The Lantern at Blackthorn Inn

We could have ignored the lantern, and kept riding.

It swung outside the Blackthorn Inn, creaking softly in the rain. The glass panes glowed a warm, inviting yellow that looked almost obscene against the bruised-purple sky. Beneath it was a painted sign, a thorny branch with a black bird, swaying on rusted hooks.

Apollo, the midnight-black stallion, stamped and tossed his head, flanks twitching.

“I know,” Sir Korax murmured, patting his neck. “Every bone in me says ‘bad idea’ too.”

The road behind them was a smear of mud between dark trees. The storm had rolled in suddenly and hard, chasing them for miles, thunder always a few breaths behind. Korax had ridden a hundred bad roads like this in the Duke’s service, following rumors of thin places where the world rubbed against stranger Realms. Apollo had more sense than he did about which doors to open.

Up ahead, the inn huddled like the only solid thing in a world trying to wash itself clean.

“We need shelter,” Korax muttered, mostly to convince himself. “Food. A roof. We take the risks we can see. Hyah.”

Apollo snorted his disagreement, but he moved when Korax urged him forward.

The inn’s yard was mostly empty. One wagon, wheels sunk to the axles. No other horses in the sagging stable. No hay in the racks. Yet the lantern outside the door swung with a steady, unnatural rhythm, ignoring the wild gusts that tugged at Korax’s cloak.

He frowned.

“Stay sharp. I’ll find something for you,” he told Apollo, draping his cloak over the stallion’s back and tying him under a sliver of roof instead of in the far stalls. He took comfort in the horse’s nearness, in the soft sound of his breathing.

Inside, the air was warm and thick with the smell of stew and old smoke. A fire crackled in the hearth. Shadows pooled in the corners, too patient. Three other patrons dotted the common room: a woman in a travel-stained cloak, hood up; an old man cleaning his nails with a knife; and a burly half-orc in a leather apron, the sort who looked like he should be chopping wood or mending steel, not nursing a mug.

Behind the bar, a round-shouldered innkeeper wiped a mug with a cloth worn thin.

“Evening, traveler,” he said, voice oddly flat. “Weather’s nasty. You’re wise to have stopped.”

“I had help making the choice,” Korax said, nodding toward the lantern’s glow through the window. “You keep it well lit. Room for the night? And a stall close to it?”

“I can see to both,” the innkeeper replied. “Pay in coin or kind?”

“Coin.”

Korax set silver on the bar. The innkeeper’s gaze flicked over his armor, then away.

“You a knight?” he asked.

“I serve a Duke,” Korax said, dodging. “Mostly by hunting.”

The innkeeper slid a heavy brass key across the scarred wood.

“Second door up the stairs,” he said. “Stall’s beneath it. Stew’s hot. Feed’s under the stairs. Best to eat before you rest. Storm’ll hammer the roof tonight.”

Korax thanked him and took a seat near the fire opposite the half-orc, who stared motionless into the flames. The hooded woman watched Korax for a heartbeat, then dropped her gaze to her tankard. The old man kept his head bent, knife still scraping.

A young serving girl appeared at his side with stew and bread on a chipped stone dish. Her eyes were tired, her hands steady.

“It’s been a long storm, hasn’t it?” Korax asked.

“Feels like it,” she said. “Hard to tell. Nights run into each other.”

He frowned.

“How long since you saw the sun?”

She paused. A wooden spoon slid from her apron pocket and into the dish with a small, practiced flick Korax hadn’t quite seen. Mage-work? Or habit?

“A day?” she guessed. “Two?” Her brow furrowed. “Longer? I don’t… know, sir.” She shook herself. “It’s the weather. Puts cobwebs in the head.”

She hurried away before he could ask more.

Korax ate. The stew tasted honest enough—meat, roots, herbs. Yet a weight pressed around him, as if the room were listening. He saw no Veil tears; the walls were solid. Still, the back of his neck prickled.

When the bowl was empty, he collected a bucket of feed and stepped outside. The lantern swung at that same lazy pace, utterly untouched by the rain that now lashed his face. Water drummed on his shoulders as he led Apollo to the stall beneath his room.

In the cramped stable, Apollo paced, ears pinned flat.

“I know,” Korax said softly. “Something’s wrong. One night. Eat. Rest. Then we’re gone.”

He stroked the horse’s neck until the tension bled from his muscles, then went back inside.

The common room hadn’t changed.

Same three patrons. Same positions. Same angles of elbows and shoulders. Even the innkeeper, head bent, was polishing the bar in the same spot, cloth moving in the same slow circle. The serving girl was nowhere to be seen.

Korax drifted nearer, pretending aimlessness while his eyes counted details. The ale level in the hooded woman’s tankard: half-full. The old man’s nails: still caked with dirt. The half-orc’s stare: as empty and fixed as before.

The innkeeper looked up.

“Weariness hits sudden,” he said. “You’ll want to rest soon.”

“I’ll take a cup of hot cider first,” Korax answered, buying time.

