Chapter 2 The Vessel

Mara turned the little wooden sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED and reached for the glass door to pull it shut. The snow outside had thickened into something that no longer looked like weather. It looked like a wall. Nobody in Bellweather would be foolish enough to walk through a storm like this, not even the most stubborn customer, and she had none of those left anyway.

"That is all for today," she muttered, pressing her teeth together as she rubbed her palms against each other for warmth.

She was halfway to the little door that led up to her room when a knock rattled the front glass, hard enough that she felt it in her chest.

"Help. Please." The voice belonged to an old elf, half bent against the wind outside.

Mara stopped walking. She turned.

"Is anyone in there? Please, open the door." His voice shook, and beneath it she could hear his teeth chattering, fast and uneven.

Mara was not the sort of fairy who welcomed visitors after hours. Her shop rarely saw customers at all these days, not since she had sold the last of her grandmother's dreams off the shelf and had nothing left worth buying. But she stood there a moment longer, looking at the shape of him through the frosted glass, and something in her chest gave way.

There was no harm in helping a neighbor. She walked to the door and opened it.

"Thank you, thank you so much, young miss." His lips were trembling too hard to hold a full smile, though he tried.

"Come in. Sit until the storm passes," Mara said, stepping aside.

"Bless your soul, kind miss." He shuffled past her and lowered himself onto a stool near the cold hearth, a heavy bag sliding off one shoulder. He kept a small wooden box clutched in his arms the whole way, setting it carefully on the table before he rubbed his hands together to bring the feeling back into them.

Mara looked at him properly then. He was worn thin with cold, his cheeks reddened raw, and something about the sight of him settled uncomfortably in her chest.

"Let me get you something warm," she said, and went up the stairs two at a time.

In her small kitchen she put the kettle on and reached for the dried lavender, a pinch of sunnybone herb, and a spoonful of honey to soften the bitterness. When the tea had steeped long enough, she poured a cup, tucked the only blanket she owned under one arm, and carried both back down to the shop.

"Here." She set the cup in front of him and draped the blanket over his shoulders.

The elf's eyes went soft with gratitude. He lifted the cup with both hands and drank slowly, careful not to burn his tongue.

Mara poured herself a cup as well and sat across from him, and for a while neither of them spoke. They only drank their tea and watched the snow throw itself against the glass, over and over, until the storm finally wore itself out.

Two hours passed before the wind quieted.

"Thank you for your kindness." The elf rose, folded the blanket, and set it back on the stool before bowing at the waist.

Mara nodded and said nothing. She locked the door behind him, stretched until her spine popped, and let out a yawn long enough to make her eyes water. All she wanted now was her bed.

But as she crossed the shop floor, something caught her eye.

The wooden box still sat on the table.

"Oh, he forgot his box." She snatched it up and hurried to the door, pulling it open again. "Hey, old elf!"

The street outside was empty. No footprints beyond her own doorstep, no shape moving through the thinning snow. He was simply gone, as if the storm had swallowed him whole.

Mara stood there with the box in her hands, the cold biting at her fingers. "What am I supposed to do with this now?"

She decided to keep it, at least for a few days, in case he remembered and came looking for it. She carried it inside and set it on the table, and told herself she would forget about it by morning.

She did not forget about it.

She sat down across from the box and stared at it. It was small enough to fit both her hands around, its wood dark and old, carved with symbols she didn't recognize. He had held it the way a person holds something they cannot afford to lose. That alone was enough to make her curious. He'd looked like a peddler, the kind who carried his whole livelihood on his back, and if that was true, then whatever sat inside this box was likely worth more than everything else in her shop combined.

Her curiosity won, as it always did. She lifted the lid.

Inside sat a small glass bottle, sealed with wax, filled with what looked like ash.

She picked it up and turned it over in the firelight. "Just ash."

She gave it a gentle shake. The ash inside shifted strangely, in a way loose powder shouldn't move. Mara frowned and held it closer to her eyes.

"That's odd ash."

She carried the bottle into the sitting room and placed it on the old wooden shelf above the fireplace, the one her grandmother had once filled with jars of dreams. Mara had always pictured herself doing the same one day, filling that shelf with beautiful things people would pay well for. Instead she had inherited a dying shop, a run of terrible luck, and enough unsold nightmare stones to pave the whole street twice over.

She sighed and turned away. "Tomorrow. I'll figure it out tomorrow."

Her elbow caught the edge of the shelf.

The bottle wobbled.

Her eyes went wide. "No, no, no."

She spun and grabbed for it, but her fingers closed on empty air.

