Nethermost Realm: Prisoner of Arlunn

Chapter 27

Prisoner of Arlunn 

by Meredith Skye

Back at the healing wing college on Arlunn, several healers consulted together about Rhana. She still had not woken. Arryk's mood had gone from bad to worse. Quince had stayed by Rhana's side. He'd made no recriminations to Arryk, nor complaints.

"Her body is fine," said one of the healers. "It is her mind that is affected. She could come out of it at any time."

Arryk thanked her. Quince looked forlornly at Rhana. What if she never woke up? It broke Arryk's heart. Maybe he wasn't cut out to make these kind of decisions; maybe he wouldn't make a good King of Cathal. He felt sick.

"Arryk," said Braejeunné, touching his arm. "We should go."

He nodded. The paravescea was unstable. They shouldn't have left the young prince there alone. There was no telling what could happen. Arryk followed her out of the room.

"We need help," she said. They still needed to grow the paravescea and balance it before it could stabilize.

"Yes," he agreed.

"We'll ask Ashette and Kami," she said. He agreed, following her.

They went and found the twin girls. He let Braejeunné do all the talking. He was already spent. They had no loyalty to Arryk, but they weren't against him either. The twins could play all sides of a Challenge like this until near the end without committing. He trusted them more than he trusted Sennae, though—even if Sennae would probably help them.

He should have gone to Azure and asked her for help. She would have done it, but then he would owe her a favor and he hated being in that position with her. She would lecture him.

The twins came with them back to the Interstitium. Perhaps they had agreed partly out of curiosity. They wanted to see Arryk's fortress. Once there, they stopped to stare at Rian, the captive prince. No doubt looking for some fresh bit of gossip to share within their circles.

Arryk lead the group back upstairs. There, the paravescea pulsed erratically, causing the hair to stand up on the back of his neck. The whole room felt wrong. This time, Arryk would do it himself. Then if it went wrong, he would be the one to suffer. Braejeunné volunteered to do it herself, but he refused. She was no better at it than he was.

"I'll have to feed the paravescea first," said Arryk. To do this, he would let the paravescea draw life-energy from all of them. That's what had gone wrong when Rhana had done it. But until the energy level of the paravescea was increased, it couldn't be stabilized.

The others nodded, apprehensively. He was sure that Ashette and Kami didn't have their own fortress in the Interstitium. They could go the whole Challenge without setting one up, if they didn't plan to be a serious contestant—and he doubted they would be. They would make an alliance, in the end, rather than join in the duels.

All of them joined hands and Arryk placed his hand on the black orb, fighting to slow down the level with which it drew the life-force out of each of them. He closed it off as much as he could. This made the process more time-consuming, but safer.

The process took hours before the paravescea had grown large enough to try to balance it. "That should be enough," said Arryk.

"Can we take a break now?" asked Kami. They all stood near the paravescea, holding hands.

Theoretically, Arryk could do this alone, but he was afraid. He'd never worked alone before with an unstable paravescea. "We should stay linked," he said. "I don't want anymore accidents." It embarrassed him to have to keep them all here through out the night. Morning was only a few hours away. He himself was exhausted. Surely Braejeunné was too; she had been up as long as he had.