And through it all, the light pulses from the deep.
Steady. Patient.
Awakening.
We’ve won, but at what cost? So many are dead, the fleet destroyed, her threat ended forever.
But looking back at the horrors emerging from the Wrecktide’s depths, I realize with sickening certainty:
We’ve also unleashed something far worse.
TWENTY-NINE
AVIORA
We row until my arms burn.
Behind us, the Wrecktide devours what’s left of Gyla’s fleet. Ships founder one by one, their hulls breached from below, their crews long since claimed by the gold’s call. The screaming stopped. The silence that followed is worse—a quiet so complete, it feels like the sea itself is holding its breath.
Zoric takes over the oars when my muscles give out. I curl in the longboat’s bow, watching the distant carnage through eyes that won’t stop watering from salt spray and something else I refuse to name. Hundreds of souls. Hundreds of people who woke this morning expecting treasure and found annihilation instead.
We did this.
The thought keeps circling, vulture-like, refusing to let me rest. Gyla was a monster. Her mercenaries were killers. But they were still people, and we led them to something worse than death.
The longboat scrapes against black sand. Dreadhaven’s cliffs loom above us, the keep’s blackstone walls absorbing what little morning light filters through the overcast sky. Home. If I can callit that. If I have any right to call anywhere home after what we’ve done.
“Aviora.” Zoric’s voice, rough from exertion and the salt air. His palm settles on my shoulder—warm, grounding, the only solid thing in a world that’s tilted off its axis. “We need to move. The others will be watching.”
I let him pull me to my feet. Let him guide me up the cliff path, through the ruined harbor gate, into the fortress that’s become sanctuary and prison in equal measure. My legs move without input from my brain. My eyes see without registering. Everything feels muffled, distant, like I’m watching events through water.
Thorne meets us in the Great Hall.
Her weathered face is grim, her bound arm held close against her chest. Behind her, the remaining guards—Brek, Margit, Ven, even Henek—stand in a loose formation that speaks to relief and dread in equal measure.
“It worked.” Thorne’s voice is flat. “We watched from the walls. Gyla’s fleet is gone.”
“It worked,” Zoric confirms. “Too well. We didn’t expect the effect it had on the crew.” His arm hasn’t left my waist since we entered the keep. I lean into him without shame, without pretense. Let them see. Let them know what we’ve become to each other in the crucible of the past week.
“And the rest?” Margit’s question carries knowing I don’t want to acknowledge. “The things we saw rising from the water. The light that’s still pulsing out there, visible even from shore.”
Neither of us answers. The quiet that follows says everything we can’t.
Hours pass.
I spend them in Zoric’s quarters, curled on his bed while he handles the aftermath with his people. The sounds of the keep filter through the walls—voices raised in argument, footsteps hurrying along corridors, the organized chaos of survivors trying to make sense of what they’ve witnessed.
The brazier in the corner has burned low, casting the room in shadows that dance across the blackstone walls. Salt crystals gleam on the stone where moisture has dried, leaving white traces that look almost like writing. I stare at them until my eyes burn, searching for meaning in patterns that have none.
I should be out there. Should be helping, planning, doing something useful instead of lying here cataloging the cracks in the ceiling. But every time I close my eyes, I see them. Sailors jumping overboard with glassy expressions. Guardians rising from the deep, their skeletal forms wreathed in hungry light. Gyla’s face twisted in rage, as something ancient closed around her ankle and dragged her down.
Hundreds of souls.
The number won’t leave me alone.
Finn died because of my bad choices. One person. One death that’s haunted me for years, that’s shaped every decision I’ve made since. And now I’ve helped kill hundreds more.
The door opens. Zoric’s silhouette fills the frame, backlit by corridor torches.