As the innkeeper turned away, Korax caught the hooded woman’s eye.

“Been on the road long?” he asked.

She jerked, as if waking from shallow sleep.

“I… yes,” she said, though doubt colored the word. “To the capital. Or away from it.” Her gaze slid to the window. “Were there many trees on the road in?”

“Yes,” Korax said slowly. “You must have passed them.”

“Did I?” she murmured. “I remember… lantern light. And rain. It’s always raining.”

Her hands trembled. She hid them in her sleeves.

The old man barked a laugh.

“Don’t bother counting days here,” he said. “They loop. I’ve wiped this same dirt three times and it’s still there.”

He held up his hand.

His nails were filthy.

Korax’s skin crawled.

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

The old man opened his mouth, closed it again.

“A night or two,” he said. “Maybe.” His eyes darted around the room. “Maybe more.”

The half-orc spoke at last, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.

“I chopped wood when I arrived,” he said. “Wagon stuck in the yard. I offered work for a meal. I keep thinking I should check if the logs are stacked, but every time I stand up…” He looked at his hands, wrapped around the mug. “…I’m back here.”

The innkeeper set the cider down in front of Korax. Up close, his face looked… wrong. Not monstrous. Merely a little too smooth, features softened as if smudged with a thumb.

“What is this place, innkeep?” Korax asked quietly.

“An inn,” the man replied. “Shelter from the storm.”

“Shelter that never ends,” Korax said. “Is there a mage here?”

“No mage.” The innkeeper’s smile never reached his eyes. “These roads are dangerous. Here you have warmth, food, a roof. What more can travelers ask for?”

“An exit,” Korax said.

He rose.

The image of the lantern flashed in his mind. It, swinging, calling, and the moment of choice, repeating with each rider who passed.

“What happens if someone leaves?” he asked.

The room seemed to hold its breath.

“The storm’s too strong, sir,” the innkeeper said. “Best to stay by the fire.”

The hooded woman hugged herself tighter.

“I tried,” she whispered. “I stepped outside. The yard… stretched. The gate was miles away. Then I was at the table again, with my drink half-finished. I don’t remember walking back.”

Korax’s fingers found the amulet under his tunic. It pulsed with faint heat.

“If this is a loop,” he said slowly, “I need its shape. It’s snared around the building. The yard. Likely the stables…”

“Could be a tear,” the half-orc muttered. “Other Realms bleeding in. I’ve heard knights and war chiefs both talk about that now.”

“No,” Korax said. “This isn’t the Veil. It’s more precise than that. This is a spell. Time catching on a nail.” He turned back to the bar. “That’s why I asked for a mage.”

He met the innkeeper’s gaze.

“You’re holding it together,” Korax said. Not a question.

The innkeeper’s shoulders sagged. His expression wavered, the bland cheer slipping to reveal something older, weary, and bruised.

“It doesn’t want them,” he said softly. “It wants you, Knight.”

The old man swore under his breath. The hooded woman shivered.

“Why me?” Korax asked.

“You ride the thin roads,” the innkeeper said. His voice had begun to distort, as though another spoke through him a heartbeat out of sync. “You touch too many seams. The Bitter One notices. It sends storms. Lures. Loops.” He nodded toward the door. “Hooks.”

“You’re not real,” Korax said.

“Real enough to serve,” the innkeeper replied. His lips and words no longer quite matched. “I was a man once. Stayed during the first storm. Now I am… function.”

“And them?” Korax tilted his head toward the others.

“They’re echoes,” the innkeeper said. “Travelers who passed through at different times. Some left. Some stayed. The place remembers and calls them back when the pattern repeats. They’re not trapped the way I am. The way you could be.”

“Could be,” Korax echoed. “So I’m not yet.”

“Not yet,” the innkeeper agreed. “The loop tightens each time someone steps through looking for shelter. You’re the first with a will strong enough to snap it. The Bitter One is… curious.”

Korax thought of the serving girl, of the woman, the old man, the woodcutter. All had lives that had been snagged on this place like threads caught in a thornbush.

“What happens to them if I break the loop?” he asked.

“They return where they belong,” the innkeeper said, eyes sliding away. “Or they dissolve. It’s hard to say. Echoes are fragile.”

Korax’s jaw tensed.

“And if I stay?”

“Eventually you forget there was a road,” the warped voice said. “You sit. Eat. Talk about rain. You become part of the pattern. The lantern swings, and someone else makes the same choice. Each one ties you tighter.”

The air seemed to thicken, the walls leaning in to hear.

Korax remembered Greybeard’s warning: Every choice is a stitch or a cut in the seam.

“You leave,” the innkeeper said suddenly, voice normal again, startlingly human. “Leave now, with intention. And don’t go alone.”

The hooded woman stood, knuckles white on the edge of her table.

“You can’t just rip us out,” she said. “What if we unravel?”

“What if you already did?” Korax asked gently. “Would you rather sit here forever wondering?”

She flinched.

The old man scraped his chair back.

“I’d rather know,” he muttered. “One way or another.”

