The Soggy Crow

Verona Winspear stared blankly at her network of fishing lines, which lay slack as they floated on the surface. Waiting. Bobbing in the waters, lures dangling, begging for a fish to clamp on to them. The bait worms and crawfish were probably as desperate for a fish bite as she was at this point. She’d sat here since sunrise, throwing her knife at the unfortunate snag nearby to see how close she could come to the circle-shaped lichen in the center. So far, she’d missed the dead tree entirely all but twice. She palmed her blade, and tossed it. This time, it barely grazed the side of the dead tree, and ricocheted on a stone to the side of it. It flew in the air, landing blade down in a patch of cattails. Something akin to a chuckle rolled out of herShe couldn’t help but laugh as she bent to pick the dented thing up, pushing the tall grasses aside.

She paused to examine the cattails -there were no edible bits left today. Not after harvesting them for her dinner a few days ago. The rest had been gifted to Corbin, whose grimace as he tossed him in the stew pot hadn’t appeared very grateful at all.

A movement in the shallows caught her attention, and she dove into the patch of high grasses. It had to be a crayfish, or maybe a water bug that she saw. Something she could toss into a pan tonight, at least. The cold water splashed her slacks and her tunic, and she came up empty-handed.

Cursing, she chucked the knife at the tree again, completely off target this time. It was a good thing Everthorn didn’t expect women to maintainman the watch towers at night. Clearly, she was useless in combat. A decent hunter, but lousy with a sword. A peasant fishmonger, a seller at the stall on weekends but a warrior she was not.…but she was no warrior.

Maybe if I was, I could have saved them that day.

No. Verona couldn’t let herself go down that path. Not again. This was a dangerous train of thought, one that led directly to the bottom of a bottle most nights.

Seven years. She’d been fifteen, when she’d watched everything she loved burn to ash.

It was about time to pack it in, regardless. She was shivering, her clothing soaked from the pitiful attempt at catching whatever had been in the shallows. Nothing was biting today.

Kithys help me.

Who was she kidding, nothing had been biting for well over a week. What kept her here, anyhow? Certainly not the “respectable” single men in town. Definitely not the sights or vibrant culture. Everthorn had been a buzzing, lively place when she was a young child. Village-wide dances in the square, visiting fae caravans who would perform magic and play music that could make paper butterflies come to life and float away. There was so much color when she was younger, and now it was as if a demon had come and drained it all away. Her home had become hardly more than a gravemarker.

With a sigh, she pulled her lines in. Might as well call it a day. She wound her way around the narrow paths that connected the pond to Everthorn proper, weary of the dangers that tended to inhabit the brush. She avoided wandering too far in the woods these days, although most of the wild game was concentrated further from the Village.

The scent of soil and deer scat hung in the air, replaced by the smell of bonfire smoke as she came nearer to the village center.

Thrusting the shouldered fishing equipment into the small lean-to next to her cabin, Verona waved lazily at her closest neighbor as he nodded her a greeting. Gideon was a kind man, as far as she knew, and a talented carpenter. His wife Ria was young and beautiful, and maintained one of the most lovely gardens in town. The tulips and heather were the only color this side of Everthorn these days.

She was fortunate to call them neighbors. A lot of her clothes were Ria’s hand-me-downs, in fact, though they hardly looked as good on Verona as they did her. Ria had even held her hair back one of the many times she’d overdone it at the local Tavern. An embarrassing night, she’d made a mess of the front of her cabin.

Her door closed behind her with a loud creak, the lock clicking into place loudly as she slid the latch home. Her gaze focused on her bed, the sheets strewn in disarray, the pillows half-torn and stained.

Sleep. Her back was sore from carrying the fishing gear. It was hardly early evening, but she needed to rest.

The vial of sleep draught she kept on her bedside table opened with a pop, the cork flying off somewhere she couldn’t track. Verona opened her mouth, unceremoniously pouring the entirety of the purple-tinted potion down her throat. The bitter taste lingered on her tongue. She suppressed a gag, willing it to stay in her stomach despite the horrific bite of valerian root and the bitterness of what she suspected was hops.

