I exchange a glance with Aviora. See my own answer reflected in her eyes.
“We found it.” I push myself upright. “We didn’t take anything.”
“What?” Brek’s face falls. “But the deadline?—”
“The gold is wrong.” Aviora’s voice is steadier now, the professional returning as the shock fades.
Margit’s expression shifts from disappointment to understanding. She’s old enough to recognize truth when she hears it, wise enough not to argue with people who’ve clearly seen horror.
“Then what do we do?” Brek looks between us, young and lost. “Gyla’s deadline is today. If we don’t have the gold...”
“We find another way.” I stand, drawing Aviora up with me. “Get us back to shore. Now.”
Dreadhaven’s harborcomes into view, and my stomach drops.
Gyla’s fleet is moving.
All five ships have weighed anchor, their sails unfurling in the afternoon breeze. They’re not heading out to sea—they’re heading in. Toward the harbor mouth. Toward the iron chain booms that are the only barrier between their mercenaries and my people.
“She’s not waiting.” Aviora’s grip tightens on my arm. “The deadline isn’t until sunset.”
“She’s making a point.” I watch the lead ship tack toward the channel, its mercenary crew visible on the deck. “Showing us that she sets the terms, not us.”
“How many fighters do we have?”
“Five, if you count wounded.” I run the numbers in my head—numbers I’ve run a hundred times since Gyla arrived. “Against hundreds. Maybe more.”
“So we can’t fight.”
“No.”
“And we can’t pay.”
“No.”
Aviora is quiet for a long moment. I can almost hear her mind working—calculating angles, assessing options, searching for escape routes the way she’s done her whole life. When she speaks, her voice carries a new edge. Cold.
“TheFortune.” Her gaze lifts to meet mine. “The gold down there—you felt what it wanted.”
“I felt it.”
“It’s hungry. Has been for thirty years, since the last tribute. That’s why the Wrecktide’s been getting worse, why Oreth’s curse was able to take hold.” She steps closer, lowering her voice so only I can hear. “What if we gave it a meal?”
The implications hit me like a boarding axe to the chest. “Gyla’s fleet.”
“Thousands in gold and jewels, I’m sure.” Aviora’s face is hard now, her survivor’s pragmatism overriding whatever softer impulses she might have. “If we could lure them over theFortune’s resting place...”
“You think the curse would take the ships under.”
“Why not? Just like all the others it’s taken.” Her hand closes on mine. “I don’t like it. But what’s the alternative? Let Gyla burn Dreadhaven? Watch your people starve because we couldn’t bring ourselves to use the weapon the sea handed us?”
I stare at her. The woman who washed up on my shore six days ago, carrying cursed gold and a death sentence. The woman who’s broken through every wall I built and made me want things I’d forgotten how to want.
She’s proposing mass destruction. “What about the humans on board?”
“What about them? They just abandon ship. There’s no storm to drown them. They can swim to shore easily.”
“We’d be no better than Oreth.” The words scrape out of me. “Using the curse for our own ends.”
