Lady Avarei: Midland (Book 1)
an excerpt

Chapter 4

Zenith only shook his head and replied, “Avarei, don’t you think it is unwise to curse at the one you will be marrying soon enough?” He seemed to completely ignore the fact that she was very angered at seeing him.

“I assure you Zenith that my punches are much stronger than they were when I was nine. If you don’t leave this very instant and let the real person who wishes to marry me present himself, I will be forced to show you.”

But a large smile shown on Zenith’s face, and nothing good ever came from a ‘Zenith smile.’ Fixing his hat, he said, “I am the man who wishes to marry you. It is no prank. And you can’t afford to lay any punches on me. You’re hopeless and desperate Avarei, and I know that you need this marriage to bond with your mother again. So you might as well take these flowers and”—

“No,” she said, her voice full of disbelief and even bits of horror. “You can not be serious! Out of all the men who could ask to marry me, out of all the men, why you?! So what is your goal; to torture me until I am old and wrinkly? I won’t allow you to do that to me.”

The smile on Zenith’s face quickly left, and his voice became silent. “That would be fun, but that’s not why I asked to marry you. I’ve fancied you since we were children, but I didn’t know how to show it.”

Avarei’s eyebrow rose. There was silence between the two. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Avarei burst out in something close to hysterical laughter.

“And you expect me to believe that?” she scoffed. “After literally eight years of you torturing me and making my life a living hell, you expect me to believe it was all because you’ve always loved me deep down inside? Even if that is the case, this is not some romance book. Do you really think that I am going to instantly forgive everything you’ve done to me just because now you tell me you fancy me? I’m sorry that you didn’t go about showing it in a much better way, but now is definitely too late.”

Indignantly, she lifted her head up, picked up her dress, and turned around, but she barely got to move one foot away before Zenith yanked her back to him.

“Avarei, there you go again thinking rashly and all about yourself!” He whispered into her ears. “You always think about the consequences last. Are you sure you want to face your mother knowing that you managed to screw up again? You’ll be letting her down once again, and we both know that you don’t want to do that.”

For a few minutes she stood in silence, giving it thought. His words were true; she didn’t want to return home knowing that she had once again angered her mother, but she couldn’t bear knowing that her whole life would be ruined if she accepted to marry a guy she passionately disliked.

Her mind made up, she whispered back, “Mother and I are going to have to find better means of bonding, that’s my answer.” And she lifted her right leg up and put all her force into making sure she stomped on his foot hard enough to make sure he would never touch her ever again.

Howling, he let go of her arm and fell over. Avarei started to run away, but Zenith yanked her down with him. The both of them fell off the rock they were standing on under the tree and fell right in the mud.

“Not this time Avarei!” Zenith screamed. “You’re not hurting me and getting away with it this time. If I’m going down, you’re going down with me!”

Avarei wasn’t listening to him though. She kept on kicking and kicking until he finally let go. When she saw she had the chance to escape, she lifted her skirt up once again and began to run. But, once again, she wasn’t able to get far before Zenith yanked her back. Although it had taken him a while to get up, he had already kicked his shoes off and she was trying to run in heels and a heavy dress. Evidently, she wasn’t going as fast as she thought she was.

“Get your hands off of me!” Avarei screamed, but she was running out of ideas. Desperately, she looked all around to see if she could find a way to get him off. Then it came to her. Playing it off as if she was just trying to struggle away, she hopped continually until they were close to the riverside again. Than, when she was sure they were right in the position, she threw her head back with a lot of force and head butted him. Instantly he let go of her, stumbling backward, and then, to stop him from running after her again, she back kicked him into the water. Instantly she started running, but she still wasn’t quick enough. Before he completely fell in, he managed to grab the bottom of her dress. Avarei heard a rip and thought that she would still be able to escape, but his pull was too strong. She went flying into the water right after him.

For a moment, Avarei was sure she would drown, but she managed to swim to the surface. But the very moment she was able to take a large breath, she felt herself going under again. Zenith was yanking her back down again! Was he really trying to drown her?

She managed to kick him off of her before she got too far under, and without looking back, struggled to swim back to land. She heard Zenith come back to the surface the very moment she reached land, and was happy this was the case. Avarei wasn’t exactly the best swimmer and if land had been farther away, or he had managed to yank her farther down, she probably would have drowned.

While Avarei once again pulled up her filthy and soggy dress and prepared to run back home, Zenith screamed, “You stupid girl! If you thought I was making your life a living hell before, you just wait until I get out of this pool!”

It was dark now. When she was sure she was clear of the riverside, her run became a very slow and reflective walk. Because she was sure she was going to need time to think, she took the long way home.

When she was wrestling with Zenith she hadn’t realized just how horribly she messed up her mother’s dress. Now that she was walking and thinking about it, she found herself horrified at what she had just done. Not only was her dress ripped at the seams, soggy, and covered in mud and leaves, but she was missing one of the golden bracelets her mother had given her and the hat on her head was somewhere buried in the mud.

‘Not only have I managed to lose my last chance in getting married,’ Avarei thought to herself. ‘But I also managed to lose my mother’s trust. What have I done?’

While she walked to her home she tried to think of many ways to make better of this situation, but nothing came to mind. Once again, Avarei found herself disappointed at herself. Just when she had a chance to make things better, she went and screwed things up.

Finally, after half an hour of walking in the dark and cold, and luckily being spared from being attacked by any night lurkers, Avarei arrived at her home. This time, she went through her front door.

