“Nightmare?”
I press my face into his chest. My heart is racing. My skin feels cold despite the warmth of his body pressed against mine.
“No.” The words shake as they emerge. “A warning.”
He doesn’t ask questions. Just holds me while the dream’s horror slowly fades, replaced by the gray light of another dawn and the knowledge that whatever waits in the deep water knows we’re coming.
And it’s been waiting a very long time.
TWENTY-THREE
ZORIC
The final hours before Gyla’s deadline expires and everything I’ve spent years building burns.
Aviora stands at the boat’s prow, her gaze fixed on the water below. She hasn’t spoken much since waking from her nightmare—just moved through the morning preparations with mechanical efficiency, checking equipment, reviewing the captain’s log one final time. Whatever she saw in that dream has left marks I can read but can’t erase.
The patrol boat rocks beneath us as Brek and Margit work the oars, pulling us toward the coordinates she calculated from the dead captain’s notes. The Wrecktide spreads around us, deceptively calm, its surface smooth as black glass beneath an overcast sky.
We’re past the shelf. Past every dive site I’ve ever charted. The water here is darker—not from depth alone but from an absence that sucks in light the way Dreadhaven’s blackstone walls drink shadow.
“Here.” Aviora’s voice carries the flat tone of someone trying very hard not to feel anything. “According to the heading, theFortunewent down somewhere in this area.”
I move to stand beside her. My palm settles against her lower back without conscious thought—habit now, the way touching her has become as natural as breathing. She leans into the contact, but her attention stays fixed on the water.
“How deep?”
“Deeper than we’ve gone. Deeper than anyone should go without proper equipment.” She finally turns to look at me. Dark circles under her eyes. Tension in every line of her face. “We need to be quick.”
Quick. As if speed will save us from whatever waits in the darkness below.
“The dream.” I keep my voice low, pitched for her ears only. “What did you see?”
Her jaw tightens. For a moment, I think she won’t answer—she’s been avoiding the subject since she woke gasping in my arms, her skin cold despite the warmth of my body pressed against hers.
“Gold. A mountain of it, glowing with light that shouldn’t exist underwater.” Her hand drifts to her belt, touching the spot where the cursed coins used to rest. “And shapes in the darkness. Watching. Waiting.” She swallows. “They know we’re coming, Zoric. Whatever’s down there—it felt me looking.”
“Then we don’t give it time to prepare.” I draw her against my side, press my lips to her temple. “We go down, we get what we need, we come back up. No exploring. No lingering.”
“And if it’s too deep? If the pressure?—”
“Then we surface and find another way.” My arm tightens around her. “I’m not losing you to a pile of cursed gold. Whatever happens down there, we come back up. Both of us.”
She turns her face into my palm. Her lips brush my skin—barely a kiss, more a promise. “Both of us.”
The water closesover my head like a fist.
Cold. Darker than any dive I’ve made in years of patrolling these waters. The temperature drops with every stroke downward, until my skin feels numb and my muscles burn with the effort of maintaining movement.
Aviora swims beside me, her form a shadow in the murk. She moves with the grace of someone who learned to dive before she learned to trust anyone, her body cutting through the resistance with practiced efficiency. Even now—descending toward a presence that haunts her dreams—she doesn’t hesitate.
Unstoppable.
The thought rises unbidden. Even here, even descending toward horror, she doesn’t falter.
The light fades. Not gradually—suddenly, as if we’ve crossed some invisible boundary. One moment, I can see the dim gray of the surface above us. The next, there’s only darkness broken by the faint phosphorescence that clings to everything in the Wrecktide.
My lungs are starting to ache. Three minutes down. I can hold my breath longer than any human—orc lungs are built for endurance—but even I have limits. We need to find theFortunesoon or surface empty-handed.
