My body is becoming a prison of stone. For years, I chased a ghost. It is the curse of my kind: without a soulmate to anchor our life force, a golem is doomed to harden into stone.
The Marriage Temple never sent a letter; my DNA match never appeared. Now, I am too stiff to travel, dragging my heavy limbs to the nearest bride market as a final, desperate act.
The calcification is claiming my breath, my pulse, and my ability to feel. Unless I find her, I will be nothing but a statue, a boulder void of life. Then I see her.
She doesn’t stand tall like the others. She is cowering, shaking, her pale skin mottled with dark bruises. My hardened heart gives a jagged, painful thud. I know the odds are against me.
She is likely another match that won’t take, but I raise my paddle anyway. If I am to end as a cold, unfeeling object, let my last act be her freedom.
