The patrol car, its sirens a mournful wail against the relentless downpour, skidded to a halt on the gravel drive of Tŷ Haearn. Rhys didn’t wait for it to fully stop, flinging the door open and launching himself into the churning puddles. Gwyllgi, a blur of shaggy grey, was already ahead, a low growl rumbling in his chest. The manor’s grand, wrought-iron gates, usually standing with a desolate dignity, hung askew, one hinge torn from the stone pillar. Splintered glass glittered on the overgrown path, mirroring the grey sky in countless jagged teeth. “Rhys, wait!” Constable Meirion shouted, scrambling out of the driver’s seat. But Rhys was deaf to him, his boots thudding against the flagstones, the sound swallowed by the wind and rain. The front door, forced open, sagged inward. Inside, the chill was profound, a physical weight that pressed against his lungs. He saw it immediately. The grand hall, once a cavern of dust-shrouded reflections, was a war zone. The antique mirrors, some with ornate metal frames, others simple, dark panes, were smashed. Shards lay everywhere, like glittering scales shed by a monstrous, unseen serpent. The air hummed with a violent silence, broken only by the drip of water from a cracked ceiling and the soft crunch of glass under Gwyllgi’s paws. “Ffion!” Rhys roared, his voice raw. He spun, frantic, searching for any surface, any flicker. The dark top of an old oak table was gouged with claw marks. A tall grandfather clock lay on its side, its face broken. Then he saw her. A faint, trembling outline hovered in a small, convex glass hanging precariously by a single nail near the back of the hall. Her image was fractured, stretched thin, like light through rippled water. Her face was a mask of pain, her eyes wide with a terror that made his stomach clench. Her form pulsed, barely holding together, threatening to dissipate. “Ffion, I’m here! Hold on!” he yelled, rushing towards the mirror, carefully stepping around the sharp fragments. He reached out, not to touch, but just to be near. Gwyllgi whined, pressing close to Rhys’s leg, muzzle lifted toward the wavering shape. He could feel Ffion’s distress, a cold ache that settled deep in his bones. “Rhys…” Her voice was a whisper, a rustle of dying leaves, barely audible even in the quiet hall. “It… it hurts…” Her image convulsed, threatening to break apart. He needed a stable surface, something. His gaze swept the rubble. A small, tarnished pewter salver lay amidst the debris on a nearby console table, miraculously unbroken. He snatched it, wiping the grime from the metal with his sleeve. He angled it toward her faint outline. It was crude, but it worked. Her likeness, still faint, transferred onto the polished plate. She looked up at him, her lips trembling. “Morwenna… she tried to break me apart,” Ffion breathed, her eyes darting to the broken landscape around them. “Everything… so many pieces…” “I know. She won’t get away with this,” Rhys vowed, his voice tight with controlled fury. “We’ll find you a better place. Somewhere safe.” He began to move, slowly, carefully, scanning the wrecked room for anything that could hold her. A stray teapot, a polished doorknob, anything. Gwyllgi, however, had stopped. His head was cocked, his sensitive ears twitching. He began to sniff intently at a section of the hall floor where a heavy console table had been violently shoved aside, exposing a loose, warped floorboard. He dug at it with his snout, a low, urgent growl rumbling. Rhys, holding the silver tray steady, watched him, tracking the hound's paws. The dog knew. He always knew. “What is it, boy?” Rhys murmured, kneeling down, the cold damp seeping through his trousers. Gwyllgi gave a sharp bark, nudging the board. Rhys pried it up, revealing a small, dark cavity beneath. Inside, nestled in cobwebs, lay a small, ornate pendant. It was shell-shaped, dulled with grime and encrusted with dried salt. He picked it up; the metal pulled leaden against his palm. It was cold, damp to the touch, and smelled faintly of the river. “That keepsake?” Ffion’s faint murmur drifted from the tray. Rhys tilted the piece in his fingers. The moment the crust on the metal caught her likeness on the pewter plate, the air in the hall went rigid. The air grew thick, shimmering, and the weak light from the shattered windows seemed to pulse. Ffion’s shape on the plate flared white, then