Thorin Ironshield's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

Dawn had barely settled when word reached Thorin at the courthouse steps. Someone had been to the old shrine in the night. Something was waiting there now — something that had not been there yesterday. He left the gloves where they lay and started down the path, the sketchbook still tucked beneath his arm. Whatever sat inside that shrine, it had chosen its moment. He would meet it before the day grew any older. The shrine had changed. Its stone face was split with bright cracks, glowing from within like a fire trapped under ice. Wilted flowers ringed the base. The spectral lion that once guarded the threshold was gone. In its place sat a shimmering blue cat, calm and watching, its eyes too steady to belong to any living thing. Thorin knew that stillness. He had seen it before, in a glass figure left behind at the south gate. He stepped inside. On the altar lay a pair of dark iron shackles, dripping seawater that should not exist this far from any sea. Barnacles crusted the cuffs. Kelp hung from the chains. Three names had been scratched into the wet metal — names of Sentinels who had walked away without a word. Thorin's hand tightened on the sketchbook. These were not resignations. They were bindings. Someone had taken them, and the magic that had taken them was the same magic he had watched Nay carry alone. He knelt and lifted the shackles. They were heavier than iron had any right to be. The ghost cat rose, brushed against his knee once, and walked out into the morning light. Thorin did not stop it. He carried the shackles back up the path himself. His Sentinels were not leaving. His Sentinels were being taken. And now he knew where the next fight began.