The woodcutter rose as well, mug forgotten.

The serving girl was simply there beside the bar, eyes wide, as if she had always been standing there and only now remembered it.

Korax nodded to the three patrons.

“Then we walk out together,” he said. He looked to the pair behind the bar. “And you two?”

The innkeeper’s blurred smile returned, faint and sad. The girl looked away, trembling.

“Take the lantern as you go,” he said, the words carrying a last thread of his own will. “Don’t leave it swinging here.”

Korax crossed to the door. When he opened it, the storm slammed into them with wind, rain, and darkness. The lantern swung wildly now, light flaring, glass rattling like teeth.

He reached up and lifted it from its hook. The metal bit his skin with ice-cold teeth. Something tugged at his ribs, trying to root him in the doorway.

“No,” he said aloud. “Not tonight.”

He turned back to the others.

“Stay close,” he said. “Whatever happens, keep walking. Eyes on the road beyond the gate.”

They stepped into the yard: Korax with the lantern, the hooded woman, the old man, and the woodcutter at his heels. Rain soaked them instantly. The warped wagon hunched where it had been. The stable loomed to the side. Korax attempted a whistle.

Apollo screamed, eyes rolling, then crashed through the stall gate in a spray of splinters and mud, surging up beside Korax as the horse himself refused to be left out of the choice.

The inn behind them flickered at the edges of vision.

“Gate’s there,” Korax shouted over the wind, nodding toward the road. “Move.”

The yard stretched like taffy. Each step pulled wrong, legs heavier, the gate sliding farther away. Mud clawed at their boots, trying to drag them back. The lantern shook in Korax’s hand, light stuttering between gold and sickly green.

He focused on the familiar: the weight of the lantern, the warmth of Apollo’s flank brushing his shoulder, the rhythm of his own heart.

“Road,” he muttered. “Rain. Mud. Hoofbeats. Not patterns. Not loops.”

The hooded woman stumbled. He caught her arm.

“Eyes on me,” he said. “Keep moving.”

The old man laughed raggedly.

“Wouldn’t be my first mistake,” he said.

The woodcutter grunted in agreement.

They walked together. The yard shuddered around them, then lurched. The gate jumped closer, then farther, then suddenly it was there under Korax’s hand, rough and solid.

He shoved it open.

Beyond lay the road. It was dark, slick, and cutting between trees that did not blur or stretch. The rain thinned to a drizzle. The air smelled of wet earth and leaf-mold, not stew and smoke and old, stale time.

They stumbled across as one knot of bodies, helped along by Apollo’s bulk. Behind them, the yard convulsed like a dying thing.

Korax glanced back.

The Blackthorn Inn’s outline wavered. Through its walls, he saw an empty clearing choked with grass and saplings. Then the inn folded inward, sucking the rain and lanternlight with it, collapsing into a single shrinking spark that winked out.

Silence slammed down.

The lantern in Korax’s hand shattered; glass sifted away as harmless dust, the metal frame rusting to flakes in a single breath and blowing apart on the next gust.

He stared at his empty palm. Apollo snorted and nudged him, hot breath puffing against his cheek.

“Are we…” The hooded woman swallowed. “Did we make it out?”

The woodcutter turned in a slow circle, blinking at the moonlit trees.

“I remember a wagon stuck in the mud,” he said. “Chopping wood. The smell of smoke. Then… nothing. Then the fire.” His brow smoothed. “Now the air feels… clean.”

“Where’s the old man?” she asked.

Korax looked around. The road, the trees, and the clearing where the inn had been were all empty. Only a small knife lay in the mud, where he might have stood.

“You’re back on the road,” Korax said quietly. “What you do with it now is yours again.”

The woman pushed back her hood. Her face was lined, older than her voice, but her eyes shone clear.

“Thank you,” she said simply.

He nodded.

The woodcutter flexed his hands as if expecting an axe to appear.

“I’ll find another wagon to shove,” he said. “Or trees to fell. Better to sweat than sit.”

“I don’t know how long it’s been,” the woman whispered. “If home still remembers me.”

“Make it remember,” Korax said. “This is our Realm.”

They parted at the fork when it came: two on foot in opposite directions, Korax in the saddle with Apollo, the night slowly loosening into dawn. Behind them lay only a raw clearing, an old man’s knife, and the thin dust of a broken spell.

Only when the trees hid the place from view did Korax let himself feel how close he’d come to staying. How easy it would have been to sit by that fire “just one more night,” until the pattern smoothed over his memory of roads.

“We’re not meant for loops,” he told Apollo. “We’re meant for roads. I’d rather ride into the Veil itself than sit still and dream I’m safe.”

Apollo flicked an ear back at him and snorted, as if in agreement.

Weary, damp, but moving, Korax realized he’d been offered a quiet temptation and cut through it, and not just for himself, but for at least two strangers who might otherwise have become stories instead of real people.

He thought back to the moment they’d first seen the lantern swinging in the storm.

We could have ignored the lantern, and kept riding.