twisted inward as if pulled by an anchor. She gasped, and the metal flared with sudden, blinding glare. The floor dropped away under his boots, the sensation plunging him downward like river undertow. The hall around him warped, the scent of dust and damp stone replaced by the sharp, clean smell of river water and the salt tang of the tide. The sound of rain faded, replaced by the rush of the Mire. He was no longer in the decaying manor, but standing on the banks of the river, the air thick with the scent of brine and marsh grass. The light was dim, the sky a perpetual bruised purple, but it wasn't raining. His own hands were different, younger, calloused from years of gripping oars. His clothes were simpler, roughspun. The iron manor was gone. He stood inside someone else's recollection. He watched, an invisible observer, as a figure appeared beside him. Ffion. But not the ethereal, flickering Ffion he knew. This Ffion was solid, vibrant, her dark hair whipped by the river wind, her eyes alive with a storm of emotion. She was arguing, her voice sharp with pain, with another woman. Morwenna. Her sister, but younger, less guarded, though her face was already set in a familiar, stubborn line. “You have to go, Ffion! Now!” Morwenna’s voice cracked with panic, her hands gripping Ffion’s shoulders. “He’s waiting. He’ll take you away from all this. Away from Aberddu.” “Away from what, Morwenna? From my home? From *you*?” Ffion retorted, her voice trembling. “I don’t understand. Who is this ‘he’? And why are you so intent on pushing me out?” Morwenna drew an identical shell pendant from her pocket, fingers fumbling with the clasp. “He’s… he’s the only way. Take this. It’s a protection. A promise. He’ll know you by it. Please, Ffion, for me. Just leave. Before it’s too late.” She pressed the clasp into Ffion’s palm, pleading without words. “The Mire… it doesn’t forgive. You know that.” Ffion stared at the token, then at her sister, hurt tightening her mouth. “You’re asking me to abandon everything… for a stranger? Because of some… half-remembered folklore? What are you afraid of?” Morwenna’s gaze darted to the churning, grey waters of the Mire, then back to Ffion, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Just go, Ffion. With Celyn. He’s waiting for you at the old Saltern path. He’ll take you to the ferry, across the Lyraith.” Her voice tightened with raw panic. “Trust me, just this once.” Ffion shook her head, a tear tracing a path down her cheek. “I can’t. Not like this. I won’t run.” Morwenna’s jaw set, fear turning brittle and hard. “Then you leave me no choice.” She turned, her back to the river, and began to walk away, her figure retreating into the misty gloom. Ffion stood alone on the bank, the keepsake clutched in her hand, staring after her sister’s vanishing form while the gale whipped wet hair across her cheeks. The river mist tore apart. Rhys stumbled back onto the broken floor of the hall, the damp chill slamming into his chest. The pendant in his palm thrummed with heat. The pewter tray showed Ffion once more, slumped and pale, her gaze slack. “Celyn… Lyraith… she wanted me to run,” Ffion whispered, her voice a fragile wisp. “But… I wouldn’t…” Rhys examined the shell pendant. The salt-caked casing beat with a faint, steady pulse. He drew his thumb over the reverse. Tilting it in the dim light, he saw it. A tiny, almost imperceptible inscription etched into the back of the clam-shell design, partly obscured by the salt residue: *To my siren, from C.* “To my siren, from C,” Rhys read aloud, a new lead, sharp and clear, cutting through the fog of confusion. “Celyn. He was waiting for you. Morwenna wanted you to go with him.” He looked up, a surge of adrenaline pushing through his exhaustion. This was it. A name. A connection. A purpose. He had to find out who Celyn was. What Morwenna was so afraid of. When he lifted his eyes from the brass-toned metal, river runoff caught his attention. The mire-water, dark and insidious, was no longer just a distant dampness. It was creeping in, a slow, silent invasion. It seeped under the grand front door, a black tongue licking at the broken flagstones. It pooled around the shattered mirror shards, turning them into murky, distorting lenses. The tide had risen. And the Mire began to swallow the last mirrors and broken glass of the old hall.

The Salt-Stained Locket