A Court of Vines & Shadows

The Stone

CHAPTER ONE

MIRA

Exhausted. Depleted. And goddess, I was tired. I was so damn spent, I barely missed the lip of the stone step I had passed over thousands of times before, the rugged tip of my leather boots catching a wayward stone and sending it scattering into the darkness.

I sighed, pausing at the stone landing, and tilting my heavy head back to squint at the inky sky freckled with glittering stars that contrasted my bloody, mud-splattered face. I squinted, judging that it had to be the hour of the owl, at least, if not the lark. Another late night. Fuck. Well, this was certainly doing nothing for my stunningly dark circles.

A chuckle rasped out of me, grating like sandpaper against the silence as I grasped the squeaking knob of the heavy oak door, pushing against it inward with a gloved hand. Buttery, warm candlelight spilled across the stoop, my threadbare cloak scattering shadows in their wake. The worn, heavy oak table stood against the wall to my right, and I trudged towards it, unfastening the buckles of the heavy short sword hanging at my thigh, and the scabbard across my back as I went. I sighed, as the muted thunk of weapons dropped upon the surface, interspersed with the clink of the metal buckles tinkling against one another, as if in greeting after a long night's work.

I had almost finished unstrapping the bandolier of daggers across my torso when the near-silent creak of a floorboard had me pausing.

"That scratch'll turn putrid by midday if you don't tend it like last time."

I sighed once more, eyes remaining forward, fixed on my growing pile of discarded weapons. Resuming my task, I shucked my soiled glove onto the table, adding a swollen coin purse to the pile next

"Last time was two years ago, you old twat." I retorted lightly, peeling the soiled leather down my fingers. "I'll get to it once I've used up all of the hot water. That is, unless, you want me trailing blood," shuck "and mud," thunk "and goddess knows what else through the house. And having it smell even worse than your backside."

I glanced over my shoulder toward the open door, smirking, taking in the figure filling it as I began unfastening my cloak.

At seventy-something, he still looked brawny and broad, standing at just under six feet tall with a mess of peppery gray hair upon his head, mussed from sleep. Vemir's face was possibly handsome long ago, with ice-blue eyes and ruddy skin peppered with stubble. Those eyes, now squinting, were still tack sharp, his gaze flicking over my form assessing my injuries, taking stock of the weight I held on my right leg in lieu of a hidden puncture wound on my left thigh.

That same gaze had met mine for the first time over twenty years ago, towering over my seven-year old form, tucked beside an empty ale barrel in an abandoned alleyway, with the rats and empty darkness my only company.

I had seen him around the small, bustling town before - knew of his proud blacksmith's shop tucked away in the forest next to a small, sagging cottage, set apart from the rest of the townsfolk, shanty businesses, and homes. The town itself was a smattering of houses, with the standard trade buildings settled neatly in the center square, a menagerie of buildings fat and squat. A seamstress, a baker, a laundress, and a miller took residence there, with a handful of market stalls with the butcher, farmers selling sad-looking vegetables, and merchants peddling gems and jewelry too fine for anyone in the town to afford.

Vemir sometimes told me about the old days before the wall, how fish from the gulf were brought to town years ago when salt was available in abundance to preserve them. Now, in our town miles and miles from the coast, it was a delicacy.