The army watches, the forest trembles, and Kallan waits.
Maybe for an answer, or perhaps simply basking in this small victory, Charlie can't be sure.
Either way, Oliver does not lift his gaze again from where he fixes it to the forest floors beneath them.
Part of Charlie wants to plead with his brother to look him in the eye.
But he can hardly find the words, let alone the belief that he deserves anything more than a pitying glance, or a hateful glare.
So he too turns his gaze to the ground.
All he can hear is the sound of his blood coarsing through his veins, thundering in his ears.
Then the soft clink of metal from the treeline beyond.
The ranks part again at the centre, caught by a sudden, unseen tide that pushes them apart down a single seam.
Another squadron, but their cargo is far less capable of putting up a fight.
Charlie hears the sound of the chains before he sees them.
Smells the silver on the air as clearly as he can taste the blood at the back of his throat, and their rattle pulls his full attention.
Each link the width of a broad hand, the weight is enough to require several people to hold it between them as they cross the forest floor, shining chains in hands. Taking the utmost care not to allow a single inch of it to touch the dirt beneath their feet.
They will not sully the silver.
His skin recoils, the beast lurking but even it is silenced at the sight of the chains.
Instead it paces, back and forth at the surface of his skin. Aware of the fate coming for them, desperately searching for an escape before Charlie allows them to succumb to it.
But Charlie's resolve is steadfast.
"Kneel," Kallan's order comes with a tone better suited to suggestion, that boredom creeping closer.
Charlie swallows past the dry lump at the back of his throat, and obeys. His knees cracking on the dry earth.
They adorn him with the chains the same way a child set free with colours might attempt their first painting. Heavy handed and uncertain, and perhaps a little too merrily.
Unaware the marks made to the canvas would be ever lasting.
As the first links wrap around his right arm, he stiffens, bracing against the pains shifting and grimacing beneath the weight of the chains, as the connect with his ribs, his soft skin.
The sensation sets him ablaze, every ounce of his soul collapsing beneath the pinning chains.
They work until his arms and wrists are bound by the silver, pulled into taut and awkward angles behind him. They weave across his chest in an intricate, crossing pattern.
If his skin were glass, the pain, the chains would have been enough to crack it but not shatter.
But crack it did.
Chains were only ever a temporary fix, and they never lasted long enough.
But his humiliation is far from over.
One man holds a circlet of silver, it glimmers in the mid-day sun. The stranger, this newcomer, is by no means a small man, yet his hands are trembling beneath the weight of it.
But he is quickly freed of the burden - for this is a task Kallan takes upon himself.
The leader steps forward, and all at once the chains pull taut around him.
YOU ARE READING
Nomad
WerewolfTo his people, he was a threat. To his family, he was a traitor. And to himself, he was a monster. Charlie never had the chance to prove otherwise. ☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦☽✦ For the past decade, Charlie has lived in isolation. A brutal life o...
