The Geis of Muirín, Part IV
When waiting becomes a wound, a man turns toward the cliffs. Cael feels the medallion’s silence not as rest, but as judgment. And in the mist, a choice is drawn sharper than any blade.
The inlet lay behind him, but the fight clung like damp to his skin. Each step toward the village dragged heavier than the last, as though the tide itself tried to draw him back. The ribbon and the hem of her shift sat in his pocket like stones.
The medallion hung cold against his chest. Not the stillness of rest, but of watching. Judging. Every breath felt as though it measured him and found him wanting. The red-cloaked man’s words returned—ghost of a ballad—and the question he’d been avoiding came sharper than salt in a wound: had the medallion gone silent because he was no longer worth its voice?
Merrow fires still burned when he reached the harbor. Faces turned, then away. A child glanced up, only for her mother to draw her close. One fisherman muttered broken under his breath. Cael ignored them and headed for the tide-wall.
He reached it just as the patrol was returning—two men carrying a sodden shape on a door ripped from its hinges. Seaweed clung to the boy’s hair, his skin pale as candle wax. The kelpie marks were there: long, bruised grooves around his throat.
Cael knew the boy’s father, knew the way his laugh used to roll across the tavern. The man stumbled along beside the body now, eyes blank, mouth working soundlessly.
“They went west,” one of the patrolmen said. “Too far to follow on foot. Council says we wait.”
Wait. Again.
The boy’s father turned to Cael then, and in his gaze there was no plea—only the hollow certainty that the next tide would bring more bodies.
(A bard’s aside…)
“The boy’s silence joins the tide. If this tale holds you, share a pint — $5 keeps the bard’s voice unbroken.”
Something in Cael broke. The king’s oath had become a tether, and it was strangling more than it protected. If the medallion would not guide him, he would follow the pull he felt in his own bones.
Grey light bled over the southern cliff road as he set out, the wind off the water carrying a faint, familiar cadence—the echo of Muirín’s voice. Whether it was truth or bait, he could not tell, and did not care.
If the king would not fight, he would fight without the king. If the sea wanted him to act on his own terms, so be it.
The path narrowed to a knife’s edge, the drop to the rocks lost in mist. His boots found their holds by instinct, each step carrying him farther from the tide-walls and the watchers who might have stopped him.
The voice came only when the wind shifted. “You’ve been busy,” smooth and unhurried, as if it belonged here as much as the sea.
Cael didn’t need to look to know the cloak’s color. “I’ve been waiting long enough.”
Footsteps approached, light on slick stone. “When a man waits too long, he forgets what it is to strike first. I’m glad to see you haven’t.”
Eyes fixed on the horizon, Cael said, “This is my fight now.”
“Of course it is. Theirs was never worth your full strength anyway. Fight your way—without their limits—and you can win your victory, not theirs.”
Cold metal pressed against his chest—heavier than before, not in weight, but in the way it seemed to measure him.
“Tell me where the kelpies feed,” the man in the red cloak said, “and I will tell you how to end them before they see you coming.”
Mist thinned just enough to reveal the narrow mouth of a cove below, the tide churning white between jagged teeth of stone. No proof Muirín was there—only that faint, constant pull, like the ache of an old wound that refused to close.
Cael breathed deep. “The cove.”
The smile was audible, even over the wind. “Then let us make sure it remembers your name.”
Part V brings the reckoning — and the shadow of betrayal.
Every tide carries whispers. If this story stirred you, let the next tide find you too. Follow the Chronicle, and walk with the bard as the tale unfolds.
The waiting has become a wound. Next week, blood and tide will decide the vow.
Memory is a fire, and even a bard’s voice needs tending. If the tale has kept you company, share a pint so it carries us to the reckoning.
The waiting is over. Next week, blood and tide will decide Cael’s vow. Until then, a pint ($5) keeps the fire lit and the bard’s voice strong.