The Silver Prayer

The wahn lowered her head and bowed, the dregs of her cloak seeping into pools of filth-ridden water run off from the lone dirt road through the village of Pelanor. The man standing before her, sinewy and tall, with copper locks graying from the toil of almost fifty winters, brushed his rough hand past the hilt of the broadsword dangling at his hip to retrieve a threadbare pouch fastened around his waist. From it he produced a tarnished silver coin, its edges corroded and uneven.

He placed it in the woman’s open palm, the long strands of her dark, unkempt hair swaying in the subtle wind that breathed through the village like a hymn. She closed a fist of yellowed fingernails around the offering.

“A prayer for my son, departed into the forest, four days past,” the man uttered lowly, so that no one else around them could hear.

The wahn withdrew a small knife and raised the sleeve from the hand that held the coin, revealing a forearm raw with fresh scabbing and undercoated with old, deep scars. She slowly drew the blade across flesh, whispering words in a language he could not understand while blood trickled down to mix with the stagnant puddles where she stood.

“Llathlu blesses your son’s return,” she replied in a soft voice. “The Pale Hand guides him safely to the forest camp, so long as he remains in the Divine’s true path.”

“Thank ye, maiden,” he answered quietly, taking a step backward, his gaze drawn to the cowled woman’s rose-colored lips as she began to raise her eyes.

He turned and made quickly for the street, ere she pocketed the coin as crimson wept into the folds of her robe.