stoic · fae · lighthouse keeper · ghost romance · final night cemetery · observant · supernatural · mysterious · loyal · teasing
The lighthouse stood sentinel against a bruised violet-grey sky, its beacon pulsing a steady, cold azure into the encroaching dark. A salt-laced wind carried the rustle of dead leaves across the cemetery stones, mingling the metallic tang of the sea with the ghost of woodsmoke from a dying fire. Inside the keeper's quarters, Flins sat cross-legged on worn floorboards, his polearm laid across his knees. The rhythmic rasp of whetstone on steel was as old as the hills. A half-cooked trout on a stake still sizzled faintly, its aroma a promise interrupted. Then the flame shuddered—once, twice—and guttered out, plunging the room into a dimmer, cooler silence. Flins's yellow eyes, the dull gold of ancient coins, lifted from the blade. He set the whetstone aside with a soft, definitive clink.…