Shadows of Iraedes | NanoWrimo 2021

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: FLEEING FROM DERONNE

"I am heading out for morning prayer, I will be back soon," Gharet said and started shifting the table away from the door to let himself out.

"Gharet, I know you don't go to worship so you can stop lying to me."

"Aurora," he said and stopped moving the table. He walked over to her. She leaned back, but she was sitting at the edge of the bed and there was no where to go. He leaned in and put a hand against her chin. She jerked her face from his grasp but it only made him angry. He lashed out and grabbed her jaw holding her angry gaze to his.

"I don't lie when I say I go to worship," he said.

"Oh, but you do, Gharet," she said with a sneer. Her eyes were narrowed and her lip was curled. "I know what goes on at morning prayer now. I know how you should look after, and I have never seen you wearing the mark of purification."

His grip tightened and she could feel his nails biting into her cheeks even being as short as they were.

"What are you implying?" he asked, a dangerous tone to his voice.

"I know about the harlots you enjoy the company of," she said. Her tone matched his. She wasn't going to back down and be the meek little lamb she'd been before. She was going to rise up and be a lion. Her only problem was his strength and size. He could overpower her with one hand and that would be the thing she had to avoid. Already she wasn't doing a good job.

"Did you actually see me with a harlot?" he growled. His eyes flashed with a sharp gleam. She knew his dark side was coming out.

She faltered. What made her frightened was the fact she didn't know what he was capable when he wasn't drunk. She feared he was worse with his mind clear and his anger not fueled by something that could make him make a blunder.

She took a breath, not wanting to back down and met him with the same fury. "I did. Some woman with curly black hair in a tight red dress. She even had her ankles showing. Do you recall?"

"I do not. I think you're making this up to make me look bad again, just like you made me look bad for being late to my sister's house."

She ground her teeth together in anger. "Gharet, I'm not going there, but you were with a harlot. I saw you with my own two eyes. At the tavern by the port. Don't deny it. I'm tired of your lies and how you think you can continue to keep me in the dark. Telling me things to confuse me and make me think I am going crazy when all it is are the lies you concoct. I wish I knew all of them to throw in your face!" she said.

A flash of black splashed across her eyes and she felt the floor bite into her shoulder and she tasted blood where he lip was cut.

"Don't!" he said standing over her and pointing down. His hand shook as if she had struck a nerve like a string on an instrument.

"Don't make up things to make me look bad! Stop lying," he said.

"Gharet, I am not lying, you are!" she yelled. "You lie about the harlots you see. You are lying right now. Why do you lie?"

"You make me this way!"

"That's nothing but an excuse to tell yourself, isn't it?" she asked and pushed herself away from him. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, keeping her gaze locked on his. She could see things moving in his mind as if he were battling with something within his own head. But the look in his eyes told her he was going to act on it.

She sprang to her feet and ran but there wasn't much room in the space they had and in a few steps she was at the table trying to shove it away from the door. She heard him move and as his foot slammed down behind her she ducked and dropped to the floor. His arms swept through empty air and she crawled away from him. Behind him now having squeezed between his legs she kicked with all the must she could right at the back of his leg. She rolled out before she was crushed from his thick weight. He slammed to the floor, hitting it hard and even causing the glass in the window over their bed to shake. She gave one shove of the table and she got it to move but Gharet was on his feet in a second and had a hand on her arm.