Short Story: Necklace Of Coin

Necklace of Coin Dawn is lightening the sky through the treetops, and Somnus is trying his best to ignore it. His bedroll lays on the edge of the camp tucked in a small glade, closer to the bright greens of the birches’ summer leaves just picked out in the suggestion of light. The air is still crisp with the damp of dew. In the cool morning, the smoky hint of the campfire lingers on his tongue. Somnus shrinks a bit deeper in his bedroll. Scrunching his fingers in the fabric, he tries to focus on the wildflowers growing from the moss, instead of his part hunting a man to cut out four of the man’s teeth. The dread of the thought fills his belly like poison, leaden and thick. He doesn’t belong here, with the other five men and women of the band. This town, a day from the end of land and the beginning of sea, is as far across Nalvareth than he can be from his home. None of the things he has are his own, nothing has been his own since he was kidnapped for a ransom his family

“Get up.” Marissa gives him a withering look, red hair bright in the semi-dark as she leaves into view. “We’re leaving in half an hour.

It may be far from where he grew up, but the road is bordered by the same birches and oaks and maples that grow near his home, and the same little wildflowers sprouting just past the woods in butter yellows and soft purples. When he was a child, he would pick them for his papa and tuck them into his silky brown plait, the same color as Somnus’s. Remembering his papa’s praise of his color choice is bittersweet, and he turns his gaze to anything but the flowers for the rest of the ride. There are other things too, that spur his memories, but he pushes them back and tries to ignore the thick feeling in his throat. Thankfully, at their walk-trot pacing, it only takes them a handful of ours to reach their