She twisted the door knobs in hope that it would already be open so that she could sneak into the bathroom and change immediately. That would mean she could worry about the dress tomorrow, but the door was not open. She found that as no big surprise. As paranoid and hectic as her mother was, it would actually concern Avarei to find the door open. And, with no key in her possession, she found herself having to knock on the door.

After two very weak knocks, the door was swung open. It was dark in the house, meaning her mother had attempted to get some sleep. Avarei was surprised at this. She thought her mother would be so excited at the marriage process for her that she wouldn’t dare to sleep, but this made things all the better for her; if it was dark outside, and dark inside the house, than that meant she would be able to get into the house before her mother saw the disaster. And this worked perfectly well.

“Oh Avarei, did everything turn out well?” Annabelle asked, her voice full of giddiness that Avarei had never heard before.

Avarei said nothing. But what was she to say? Either way, she was going to be in more trouble than she had ever been before. Why ruin her mother’s large amount of happiness a few seconds earlier?

Then Annabelle decided to light a candle. And Avarei could sense a large amount of foreboding take over. If she hadn’t told herself that it would be rather absurd, she would have turned back around and ran back out the house the very moment her mother turned around to fetch a candle to light. However, she took this moment to brace herself.

When she came back into the room she was talking and attempting to light the candle all at the same time. “Avarei, why so silent? With your luck, things probably didn’t go the way you assumed but—Oh my goodness...”

She had seen the dress in all of its horrifying mess. Slowly and silently, she set the candle back onto the table. She put her hands to her mouth and repeated the same words various times. It was as though she had seemed to go into shock and could say nothing more.

As though Annabelle couldn’t believe what she was seeing, in which case she probably couldn’t, she slowly moved forward. She reached out her shaking hand to the dress as though she were afraid it might bite back, and upon touching the mud and the wet seemed to silently shriek to herself.

“Where is the hat, and the shoes; one of the heels are broken off of the shoes!”

She continued to study the dress, and feel all around it, her eyes searching. And then she yanked her arm up, where the bracelets were supposed to be. That very instant her eyes widened.

“Avarei,” she started, her voice wavy as though on the brink of tears and an angry outburst. “Where is the third bracelet, the one given to me to honor this family as one?”

All Avarei could do was shake her head no. Her heart was beating so fast and so hard that she was almost sure she would turn around and run away. She could see it on her mother’s face; she was going to explode, and Kirik was not here to help her get through it this time. Kirik would probably not be home for a couple of days.

“Avarei, how could you allow this to happen!” she shouted, causing Avarei to jump back. “Do you have any idea what you have done; this dress has been handed down and worn only once for four generations. It has always been in top condition. How is it possible that you managed to wear this dress for a little over an hour or two, and completely destroy it? It’s so messed up, I don’t even know where to start! I don’t know what’s to become of that hat or those completely ruined shoes, but they were the best in my wardrobe. I don’t have any money for anything new! And that necklace you lost is an instant omen to our family as a whole. You’ve lost the necklace that was supposed to honor this family as one. You don’t understand how bad that is!”

“I didn’t try to, Mother”, Avarei frantically replied, her voice wavier as well. “I’m sorry. Things just got out of hand and”—

“You didn’t try to? I’m pretty sure you played a large part in this. You went to a private marriage ceremony for god’s sake. Your dress is ripped and full of mud, leaves, and water that is most likely dirty. Whatever happened to what you said to me this afternoon, about making sure you would change for the better? You have made an empty promise, and no child of mine makes an empty promise.”

The last sentence struck Avarei the hardest and caused her to feel anger and remorse as well. As far as Avarei was concerned, her mother saying, “no child of mine...” was just her mother’s fancy way of saying that she was taking her words back about Avarei ‘Definitely being her daughter.’

Just that quick, even before the day had passed, everything managed to fall apart.

“The promise was not empty mother. I meant everything I said. I just made a mistake, and I really wish I could take it back.”

“Just made a mistake? Avarei, you don’t know anything! You stand here in front of me and say you wish you could take it back, but I’m sure you would go and do the same thing all over again.”

“What?!” Avarei screamed. “You make it seem as though I did it on purpose, as though I took pleasure out of ruining”—

“And then you have the nerve to scream in my face about it, like you’re running things. That’s your problem Avarei; you think you are in charge, that you make the calls around here. Well, it won’t be like that anymore!”

Avarei covered up her ears and interrupted, in a voice louder than hers, “You’re not listening to me!”

“I’m not listening to you? You haven’t listened to me for years on end, you and your brother, and you say to me that I’m not listening to you?”

Then Avarei began to tune her voice out by screaming, “I’m sorry,” and “This is pointless” over and over again.

Then her mother screamed the words she was least expecting to hear. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

This instantly made Avarei silent. She removed her hands from her hears, opened her mouth and then closed it, and then replied, “What?” her voice was silent and confused.

“I said leave,” her mother answered. “And I meant it. Avarei I’m tired. I do so much for you and I never get anything good in return. I want you to leave now. I don’t care what you do to the dress; you’ve already ruined it. You’re right Avarei; you are an adult.”

“But where am I to go!” Avarei screamed.

All her mother did was lazily shrug her shoulders. For awhile they stared at each other in silence, but this time it didn’t end in an embrace. Angered and confused, Avarei turned sharply, with her head up as though she had no fear in the world, and left out the house.

She didn’t know where she was to go, but at this moment any place was better than here.