Anya

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

   Her black, heavy cloak shielded Anya from the brunt of the wind as she trudged forward into the Zafiro faction. She had escaped the palace with only a few belongings and was now trying to get away as far as she could without being stopped.

   Everybody knew who she was almost and as she saw it, the Zafiro faction were less likely to tell her father that they had seen her as she had helped out a lot of them and it was about time that she collected her favour.

   With the cloak covering her face, Anya peaked the hood backwards an inch or so when she came to a fork in the road. The rain had subsided for the time being and being able to see the sign, she went down the road that would lead to the lake as she knew there was an abandoned cave that lay beside it. She could hide out there for the foreseeable future.

   She would never have planned this if she had nowhere to go but staying in a palace where she had no place and where there were more secrets and betrayals that she could handle. She felt like she was suffocating under it all and with a small bag full of food and a spare dress she escaped in the middle of the night whilst everyone slept.

   The lane that led down towards the lake was a peaceful one. Or it generally was.

      The wind was starting to pick up and now she was more in the open all she could feel was the cold air as it whipped through the cloak, pulling it closer to her she wished she had worn her gloves. Her fingers were on the verge of dropping off and they were purpler than the usual pale peach colour.

   She was wearing her strong boots that were made of the skin on a yardan. Ugo made them for her actually. Usually she would never wear anything made from an animal but a yardan grew its fur at such an extraordinary rate that it had to be cut every three days. The fur was soft but once it is compressed it turns extremely hard and manageable material and can make very good boots.

   Her feet were bone dry and she was wandering through the puddles that littered the lane with ease. There was mud at the bottom of her cloak but for the first time she felt a sense of freedom. There was a weight she didn’t even know was there on her shoulders and the further she got away from the palace, every step and every puddle she splashed it was slowly being taken away.

   It was mid-morning now; the position of the sun was proof of that and she had been gone for around six hours and she knew that as soon as her grandfather found out that she had defied one of his rules he was going to send out the guards after her and she knew that she had to get to the caves as fast as she could.

   The caves were deep and there was no chance the guards would find her in there. She had taken some of the children down them often and knew where every corner and dead end was which extremely lucky.

   The lane led Anya for another hour and half before the lake came into view. The body of water was large, it would take an half an hour boat trip just to cross it. The Zafiro faction only had claim to a fifth of the lake as the Girasol faction had bought most of the lake. It was only one of the reasons as to why the Zafiro faction was as poor as it was.

   There was also a rumour that a demon had cursed the land so that no crops could ever grow in the land. The only steady source of income the faction had of maintaining itself was coal. There were plenty of the fossil fuel but even they knew that it would run out someday and the whole population of the faction were not looking forward to it.

   The cave was coming into her view as she trudged along the bumpy lane. The lake was distressed from the wind and the rain was slowly starting to attack the land again. She was having a hard time trying to breathe, the strong air was taking it out of her but she trudged forward slowly.