Tethered to the Stone Daddy

Selah

The rain has been trying to kill me since midmorning.

By the time Gullhaven appears through the storm, my boots are soaked though and my left arm throbs beneath a wet bandage.

The relic hidden beneath my coat presses cold against my ribs.

I keep one hand over it as I make my way down the final cliff road toward the harbor.

Fishing boats knock against the docks in the swells. Torchlight bleeds across the wet cobblestones. At the edge of the market sits a narrow inn with warm light glowing behind its windows.

I head for it before my legs give out.

The door opens to heat, noise, and the smell of woodsmoke. For a moment, I nearly cry. When my instinct returns, I remind myself to check for exits.

Two. The door I came through and one through the kitchen hallway behind the bar. Fourteen people are in the common, none of them watching me yet.

The woman behind the bar notices me immediately. She has black curls pinned loosely atop her head and enough jewelry on every finger to catch every last flicker from the fireplace.

“The storm treat you badly?” she asks.

“The storm is the least of my problems.”

A man appears from the back hallway. He’s broad through the shoulders with dark hair cut through with gray that came early. From the look of him, it was stress or sea or some combination.

“You need a room,” he says.

“Yes.” There is no point in elaborate cover stories when I can barely stand up straight. “Please.”

“Corvin.” The woman looks at him sharply. He ignores her, instead studying the soaked bandage on my arm.

“Third door down the hall,” he says. “Lock works. We’ll send up hot water.”

“Corvin,” the woman tries again, a different note in it this time.

“Brin. Get her something to eat.” She exhales hard through her nose, then her eyes give me another up and down.

“I have a very bad feeling about this.”

“Noted,” Corvin says, already turning back to the bar. I look at Corvin’s back for a moment.

“Thank you,” I say. He nods once and goes back to whatever he was doing before I walked in.

I take the room key and head off, my legs feeling more and more numb with every step. When I make it to the door, I open it and let myself inside. I stand in the dark with my back against the door and my hand pressed flat over the relic through my coat, and I breathe until my body stops shaking.

Rain pounds against the shutters. Voices murmur below. Then my eyes settle on what is beyond the rain speckled glass.

A statue stands at the center of the square.

It towers over the harbor, its distinct figure carved from dark stone and worn smooth by rain and sea wind.

Stone wings fold tight against a broad back.

A massive head bows forward, chin nearly touching the chest. Both hands rest on the pommel of a sword planted point-down in the base. I can make out enormous, scarred hands.

A band of carved symbols rings the stone, catching the torchlight strangely. They make my skin prickle, and not from the cold of my wet coat.

I’ve spent years studying ancient scripts and forgotten languages. I should recognize something about them.

But I don’t.

I step back from the window, and I have no intention of going back outside.

I peel off my wet coat and sit on the bed with the relic in my lap. It’s a small gold emblem set with a shimmering ruby at the center.

I tell myself I will eat whatever is sent up and sleep until my body stops punishing me.

The statue sits in the corner of the window, and I can’t stop glancing at it. It’s almost as if this large, ominous statue beckons me.

I grab my coat and go.

The square is buzzing, the market vendors selling all they could despite the weather. I cross toward the statue with no clear intention beyond getting close enough to see the runes properly. Up close, they’re worse. My fingers hover above the carved lines without touching them.

The sound of hoofbeats echoes through the square.

Four glossy black horses, ridden by figures in dark traveling cloaks, canter across the cobblestones.

They have the appearance of wealthy travelers, their clothes neat and new and their bodies adorned with jewels.

They move through the harbor entrance like they own it.

I go still.

The man at the front pushes back his hood. His silver-black hair and pale violet eyes are all too familiar. I know that face. I have been running from that face for six weeks.

His gaze sweeps the square the way a blade sweeps a room. I turn away and force myself to walk, not run, toward the market stalls. My heart is hammering so loud I’m certain everyone within ten feet can hear it.

I make it three stalls before one of the others shouts. I run.

The cobblestones are slick with rain, and I hit a bad patch near the fishmonger’s and nearly go down. I catch myself on a wooden post hard enough to jar my bad arm. I don’t stop. Behind me, boots slap stone in a steady, unhurried rhythm that is somehow worse than if they were sprinting.

I cut left toward the statue, thinking I can loop around it and get back to the inn’s side entrance.

It’s a bad plan. It’s also the only plan I have.

I don’t make it around.

A hand catches my shoulder and spins me hard, and then there’s a blade. I get my arm up in time to keep it from being my throat but not in time to stop it from opening a clean line across my forearm.

I hit the base of the statue. My palm slaps against the stone to catch myself, and the blood runs freely now, pouring down my wrist and across the carved runes before I can do anything about it.

The stone goes warm beneath my hand, and then it shudders.

A crack splits the air like a thunderclap, sharp enough that my attacker stumbles back.

The runes blaze a fierce amber gold. The statue fractures from the base up, great chunks of stone grinding apart, and from somewhere deep inside it comes a sound like a living thing waking up furious.

The sword hits the cobblestones first, and then everything explodes outward.