She hadn’t bothered to ask what was in the draught, just that it should knock her out so she could sleep through the night for once. The village herbalist was a kindly old man, but his skills were nothing compared to the wealth of knowledge her mother had possessed when she was alive.

Hopefully this would keep them at bay. The memories, the heavy pangs of regret. The lasting stink of blood and burnt hair. The nightmares.

Verona watched solemnly as the world burned around her. The sky was clouded by ash, swarms of flies covering the corpses that lay on the street before her. Patrons at the local tavern, her parents, Amona… friends and neighbors , all gone. Long dead, their eyes staring fixedly at the sky. She jumped as a hand put pressure on her shoulder. She tried to look behind her, but the stranger’s grip was ironclad. He wasn’t letting her go anytime soon. The man spoke, his voice gentle and coaxing.

“What?” Verona had understood none of it. She craned to look at him, but he faded quickly from view. Simply…ceased to be the moment she thought she had laid eyes on him.

“Chainbreaker…” A man’s voice, rugged and low, echoed in her ears. It came from all directions. A searing pain resonated in her skull.

“Chainbreaker…to be Eyrie…Not again. Not again.”

Verona jolted awake to an echo of whispers and a splitting headache. She wiped the beads of sweat off her face and thrust the covers away. She could still hear the man’s voice, still smell the blood and rot.

That damned dream again.

It had been months. Months of these nightmares, of hardly getting an hour’s worth of sleep a night. She sighed as the soles of her feet hit the cool, hard floor of the hovel she called home. The cold against the sweaty heat of her body was a godsend. Every night, now.

To be Eyrie…The Eyrie…why, of all places in Rihlia, would she be dreaming about the Eyrie? She sighed heavily, relief flooding her veins. Maybe she was feverish, after all. That would explain the hot flashes, the nightmares, the waking dreams. Damn that sleep draught.

She groped blindly on the table beside her bed for the cup of sleeping tea she’d taken before lying down. She faintly felt something— maybe the vial?— before the contents of the table tumbled to the ground with a resounding crash.

Dammit! No way to figure out if she’d been scammed by that vendor again. She would clean the shattered mugs and vials later.

Maybe.

She shuffled across the room, trying her damnedest to avoid her numerous piles of clothing and spare supplies. The excessive pouches, satchels, the moth-eaten woolen cloaks- all there in case she’d have to flee at a moments’ notice. The situation in Everthorn was precarious lately. Cearnian raids were still a concern, although there hadn’t been one targeting her village in years. Not since… not since her parents had been murdered. Along with at least a quarter of her people. Tugging her beige sash tightly around her waist, her father’s hunting knife hanging off of it, she sighed. She pulled her boots on- cheap worn out knee highs, and laced them up quickly.

Proper slumber was already a failed attempt tonight- but the tavern? The tavern was certainly open. It was day three of the week, and that meant a session. Music. Singing. Obnoxious patrons, and ale. So much ale.

And perhaps some mead, she thought. At least the mead was decent there. At The Soggy Crow. The place was about as pleasant as it sounded. The day shifts weren’t too bad, when she worked as a barmaid to keep her tab reasonable during a slow seasons’ fishing. Otherwise Corbin would usually allow her to barter. Fish for ale.

And a song for some mead. Verona smirked to herself, and eyed the pitiful instrument leaning against the worn-down wooden paneled wall.

She grabbed her mandolin- though you could hardly call it that. A scrappy-looking, out of tune thing in desperate need of a string change, it usually threw her singing horrendously off-kilter.

It’s all I’ve got, she thought, clutching the instrument closely. Music was the only thing that had kept her pieces together after that day. Music, ale, and that kindly tavern owner, Corbin. She shoved her door open, and savored the fresh air as it rushed into the room, a cleansing breeze.

It was always something, ever since her parents had died. Ever since her soul had left her body. A husk. A bottle, to be filled with assorted sleeping aid concoctions and alcohol.

The lamplights in the street cast dancing shadows over the cobblestone pathways as she made her way to the tavern. She stopped to stare at the run-down wooden shack that was The Soggy Crow. It was conveniently close to her cabin, and looked even worse for wear, if that was possible. Half of the windows of the place had boards over them, lame replacements for windows assorted patrons had destroyed.

