“At what cost?” My voice cuts through the manipulation. “What happens to her if she gives you what you’re asking?”
The Finn-thing’s attention returns to me with disconcerting speed. “She loses the memories. Finn’s face. His voice. The specific details of what they shared. It will fade like a dream fades—present one moment, gone the next, leaving only the vague sense that something was there.”
“And the grief?”
“Gone with the memories.” A shrug—almost natural, almost human. “You can’t mourn what you don’t remember. She’ll know she had a partner once. Know he died. But the guilt, the pain, the endless spiral of what-if and if-only—all of it consumed. All of it mine.”
I look at Aviora. She’s staring at the thing wearing Finn’s face with an expression I can’t read—fear and longing and calculation woven into something complex.
“That’s not sacrifice.” The words scrape out of me. “That’s freedom. You’re offering to take away the thing that’s been drowning her for years.”
“Am I?” The Finn-thing’s smile widens. “Or am I offering to take away the thing that made her who she is? The grief that drove her to run, to fight, to survive? The guilt that led her to your shore, Captain Druger. Without it—” A pause, theatrical and precisely timed. “—would she still be the woman who chooses you?”
THIRTY-THREE
ZORIC
We retreat to the Great Hall.
The Finn-thing doesn’t follow. It returns to its boat, settles onto the bow with inhuman stillness, and waits. It said we have until sunset—until the hunger grows too strong to resist negotiation. After that, it will take what it needs by force, and the taking will be far less pleasant than the giving.
“It’s manipulating you.” Thorne’s voice is sharp with suspicion. She’s gathered the guards—all five of them—and they ring the table like soldiers at a war council. “This thing, whatever it is. It’s playing games.”
“Of course, it’s manipulating me.” Aviora stands at the window, her back to the room, her attention fixed on the boat waiting in the harbor. “But that doesn’t mean it’s lying.”
“We can’t trust anything it says?—”
“I’ve carried Finn for years.” She turns, and her expression is calm in a way that terrifies me. The resignation of someone who’s made a decision. “Years of nightmares. Years of guilt that never fade. Years of running from everyone who got too close because I couldn’t bear to lose someone else.” Her eyes find mine. “What if it’s right? What if letting go is the only way forward?”
“Letting go is one thing.” I cross to her, take her hands in mine. Her fingers are cold, trembling slightly despite the controlled expression on her face. “Having your memories consumed by something that feeds on suffering is something else.”
“Is it?” She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t lean into me either. “I’ve been suffering for years, Zoric. Every day. Every night. The memories aren’t comfort—they’re torture. And if giving them up means the coast is safe, means you’re safe, means I finally stop drowning?—”
“Then you should keep them.”
The words surprise us both. She blinks, her composure cracking slightly.
“What?”
“You should keep them.” I grip her hands tighter, pour everything I’m feeling into the contact. “Not because they’re pleasant. Not because the guilt is good for you. But because they’re yours, Aviora. They’re part of who you are. And I don’t want you giving pieces of yourself to a monster, no matter what it promises in return.”
“Even if it means?—”
“Even then.” I release one of her hands, brush a strand of hair from her face. Her skin is cool against my fingers. “If you give that up—if you let the hunger take it—I don’t know who’s left. And I’m not willing to find out.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Behind me, I hear the guards shifting uncomfortably—this is too raw, too personal for public consumption. I don’t care.
“You’re asking me to keep hurting.”
“I’m asking you to choose the pain that’s yours over the peace that isn’t.” My knuckles graze her jaw. “There’s no shortcut through grief, Aviora. Believe me—I’ve tried. The guilt I carry for my pirate years, the blood on my hands—I’d give anything tohave it taken away. But it’s mine. It made me who I am. And the man I became because of it is the man who found you.”
Her eyes glisten. Not tears—not yet—but close.
“And if I can’t find another way? If the binding is the only option?”
“Then we face it as one.” I hold her gaze, let her see everything I’m feeling. “You don’t sacrifice yourself alone. You don’t give yourself to that thing without me beside you. Whatever happens, we face it the same way we’ve faced everything else.”
“As one.” Her voice is barely audible.
