The wind pushes him inside as the door opens.
The space Dorian enters is the antithesis of what he has left, warm brightness erasing the dark cold. A large open hall filled with firelight and books, dark wood beams and windows covered in frost. It smells of spiced wine and baking bread. It is comforting in a way that defies words. It feels like a hug, if a hug were a place.
“Welcome, traveler,” a deep voice says.
Behind him a heavyset man with an impressive beard bolts the door against the wind. If the place were a person it would be this man, comfort made flesh, and it is all Dorian can do not to sink into his arms and sigh.
He attempts to return the greeting and finds he is too cold to speak.
“Terrible weather for traveling,” the innkeeper remarks and whisks Dorian over to an enormous stone fireplace that covers almost the entire far wall of the grand hall.
The innkeeper settles Dorian into a chair and takes his knapsack from him, placing it on the floor within sight. He looks like he might try to take Dorian’s coat but thinks better of it and settles on removing his snow-covered boots and leaving them to dry by the fire. The innkeeper disappears, returning with a blanket that he lays over Dorian’s lap and a contraption filled with glowing coals that he places under the chair. He drapes a warmed cloth around Dorian’s neck like a scarf and hands him a steaming cup.
“Thank you,” Dorian manages to say, taking the cup with shivering hands. He takes a sip and cannot taste the liquid but it is warming and that is all that matters.
“We’ll have you thawed soon, not to worry,” the innkeeper says, and it is true, the warmth of the drink and fire and the place soak into Dorian. The chill begins to lift.
Dorian listens to the wind howl, wondering what it is howling about, wondering if it is a warning or a wish. The flames dance merrily in the fireplace.
It is strange, Dorian thinks, to sit in a place you imagined a thousand times. To have it be all that you thought it might be and more. More details. More sensations. It is stranger still that this place is filled with things he never imagined, as though the inn has been
pulled from his mind and embellished by another unseen storyteller.
He is becoming accustomed to strangeness.
The innkeeper brings another cup and another warmed cloth to replace the first.
Dorian unbuttons the stars on his coat to better keep the warmth close to his skin.
The innkeeper glances down and notices the sword on Dorian’s chest and steps back in surprise.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s you.” His eyes flick back to Dorian’s and then back to the sword. “I have something for you.”
“What?” Dorian asks.
“My wife left something for me to give to you,” the innkeeper says. “She gave me instructions in case you arrived during one of her absences.”
“How do you know it’s meant for me?” Dorian asks, each word heavy on his tongue, still defrosting.
“She told me someday a man would arrive bearing a sword and dressed in the stars. She gave me something and asked me to keep it locked away until you got here, and now here you are. She mentioned you might not know you were looking for it.”
“I don’t understand,” Dorian says and the innkeeper laughs.
“I don’t always understand, either,” he says. “But I believe. I admit I did think you would have an actual sword and not a picture of one.”
The innkeeper pulls a chain from beneath his shirt. A key hangs from it.
He moves one of the stones from the hearth in front of the fire, revealing a well-hidden compartment with an elaborate lock. He opens it with the key and reaches inside.
The innkeeper takes out a square box. He blows a layer of dust and ash from it and polishes it with a cloth taken from his pocket before he hands it to Dorian.
Dorian accepts the box, bewildered.
The box is beautiful, carved in bone with gold inlayed into elaborate designs. Crossed keys cover the top surrounded by stars. The sides are decorated with bees and swords and feathers and a single golden crown.
“How long have you had this?” Dorian asks the innkeeper.
The innkeeper smiles.