The Tales of Miriela: Shadowborn

Chapter 8: Odwin

Miriela was dark. The fields and cities alike were cloaked in a black blanket. The air was cool, and the gentle whisper of the wind filled the air. Odwin and Daniel sat with their backs against the rough stone of a church wall, which still held the sun's warmth. Odwin was hungry. His stomach's moans were a constant reminder of that. He was thirsty too. His dry tongue scraped against his mouth like sandpaper each time he spoke. They'd been in Kessex for several days now and had begged their way to a small meal or two, and a few gold coins. There was never much food at the Grounds, but it was more than Kessex had offered.

Though the sun had set, the kingdom of Kessex still bustled with commotion. The church sat in a market square. Bakers filled the streets with the aromas of cakes and pies. Carpenters set out their finest chairs and tables on display. Farmers shouted loud to offer their crops to anyone with coin. Hundreds of people, lost in a sea of chaotic commotion. Or at least it seemed chaos. Perhaps there was an order which Odwin did not know. A cadence, like tap of a drum or a steady beating heart, seemed to direct the chaotic streets. It was a site like Odwin had never seen.

There was an alehouse, also not far from the church. It stood just slightly away from the trading of the market, not quite on its own but separated enough to establish noise of its own. Drunkards stumbled in and out, if in the dim light of dusk. Many of the stumbling fools passed the church, which stood in between the alehouse and market, and also near the road which traveled on towards the rest of the city.

The two boys sat, with a wooden bowl in front of them that they had found sitting outside the church. People would pass, and some would toss in a coin. Some seemed too drunk to even notice they were there at all. But they managed enough coins for enough food to keep them living, though Odwin could feel his starving body begin to eat at the very muscles below his skin.

"Can you spare coin, or food, or drink?" Said Daniel, as strangers passed them by. But they ignored him, not taking the time to look upon the poor face of a beggar.

"We should rest, Daniel. It'll be night soon and the market will close. And no one will be coming out of the alehouse, only going in. We'll wake early tomorrow. If we're here all day, we should have enough coin to afford some bread and an apple or two by sunset."

Odwin moved his feet forward, and shifted his back from the stone wall down to the dirt of the ground. He stuck the coins inside his shirt to hide them from plain sight. His legs sprawled out before him and his eyes closed to drift to sleep.

"Do you think they'll come for us?" Daniel whispered, aggravating Odwin's tired ears.

Odwin's had also feared what, or who, was coming from Ferenor. Surly, news of their escape would travel North to enter Ferenor's walls, and when it did, men would come looking. But there was nowhere for Odwin and Daniel to go, nowhere for them to hide. They didn't have the resources to travel any further. They sat in the square of a market, which was filled with any food that one could imagine, yet they had withered away to little more than skin and bone.

"They'll come. They'll search all of Kessex," Odwin said. "They won't stop until they find us. If Simmion is still alive he won't be much longer, unless we're found."

Odwin was hopeless. All his life he dreamt of escaping the Grounds, but as he lay outside the Kessex church, he realized that he hadn't escaped at all.

Daniel kept silent and the two lay in silence. The sun continued to set, its last rays stretching over the tops of the city walls, and the rooftops of homes. But one particular shadow stood at the feet of Odwin and hung over him like a cloud. He could feel it lingering. And when he opened his eyes, Odwin found a man standing at his feet.