“You talk in your sleep.”
“Oh, I thought I snored.”
“That too.”
Her laugh catches me off guard—quiet, genuine, the kind that slips out before she can stop it. “I’ve dreamt about salvage routes and woke up knowing exactly where to dive. Finn couldn’t believe it.” The mention of his name doesn’t carry the same heaviness it did yesterday—still present, but bearable now. A wound learning to scar.
I file that observation away. Later.
“Show me.” I push up on one elbow, looking down at her. “The charts are in the Great Hall. Show me what you know.”
Her expression sharpens. The sleepy softness gives way to focus—the professional I glimpsed yesterday when she talked about current patterns and debris fields. The woman who ran salvage operations out of Saltmere’s docks for four years.
“Now?”
“Now.” I roll out of bed, already reaching for my shirt. “A few daysstarts today. Every hour counts.”
She’s moving before I finish speaking, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, her borrowed clothes rumpled but serviceable. The intimacy of shared space, of bodies comfortable in proximity. No awkwardness. No pretense.
Two people preparing for war.
The Great Hallstill looks bad.
The cracked flagstones. The scorch marks from ward fires that held back the drowned. More patched canvas covering shattered windows. Every surface carries evidence of what we lost three nights ago, and what we’re still losing—supplies, people, hope.
My charts spread across the main table, pinned down with salvaged debris and the few weapons we managed to recover from the flooding. Years of obsessive mapping lay out in ink and parchment. Every wreck I’ve charted. Every debris field I’ve noted. Every grave marker of ships that trusted the wrong waters.
Aviora circles the table, her eyes moving across the documents with an intensity that reminds me of predators tracking prey. She doesn’t touch anything yet—just looks, absorbing information the way she absorbs everything else. Quickly. Thoroughly.
“You’ve been thorough.” Not quite a compliment from her. An assessment.
“I’ve had time.”
“These depth markings.” Her finger hovers over the Seagrave’s notation. “You charted this years ago?”
“Closer to four. Why?”
“The current patterns suggest shelf collapse.” She traces an invisible line across the parchment. “The Wrecktide’s reefs shift during major storms. Based on where you’ve marked the debris field, I’d estimate the Seagrave has dropped fifteen to twenty feet since you last dove it. Maybe more.”
I study the marks. She’s right. The notation doesn’t account for the storms we’ve had since—the one that took out the Eastern Wing, the three-day gale two winters ago that reshuffled half the known wrecks.
“What else?”
She moves to another chart. TheMaiden’s Rose, marked as textiles and spices. “Her last port of call. Where was it?”
“Saltmere. Years ago.”
“During the jade shortage.” Aviora’s mouth curves—not quite a smile, a blade’s edge. “Half the merchants in Saltmere were running gemstones to avoid the tariffs. TheMaiden’s Rosewas owned by Hector Murker.”
The name lands. Gyla’s dead uncle.
“He never declared an honest cargo in his life,” Aviora continues. “If theMaiden’s Rosewas carrying what I think she was carrying, your estimates are low. Maybe double. Maybe triple.”
Gyla’s family vessel. The irony isn’t lost on me—paying off her debt with treasure from her uncle’s smuggling operation.
Footsteps in the corridor. Multiple sets, moving with the tired rhythm of people who’ve spent the night on watch rather than sleeping. Thorne appears first, her injured arm still bound, her expression carved from exhaustion and determination. Behind her: Brek, Margit, Ven with his bandaged hand.
And Henek. Whose wife and daughter burned on the clifftop two days ago. Whose hatred I can feel from across the hall.
