The Geis of Muirín, Part II
An oath draws no blood until the world tests it. The merrow wait, the kelpies strike, and the man in the red cloak begins his whispering. Cael must choose patience or the edge of his sword.
The tide pulled harder each day, though not in the way Muirín had meant.
For a fortnight, Cael walked the length of Tír fo Thuiunn’s shallows, watching the foam break on empty nets, listening to the merrow elders speak in circles around the threat. They gathered in the salt-halls, eyes following him when he entered, yet none called him to their side when the talk turned to the kelpies.
Always the same: we wait, we watch, the king will decide.
The medallion at his chest warmed in brief fits, as if remembering its purpose only to think better of it.
The first attack since Muirín’s vanishing came three nights after his oath. A fisherman’s skiff, adrift at dawn, hull scraped with long, deep lines like teeth. No sign of the man—only the print of bare, webbed feet on the deck, half-washed away by tide.
The elders spoke of omens. Cael spoke of war. His words dropped into the hush like stones into a well.
Five days later, the kelpies struck closer—this time, a merchant barge carrying grain for the tide-walls. Taken in full moonlight. The wreckage drifted in with the next tide: crates split, rope snarled, a child’s sandal wedged in the slats. Cael waded waist-deep, pulling debris from the shallows, scanning for shadows in the water. The sea offered nothing but the weight of what he could not save.
By the ninth day, a third strike—another boat gone. No survivors. He found the first sign beneath the southern quay: a strip of green-and-gold ribbon, sodden with brine, tangled in the pilings.
The ribbon went into his pocket.
Three nights later, he found another—this time the salt-stiff hem of a woven shift. The one she’d worn when she asked for his vow. He stood knee-deep in the surf, staring at the cloth as the tide surged against his thighs. No body. No trail. Just the sea, pulling at him as if to see how far he would come.
(A bard’s aside…)
“Cael carries the ribbon, but every oath needs a witness. For $5, buy the bard a pint — keep the flame burning and the Chronicle unbroken.”
The medallion flared hot against his chest that night. Not in warning—in recognition. The heat lingered until his skin ached, and in the ache was the shape of her voice: not pleading, not calling for rescue, but waiting.
He did not sleep.
By dawn, he knew the king would not call him to fight. The merrow would watch the tide until it swallowed them whole. His oath felt like a sword left to rust in its scabbard.
That evening, he took the cliff path.
The wind tore at his cloak, the surf shattering white against the rocks below. Beyond the headland, the northern inlet narrowed to a tide road—a choke point. No guard posted there since the last patrol vanished. A weak point. Weak points ended wars.
He’d had enough of waiting. Enough of we watch, we endure.
The medallion burned now in a steady heat. Whatever came, this would be on his terms.
A gull’s cry split the air, followed by a voice behind him.
“You’ve decided,” said the man in the red cloak.
Cael didn’t turn. “This is my fight now.”
“I thought it was theirs,” the man replied lightly, coming to stand beside him. “But I see you’ve remembered fights worth winning are never truly shared.”
Cael said nothing.
The man’s gaze tracked the boiling water below. “They’ll tell you their way is the old way. That patience is a kind of strength. But you and I know—sometimes patience is just waiting for the tide to take you.”
“Their fight. My way.”
“Good.” His tone warmed, almost approving. “When a man acts for himself, the victory is his alone… and the song will carry his name, not another’s.”
The man’s smile was audible. “Then we understand each other. Kelpies don’t wait for blessings either.” He nodded toward the black water churning through the inlet.
His expression sharpened, quick as a drawn blade. 'From the front, they'll drag you under. The tide favors those who don't show their teeth until the kill. "
He let the words drift, the kind of silence that invites a man to imagine the ending for himself.
Cael’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
The red cloak snapped in the wind, its folds settling like blood on the stone. “Make it quick, Cael. Before the tide turns against you.”
The words lingered after he was gone, like salt in a wound.
By the time Cael reached the inlet, the moon was half-hidden behind cloud. The water pulled hard through its narrow throat, black and swift. He crouched low, searching for the glint of eyes, the shadow beneath the swell.
No elders. No king’s guard. No Muirín.
Only him.
The medallion burned, and for the first time since his oath, he let himself believe it burned for battle.
The tide rises again in Part III. Will Cael hold, or be pulled under?
Every oath needs witness, every Fianna needs song. Help a bard wet his throat, and the tale of the Fianna marches on.”
The tide rises again in Part III. Will Cael hold, or be pulled under? Until then, the bard tends the embers. A coin in the cup — $5 makes you keeper of the flame, so the song does not falter.