“Why would I risk my entire fleet on an unverified claim?”
“We’ve seen the hoard. You can’t carry it all on one ship with such full crews.” Aviora meets her gaze directly. “If the treasureisn’t there, you’ll kill us. You’ve made that clear. So either we’re telling the truth and you get ninety-five thousand gold, or we’re lying, and you get your revenge. Either way, you win.”
Gyla considers. I can see the calculations running behind her eyes—risk versus reward, caution versus greed. The same mathematics that built her empire, now working for or against us, depending on which way the scales tip.
“The full fleet.” Her voice carries an edge. “That’s a significant commitment based on nothing but your word.”
Aviora takes another step toward her. “We found theFortune. We dove her decks, saw the gold with our own eyes. It’s there, Gyla. More treasure than you can spend in a lifetime. All you have to do is claim it.”
The quiet stretches. In the harbor, her ships wait at anchor. Behind me, Dreadhaven’s walls loom dark against the sky. Everything hangs on the next few seconds—on whether greed outweighs caution, whether the promise of wealth eclipses the fear of traps.
Gyla smiles.
“Very well.” She gestures to her guards. “Bind them. If they’re lying, I want them alive long enough to regret it.”
Rough hands seize Aviora’s arms, wrenching them behind her back. I can’t help but snarl but don’t resist as my own wrists are bound. We’re hauled toward the longboat, away from Dreadhaven’s walls, away from everything that might have become home.
But as the oars bite into the water and the quay recedes behind us, I allow myself one small, secret smile.
She took the bait.
Now we just have to live long enough to spring the trap.
TWENTY-EIGHT
ZORIC
The hold of Gyla’s flagship smells like salt and old cargo.
They’ve given us a cabin—if you can call it that. A converted storage space, barely large enough for two, with a bolted-down cot and a bucket that serves purposes I’d rather not contemplate. The door is barred from outside. Guards rotate shifts, their boots scuffing the deck above our heads in steady rhythm.
Captive accommodations. Better than I expected, worse than I’d hoped.
Aviora sits on the cot, her bound wrists resting in her lap, her attention fixed on the ceiling as if she can read our fate in the watermarks staining the wood. We’ve been here for hours. Hours of Gyla’s fleet reorganizing, moving supplies, preparing for a trip to coordinates we provided.
“She’s being careful.” Aviora’s voice is barely above a murmur—pitched low, aware of the guards beyond our door. “More ships than she needs for a salvage operation. More men.”
“She’s cautious, not stupid.” I shift on the floor where I’ve positioned myself, back against the hull, legs stretched before me. The ropes around my wrists are tight but not cruel—Gylawants us functional, not damaged. “A merchant queen doesn’t keep her throne by trusting strangers who offer her treasure.”
“Then why take the bait at all?”
“Because greed is stronger than caution. She can’t help herself.” I study the pattern of lantern light through the door’s gaps. “Ninety-five thousand gold is more than she’s worth. More than her fleet is worth.”
Aviora’s gaze drops to mine. In the dim light, her features are all sharp angles and shadow—the jaw set with stubborn determination, the eyes carrying depths that six days ago I couldn’t have imagined wanting to explore.
Six days. That’s all it’s been since she washed up on my shore. Six days of siege and survival and something else, something I don’t have a name for but feel in my chest every time she looks at me this way.
“Zoric.” My name, soft and certain. “If this doesn’t work?—”
“It will work.”
“If it doesn’t.” She rises from the cot, crosses the narrow space between us, sinks down beside me with her shoulder pressed against mine. “I need you to know?—”
I silence her with a kiss.
It’s awkward—our hands are bound, our positions cramped, and any noise might bring guards. But I need to feel her. Need to remind us both that we’re still here, still alive, still fighting.
She melts into me despite the constraints. Her mouth parts warm and willing, and for a moment, the cabin disappears. The guards disappear. Everything disappears except the taste of her and the heat of her body against mine.
