Nethermost Realm: Prisoner of Arlunn

Chapter 34

Please note: I am updating this draft of The Prisoner of Arlunn. The most important change is that the main character's name has been changed from Philip to Rian.

34

In her room on Arlunn, Anya sat reading in her room, waiting for Shaz. She had no idea if he would come back home tonight or not. She told Cook she'd wait to eat dinner to see if he arrived. Cook had been a little grumpy at this, but agreed. The evening was still early.

She had already cleaned and organized her room several times. It was much smaller than the one on Chuness. Downstairs, there was a large sitting room and a dinning room. Next to that a kitchen and pantry. Then there were quarters for the servants, Thedrik, who was in charge, an older gentleman. She liked to think of him as the Butler, but she figured that his job was much more involved that that.

There was Rubrae, the Cook, a middle-aged woman who didn't seem to like Shaz very much—or anyone, for that matter.

Then there was Chiarra, whom they called her governess, but Anya was convinced she was a bodyguard. She didn't care about Anya's studies, nor about her activities during the day. She was tall and lithe and carried a long, sleek blade. She wore all black leather. Anya thought of her as the Ninja.

In fact, the Ninja only seemed to have one outfit, as far as Anya could tell.

Wherever Anya went, the Ninja followed, except into her bedroom, which had no exits. Even the window had thick bars over it.

The upstairs of the apartment had three rooms, of which Shaz's room was the largest, though he was rarely there. He also had a small private sitting room. Anya's room was much smaller, but a little bigger than her room on Earth. Chiarra had a very small bedroom next to Anya's room. In fact, it was slightly smaller than Anya's closet back at the Palace on Chuness.

Not much of Anya's wardrobe had made it to Arlunn, anyway, her closet here was too small. Someone else had packed for her. She wouldn't have picked this collection of ten outfits. She wore a cream colored button-up blouse with a dark brown full skirt that went to just below her knees, accented with a silver chain belt. She had brown knee-high leather boots to go with it. Not flashy, but comfortable.

Anya had left her door ajar to hear if there was any sign of Shaz returning. She thought she heard something, so she threw her book down on the bed and bounded out of the room and downstairs to see him.

"Shaz, you're back!" she said, excited to see him. But she stopped half-way down the stairs when she saw his face. It was terrible. She had seen him in bad moods but this looked worse than all of them. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes," he said, coming up the stairs towards her. "It is." His voice was angry.

She panicked then. Was he angry at her somehow? She tried to formulate a question, but was too slow. He met her on the stairs, and grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her up the stairs.

"Shaz!" objected Anya. His tight grip hurt her wrist. He practically dragged her. "What are you doing?"

At the top of the stairs, he shoved her into the sitting room. She nearly lost her balance. He closed the double doors so that they were alone.

"I don't understand," she began, when he turned to face her. "What did I do?"

He slapped her hard across the face and she nearly lost her balance again.

"You lied to me," he said. "You told me you were 14 years old!"

He had found out! She didn't mean to lie, she didn't understand the difference between Earth years and Chuness years. She just never corrected the information. "But, I didn't know—"

He slapped her again. "Stop lying!"

She withdrew a few steps, now up against the edge of the love seat. "How was I supposed to know that you were only a child?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry!" she said, now on the verge of tears.

"Don't you dare cry!" he said. It only took him one step to reach her. He took each of her arms in a strong grip and shook her violently. "And you also lied about being Aldena's daughter."

"I am Aldena's daughter," she began to cry. He shook her again.

"That's a lie! You knew I thought you were of the Serkell bloodline and that our marriages would create an alliance."

"I thought that you loved me and wanted to spend your life with me!" said Anya. "Don't you?"

"You're nothing but a scheming, grasping pretender! You're nobody!"

It was true; she was nobody. Her eyes filled with tears. Shaz shoved her down onto the couch. "I said—don't cry!" he yelled.

"You said you wanted to marry me!" she sobbed.

He laughed at this. "Oh, that is not going to happen!"

She cried all the harder at this.

"I said—shut up!" he yelled at her. She cringed away from him, afraid of another blow.

"This is your fault," he said, pacing the room. "You brought this on yourself. You've ruined everything! I had Rian's life in my hands and I could have killed him, but I didn't because I thought ... I didn't want to upset you."

She stared at him.

"I should have just killed him!" he shouted angrily.

She didn't know what to say. Shaz rarely talked about the Challenge and what was going on. She didn't realize that Rian was in so much danger.

Shaz seemed to make a decision, he reached for her. "Come here." But she shrank from him. He grabbed her by her pony tail and yanked so that she had to stand up and he pulled on it to force her out of the room and across the hall to her room. He shoved her inside, then slammed the door. She checked it, it was locked from outside.

Anya sank down beside her bed, sobbing. Now she would have Shaz's child, and not be married. What would happen to her then? What would Aldena think of her?

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