The bottle hit the floorboards and burst apart.

Mara froze where she stood.

"Oh no."

Grey ash spread across the wood in a wide, uneven fan. For a moment, nothing happened at all. She crouched down slowly, picking up one of the larger shards of glass between two fingers.

"Clumsy Mara," she said under her breath. "Can't even keep hold of a bottle."

Then the ash moved.

She went still.

It wasn't the draft. There was no draft, no open window, nothing to explain it. The ash was gathering itself, curling inward, rising into a small spinning cloud no bigger than her fist.

Mara pushed herself backward across the floor. "What. What is that."

The cloud kept growing. Ash lifted clean off the boards and began circling the room in a slow, deliberate spiral. One by one, the candles guttered out. The windows slammed shut on their own, the latches clicking closed. The temperature dropped so fast that Mara watched her own breath cloud in front of her face.

"What is happening?" Her voice cracked on the last word.

The spinning mass rose higher, twisting tighter, until it collapsed inward with a sound like a struck bell and crashed down into the center of the room.

Mara stumbled back until her shoulders hit the wall.

Something was forming inside the ash. A hand first. Then an arm. A shoulder, a chest, broad enough to block the firelight behind it.

Her mouth fell open.

A man's body was taking shape, and he was tall, taller than any man who had ever walked into her shop. Dark hair fell loose and messy around a face still half hidden in shadow. Strange silver markings ran across his bare chest, glowing faintly beneath the skin like something lit from within. Ash kept gathering at his legs, filling him in from the ground up.

Mara stared, unable to look away.

He was young. Younger than she expected, and beautiful in a way that didn't feel entirely of this world. Sharp cheekbones. A strong, set jaw. Dark brows drawn low over closed eyes. Black hair fell past his shoulders in loose waves, and for one absurd moment Mara thought he looked like he'd stepped straight out of one of her grandmother's old paintings.

Then his eyes opened.

Mara screamed.

The man's gaze snapped to her.

She screamed again, louder this time. "Who in the nine hells are you?"

His face crumpled with something close to alarm. He looked around the room, then back at her. "Wh... why are you scre... screaming?" The words came out broken, stuck between his teeth.

Mara lunged for the fireplace poker and swung it up between them, the tip aimed square at his chest. "You. Stay right there."

He glanced down at his own bare hands as if he'd never seen them before, then back up at her. "Y... yes?"

"Who are you?"

He didn't answer. His eyes moved instead, slow and searching, taking in the room around him piece by piece. Confusion crossed his face first. Then disbelief. Then something darker settled behind his eyes, something that looked, unmistakably, like grief.

“Where am I?” He lashes flickered.

Mara tightened both hands around the poker. "Bellweather."

He turned sharply and crossed to the window, pressing both hands against the frame, his face going pale as he stared out into the snow. "Im... im... possible."

"What's impossible?"

He didn't answer that either. He stepped back from the window, and his eyes found her again, properly this time, as though he were seeing her for the first time since the ash had fallen apart to make him.

His gaze moved over her face. Then her hands. Then the black stone still sitting forgotten on the table. Something shifted in his expression, quick and sharp.

"You?”

Mara's brow pulled together. "Me?"

He started toward her. She raised the poker higher, her heart slamming against her ribs. "I told you, don't come any closer."

He didn't stop. His eyes stayed locked on hers the whole way across the room. "You released me."

"I didn't release anybody. I dropped a bottle."

"The vessel."

"Whatever it was!"

He came to a stop directly in front of her, close enough that she could feel the heat rolling off his skin, close enough that the poker between them suddenly felt like nothing at all. He looked down at her, and for several long seconds, neither of them said a word.

"I..." He pressed his palms against his temples, eyes screwed shut. "I need to go home."

"What is wrong with you?" Mara lowered the poker slightly and took a step forward, her free hand reaching for his arm without her fully deciding to.

"Do not..” He looked away. “Touch me!" His voice tore out of him, raw and sudden.

Mara froze, her hand still hanging in the air between them.

His breath went ragged. "Help me." He staggered forward a step, his knees already beginning to buckle beneath him. "Please."

Mara stumbled backward, out of his reach.

He hit the floor with a heavy thud, and his body began to change beneath her eyes. Fingers stretched and darkened into claws. Wings tore free from his back, black and enormous, unfurling until they scraped against the walls on either side of the room. A long tail whipped out behind him and came to rest just short of the hearth.

Mara blinked, her fingers trembling around the poker she no longer remembered how to hold steady.

The man was gone.

In his place, sprawled across her floorboards, lay a dragon.