ahead of her.
“The sea will have their ashes.” I take the torch Thorne offers. “Let it carry them home.”
I light the first pyre. The flames catch slowly, then spread—consuming the wood, the cloth, the bodies beneath. One by one, the other survivors step forward to light the remaining pyres, until smoke rises into the evening sky.
Aviora’s fingers slip through mine. She doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, holding on, as we watch everything we couldn’t save turn to ash.
The ceremony ends. The survivors drift away, returning to the keep to continue the work of survival. Soon it’s just the two of us, standing above the fading pyres, watching the smoke blend with the darkening sky.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice is quiet. “For what that’s worth.”
“You didn’t kill them.”
“I brought the curse to your door.”
“And helped destroy it.” I pull her against my side. She comes willingly, her head settling against my shoulder.
We stand there as darkness falls, as the pyres burn down to embers, as the wind carries ash out over the water. I should be thinking about supplies, defenses, the supply ship that’s a few days away. Instead, I’m thinking about the woman in my arms and how much harder it’s going to be to lose her now that I’ve let myself want her.
“Zoric.” Her voice changes. Sharpens. “Look.”
I follow her gaze to the horizon. It takes a moment to see what she’s seeing—the light is failing, the sea and sky blending into uniform gray. But then I catch it. A shape on the water. A sail.
Then another.
Then three more.
Five ships. Coming from the south. From the direction of Saltmere.
“That’s not a supply run.” Aviora’s voice is flat. “Supply runs don’t bring five ships.”
“No.” I watch the sails grow larger against the fading light. Watch them tack toward the Wrecktide’s passage, the route that’s suddenly navigable now that Oreth’s curse no longer guards it. “They don’t.”
Saltmere colors fly from the lead ship’s mast. Merchant colors. But merchants don’t travel in fleets of five, and they don’t sail at night unless they have very good reasons.
Someone talked. Earlier than we expected. Faster than should have been possible.
“Zoric.” Aviora’s hand tightens in mine. “What do we do?”
I stare at the approaching ships. Five vessels. Probably forty crew each. Hundreds of people against our handful of wounded survivors.
A few days ago, I would have told her to run. Would have bought her time with my life and called it a fair trade.