I’m responsible for at least one of those, she thought and smirked, Okay. All but one.

Verona glanced at the white scar that cut sharply across her right arm, stark against her freckled, sun-worn skin. That had been a horrific day, when she shattered those windows- quite possibly the worst of her life. When a typical trip to the pond, fishing pole in tow, turned into a thing of nightmares. It was also the first time she’d ever seen a harbinger: a jet-black, hulking reptilian thing. Like a hybrid between a snake and a wolf, harbingers had venom-laced fangs and traveled in small packs. They were highly territorial and highly aggressive.

They’d also been coming closer and closer to Everthorn as of late. Her white mare, Amona, had barely had time to alarm her before a solitary Harbinger ambushed them. Verona had ended up cut and bleeding, trapped under her beloved horse- her dearest friend’s- body for hours. The harbinger even began eating Amona, as Verona was forced to listen.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was the owner of The Soggy Crow, a slight, sulking man named Corbin who had rescued her that day, coated in horse blood and sobbing, and brought her to the tavern to wash up. Her skirts had been tossed in the fire and burned, they reeked so badly. He’d also stitched her wound up, and fed her. Verona paid him back in kind for his generosity by getting stinking drunk and throwing a chair through his front windows. She owed him better than that. Corbin had saved her once before that, on the darkest day she could remember.

I miss that horse, Verona thought, with a sinking heart. In fact, she missed a lot of things. It had been one loss after another lately, for the entirety of Everthorn. Hunters were disappearing, taken by predators that lurked just beyond the village borders. For her, it was all nightmares, during the daytime and while she slept.

Verona opened the large, wooden oak door of the tavern, and glanced at her reflection in one of the shields that hung on the wall. The dark circles under her eyes were more pronounced tonight than they had been yesterday. Her flaxen hair was a mess of matts and tangles.

I am rotting.

There were several patrons she recognized sitting at the bar- loud music and raucous singing filtered in from the backmost room. Corbin finished pouring a sturdy-looking young man- Cyrus? Simon? Something?- a beer, and hesitantly made his way over to her.

Corbin was always perceptive, frequently to her annoyance. He gave her a quick once-over, frowning, his brows furrowed in concern.

“No sleep again tonight, Verona?”

“I’m afraid not, good sir.” Her tone was as venomous as a harbinger’s bite. She hoped it made her point clear- she did not want to talk about it. Not about the bloody corpses she saw in her dreams every night, not about the lack of fish in the pond.

“Will you be singing tonight, then?” Corbin asked, as he placed a frothing mug of ale before her on the bar. He motioned to her ragged-looking mandolin. Corbin had joined in on the sessions several times before. He had a pleasant voice, and always sang strange tales about a land Verona had never heard of. In fact, now that she thought about it, she still didn’t know where Corbin was from.

“If they’ll have me, after last time,” She mumbled, and raised her mug in “cheers” before taking a large swig.

Ugh. Should have gotten the mead. She always should have gotten the mead. “Will you be singing tonight?” she asked mid-gulp. Despite Corbin’s songs being almost nonsensical, she enjoyed hearing him. Corbin’s dark eyes lit up, and he smiled mischievously.

“Perhaps,” He said, and nodded to her as she stood. The bar stool squealed as she left it and moved to walk to the back room, following the trail of upbeat music. Her ale splashed down her hand. She grimaced, ignoring the cold liquid as it dripped onto the ground. What a waste.

Seven or so men sat around a cluster of dark wooden tables they’d pushed together. She recognized the majority of them immediately, and smiled coyly as she took a seat at the table. The session went on in the usual rotation- Verona lost herself in the music, clumsily playing along with the other musicians. She knew most of them- their names, their families and wives. Like her, they had lived in Everthorn their whole lives. Grown up here. They all suffered together.

The pipe player next to her began his turn, playing a jig that was far-too-upbeat for the setting.

