“Let me worry about what happens to me.”
“Zoric—”
“Aviora.” He says my name the way he did in the alcove—rough and reverent, carrying more meaning than the syllables should hold. “I’ve spent years building walls. Keeping people at a distance. Telling myself I didn’t deserve anything more than penance and duty.” His grip on my face tightens. “You brokethrough all of it in a few days. You think I’m letting you go without a fight?”
I want to argue. Want to tell him I’m not worth the cost, that Gyla will destroy him and his people and everyone who depends on this broken fortress if he protects me.
Instead, I kiss him.
It’s softer than usual. Less frantic. My mouth moves against his with a gentleness that scares me more than passion ever could, and when he kisses me back, I feel it in my bones—the click of a lock finding its key.
“I don’t deserve you.” I breathe the words against his lips.
“Good thing it’s not about deserving.”
Night falls,and I can’t sleep.
I lie in the narrow bed Zoric gave me—a room in the Warden’s Spire, small but dry, far from the flooding that’s claimed the lower levels—and stare at the ceiling while my mind runs in circles.
Fifty-five thousand gold. A few days. Five wounded survivors. A merchant queen who’d burn the world to make a point.
The numbers don’t work. I’ve run them a hundred times since dawn, looking for angles, for solutions, for any path that doesn’t end with me surrendering to Gyla or watching Zoric’s people starve. There isn’t one.
I should leave. Slip out in the night, steal a boat from the harbor, take my chances with Gyla’s ships. If I’m not here, she has no reason to carry out her threat. Dreadhaven survives. Zoric survives. Everyone wins except me, and when has that ever been the priority?
My feet hit cold stone before I’ve made a conscious decision. I’m moving through the dark corridors of the spire, following a path my body seems to know even though my mind is still arguing with itself.
His door is unlocked. Of course, it is. He’s expecting me—or hoping. The distinction doesn’t matter.
Zoric is sitting on the edge of his bed, still dressed, his head in his hands. He looks up when I enter. In the candlelight, he looks exhausted. Worried.
“Couldn’t sleep either.”
“No.” I close the door behind me. Stand there in my borrowed nightshirt, suddenly unsure why I came. “I keep thinking?—”
“That you should leave.” His tone carries no judgment. He’s already thought of it. Of course, he has. “Disappear before dawn, let Gyla chase you somewhere else.”
“It’s the smart play.”
“It’s the lonely play.” He rises, crosses to me. His palms curve around my waist the way they did that first night in the alcove—like they belong there, like touching me is the most natural thing in the world. “You’ve been making the smart play for years. Where’s it gotten you?”
“Here.” I manage a weak smile. “Surrounded by enemies, out of options, facing a woman who wants to destroy everyone who helps me.”
“Here.” He repeats the word differently. “With someone who’d fight the entire coast to keep you safe. In a place that could be home if you let it.” His hands slide up my sides, pulling me closer. “The smart play isn’t the only play, Aviora.”
I press closer against him. Let myself feel the solid warmth of his body, the steady beat of his heart against my cheek. “I should go.” The words come out barely above a whisper. “Before I cost you everything.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. His hand strokes up and down my back—slow, soothing, nothing like the frantic touches we’ve shared before. This is something else. Something gentler and more dangerous.
“You are everything.” His voice is low. Raw. “Whatever happens with Gyla—you’re not a cost, Aviora. You’re the reason any of this matters.”
The words hit me like a wave. I pull back to study him—searching his face for any sign that he doesn’t mean it, that it’s just pretty words designed to make me stay.
There’s nothing but truth in his gaze. Truth, and want, and something deeper that I’m not ready to name.
“Stay with me.” His hand cups my face. “Not for sex. Just—stay. Let me hold you until morning.”
I should say no. Should maintain some semblance of the walls that have kept me alive for years of running.
