The Geis of Muirín, Part III

No oath stands untested. At the inlet, Cael finds battle — but no victory. Only the silence of the medallion, and the first taste of what it means to fight alone.

The inlet was quiet now.

Kelp clung to the rocks like blackened sinew, torn from where the tide had raged. The water still carried the taste of blood, but not enough to say whose. Foam gathered and collapsed in the shallows, as if the sea had grown tired of holding its breath.

Cael’s sword arm ached. The blade was nicked where kelpie hide had turned steel. Salt stung the cut above his brow, a warm trickle sliding into the grit on his cheek. His chest rose and fell too quickly, though the fight was done.

If it had been a fight.

Three kelpie corpses lay half-submerged against the rocks, their long limbs twisted, manes of eelgrass drifting with the swell. The rest had slipped back into the dark. No bodies of the taken. No sign of her.

The medallion at his chest was cooling now, the heat draining as if it had never burned at all.

He scanned the tide road again, though he knew the futility of it. The kelpies had scattered before he could break their line. The inlet still stood, but it was not a victory—not the kind that keeps a promise.

He reached into his pocket. The ribbon was damp again—not from the sea this time, but from his own sweat. Beside it, the salt-stiff hem of her shift. He had carried them into the fight, thinking they might steady his hand. Instead, their weight had pulled at him with every strike, as if they wanted him to remember what he had not yet saved.

(A bard’s aside…)
“Cael bears the ribbon, but every tale needs a witness. Cast a coin into the fire — $5 keeps the bard’s voice strong, the Chronicle alive.”

He could still see her standing on that rock, hair tangled with foam, eyes steady enough to pin him where he stood. He had sworn to keep her from vanishing into the tide. Now all he had were these scraps—proof not of victory, but of how far she’d been pulled from him.

Somewhere in the darkness, a gull cried once and fell silent.

Cael stood until the tide began to rise again, pulling the dead gently toward the open water. The tide’s roar filled the silence left by the medallion.

When he turned away, the inlet remained—narrow, black, and patient.

His fingers closed around the ribbon until his knuckles ached. The medallion’s silence pressed harder, as if weighing his choice and finding it wanting.

The tide would come again.

And he would be waiting.

The tide carries more than corpses. Next week, the weight of silence deepens.

Memory is the coin of heroes. A pint keeps the bard’s voice strong enough to carry it across the ages.

The watchers stir in the mist. Next week, the tide will demand more than words.

A bard’s fire burns brightest when the hall leans close. Help me keep the mead warm and the tale unbroken.

Memory is the coin of heroes. A pint keeps the bard’s voice strong and the Chronicle alive.
🕯 Cast $5 into the flame — a pint for the song, a spark for the tale.