Her turn to play came soon after, and she chose an old folk tune to perform. It had been so long since she’d learned it- at this point she wasn’t even certain what it was called. She plucked her mandolin and grimaced at several missed notes. At least the audience was silent this time. Last session, her ale had miraculously found its way onto a particularly obnoxious patron.

Honestly, she was stunned that Corbin still let her in this place. Her chest felt light for the first time in days, as she let the final chord ring. Verona drew a deep breath and forced herself to smile. It didn’t reach her eyes.

Smiles never reached her eyes, anymore.

Her fellow musicians applauded politely, and moved on to the other man who sat next to her. She let her eyes wander to him. The man had light blonde hair and blue eyes, and a golden complexion, markedly uncommon in the region. She studied him intently. A flash of the fae caravans of her childhood came to mind, the butterflies and ornate instruments they’d held.

Yes, there was simply something “off” about him. Not only his clear status as a foreigner, but his posture, and the depth to those cerulean eyes. They were of the sky, of the wildest ocean depths. His hair was the tawny of a fawn as it bedded down in the lush grasses of the plains.

He was wilderness personified.

Verona wasn’t sure if he was human.

Then his sky eyes met hers. He nodded to her with a slight smile that brought Verona’s heartbeat to a thundering pace and began to play beautifully on a lute. His fingers brushed the strings expertly, effortlessly. She blushed, realizing she’d been caught staring. The lute was a fine instrument. The strings were all in tune, and the body of it was covered in ornate engravings in a language she did not know, and wouldn’t even attempt to identify. It was also coated in gold, she realized with a tinge of longing.

Verona took a large swig of her ale, emptying the mug of its contents, as she eyed the man with envy. She would kill to own such a pristine instrument. Many people in this village would. Blue-eyes was an intrepid fool to walk around brandishing a golden instrument in this area.

The other villagers were in a rush to get out of this ramshackle place, now. To escape, before the predatory creatures from the Steppes in the East finished them all off, or the marauders and armies of Cearn in the West came and conquered them at last.

Frankly, she wasn’t sure if she cared anymore. She had nowhere else to go, and wasn’t certain where the other villagers thought they would end up. Everthorn was the last established village before the perilous Rihlian Steppes, and had once been an important stop on the trade route between the West and the Eastern halves of the continent.

Let the harbingers eat me. The damned things would probably spit her out. Too mead-flavored. And bitter.

Verona waited for the handsome lute-player to finish his tune before getting her mug refilled. His singing was beautiful- ethereal perfection, as far as she was concerned. The song made her heart ache- for what life here had been years ago, when she was a child. Before the loss. Before the anger, the tear-soaked sleepless nights. She found herself crying, and hid her face behind her mandolin. He ended the song on a lingering note, in a minor key- Verona subtly wiped the moisture off of her cheeks, then went to sit back at the bar. The music- yet another inappropriately upbeat jig- faded slightly behind her. She sat in a stool heavily and set her empty mug in front of her.

Corbin eyed her questioningly as she pushed the cup forwards. She glanced away, avoiding eye contact. The tavern air stank of sweat, ale and the infamous Crow Stew. The stew’s ingredients changed almost-daily, depending on whatever Verona was able to contribute and what was available in the daily market stalls. Most of her harvested cat-tails had ended up in it earlier this week, earning disdain from the regulars. As far as she was concerned, food was food. Even if it was harvested from the swampy edges of the pond…

“The mead.” Verona snipped, her voice more cutting than she’d intended. She scowled at her own rudeness.“Please.”

“You sounded sad, tonight.” Damn him. Sometimes she wished he would just throw her out, raise his voice. Something. Corbin still hadn’t asked for anything, hadn’t expected payment for the shattered windows. She frequently rabble roused here, looking for trouble, any reaction from Corbin other than kindness. For it was his kindness, that gentleness in his expression, that often spiraled her into her own undoing.

I don’t deserve kindness.

“When do I not sound sad, Corbin?” She waved lazily at him, leaning heavily onto her elbows. The cool wood of the bar top penetrated her thin sleeves, refreshing. She was almost positive she had a fever, with how often she woke up overheating and sweating lately. It seemed to coincide with the severity of the nightmares. The worse they were, the more intense, the bloodier- the more her covers would be drenched with sweat by the time she startled awake.

