The Beast Within Us

Chapter 13: ↭ Yara

↭ Lady Yara Wheiler had retired to her makeshift chambers early for the night. Darryn had promised to do the testing of her ward and Yara felt her presence had not been needed. She had other things on her mind, mainly the way that Darryn seemed distant as of late. The wardeness knew that she should be worried about more important things than her secret lover, but Darryn had always been an impeccably strong figure in her life. She had always known Darryn, as he was as familiar as her own sense of herself.

As of recently he had grown tired. He was older than Yara, but the difference in age was not so far that he should appear so jaded and worn. She had known her lover since he was a teen and she a young girl, Yara could not recall a time he had ever seemed so flat. Particularly another thing made her gut twist lately, a racking cough had began shortly after they had began traveling again that morning. It was a wet, congested cough that made his shoulders quake and his chest heave with the fit. Yara had yet to be alone with him to question his health, but it appeared her warrior was not as well as he appeared.

As the night drug on, Yara felt herself grow tense with the late hour and the lacking of her ward and her lover. She knew that Darryn would not reveal himself as her lover to Chala, but she had assumed he would at least discuss the sparring with Yara before he rested for the night. It was dark as Yara's coal eyes peered from the lattice window of the caravan and distinctly in the foreground she saw Chala advancing to her chambers. She was alone and looked tired. Yara frowned at the thought of Darryn's absence, but she quickly cleared the grimace from her face as Chala entered the wooden trailer.

Yara pulled the wrapping of her silk gown tighter around her slim figure as Chala addressed her and she stepped around the Hewan to sink delicately to the floor mattress. Her coal eyes flickered to the bench across the room, Yara had set out a few pillows and a blanket for Chala. It was a temporary solution until Yara could anoint her ward a more permanent quarters. Yara nodded at the bench with her head, confirming her choice.

You may sleep there."

Yara allowed Chala to settle in before dimming the lantern and tucking herself in to her bed. She faced the wall, her long curls billowed around her and across the pillows like a chestnut waterfall. She thought of her ward as the silence filled the room between them and her breathing began to slow. She did not even know the girl's name, let alone if she should ask for it. The situation was as bizarre as it was uncomfortable and Yara allowed her thoughts to turn to Darryn before she finally fell asleep.

• • • • •   

A soft gust of wind followed by the near-silent creaking of the lattice screen door jarred Yara's light slumber. Her eyelids fluttered open to glance around the now dark room and find it empty. Yara rose from her mattress to peer through the screen door and find Chala's shadow creeping hastily away from camp and into the dense woodland around them.

Alarms rang through Yara's brain as she slipped on her boots and pulled her cloak around her quickly. The wardeness tried to keep up with Chala as best as she could, but the huntress was fast. Her lack of vision in the pitch black forest kept her stumbling awkwardly in the direction she had last seen Chala. Yara's breathing was ragged and panicked, and she felt sure Chala was making an attempt to escape. It was too late to turn back now, and all the wardeness could do was press after her charge in attempt to catch up to her before anything in the woods did. ↭