The man poured her mead- the sweet smell wafted over to her and she grasped the glass quickly. Her grip tightened on the drink, as if it was the only thing keeping her world from collapsing completely. Much better.

Always better than the swill that was the ale here.

A strange, sweet scent of moss and citrus drifted over to her.

“I’ll take the mead, as well.” The gentle, smooth voice could only be the lute player. Verona wondered again how such an instrument could possibly exist. Or how a man could sing so beautifully. Or be so handsome, for that matter. She peered to the side and savored a sip of the mead. She sat in silence, ever-aware of his gaze resting on her as she forced herself to stare at her hands around the mug. His smell seemed familiar. Distinct. Like the forest paths on an early spring day, or…

Sunlight glistening on the gentle surface of a pond. Laughter. A fishing line bobbing in the water. Insectoid wings sprouting from folded cranes, brought to life, fading as they reach for the heavens with their delicate wings…

Memories. Unbidden memories. This man’s scent…

“Ahh, so not only can you sing like a Sidhe,” the man beside her purred, “ You have good taste in mead.” Her back stiffened. Why mention the fae? They lived across the expanse of the Steppes, a weeks’ journey, even if one had wings. No village native would dare to mutter the word so carelessly. Not since… not after…

It was their damned stray harbingers causing problems lately. As far as she was concerned, it was the Sidhe’s fault Amona was dead, no matter how much she missed the caravans, the color and the music from her childhood.

Her childhood was over. Any inkling of innocence had died with her parents and her horse.

Verona’s grip on her glass of mead tightened until she feared the glass would shatter.

Trouble-making patrons, she could handle. That was the typical crowd here- regulars, loud men. Occasional travelers passing through, though they became rarer and rarer these days. But for one to mention the fae in passing?

“I was out of tune,” she mumbled, careful to keep her face a neutral mask.

“Your…” He eyed her mandolin, “instrument, yes. Your singing, no.” He smiled charmingly, bringing warmth to her cheeks. She took another swig of her mead- a nice, long swig of her mead- and glanced at Corbin, who answered her look with a slight smile.

His entertainment, as always, she thought.

After a beat of silence, the man held his hand out to her. “Bryonn. ”

Verona stared at it lamely, unsure what she was supposed to do. When she didn’t move, the man-Bryonn- grasped her hand and brought it to his lips. She stared at him blankly, feeling warmth crawl up to her face. He was charming. Almost too charming.

What is happening?

“And I hear your name is Verona? Lovely, truly lovely. An interesting name for an Everthorn villager. Did you know that it originates from the Eastern region of the continent?”

Verona, hand still held by the strange man next to her, glanced at Corbin, eyes wide.

Help me. And no, she hadn’t known that her name was considered foreign. What an educational night it was shaping out to be.

“Ok, Bryonn. I think Verona knows your name by now,” Corbin’s husky voice said, finally. There was a smirk in his voice that told her this foreigner was a friend of his. The lute player dropped her hand unceremoniously, and Verona drew back and wiped it off on her shirt. The smell of him lingered.

What a strange man. His scent, his name…yes. There was certainly something off about him. She could have swore his touch had made her skin tingle.

Verona drained her mead, and reached into her tunic. She fished around for a moment before pulling out a few coins, bent and slightly rusted. Corbin watched with an exasperated expression as she set the money- most definitely not enough for her two drinks- on the bar. The coins spun for a moment, before tipping over with a soft clang. Time to go, and try to get some semblance of rest.

“You’re short several coins,” Corbin mumbled.

“I know,” She chirped, “ I’ll see you in the morning.” She flung the oak door open, and turned to leave.

It almost would have been an insult to Corbin not to owe him coin, at this point. It was an excuse to have a place to work the next day. With a crooked smile, Verona left the Crow and the fatherly bartender behind.

The streets were always dead quiet at this time of night, the fire from the torches beginning to fade as the oil ran out. She preferred it that way. Dark, quiet, peaceful. The solitude she knew she would never achieve while she slept.