{"id":3039,"date":"2016-11-11T00:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T05:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3039"},"modified":"2016-11-10T22:24:33","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T03:24:33","slug":"forty-four-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3039","title":{"rendered":"Forty-four – 03"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

I met his gaze with a long, hard look and he drew a rasping breath as he finally managed to straighten, leaning back against the wall and staring at me with those fever-bright eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Phelan looking at him nervously, gaze flicking between Cariocecus and I with no small measure of trepeditation written all over his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen tell me,\u201d I said, my voice soft. \u201cAnd don\u2019t hold back. Not this time. If you\u2019re right, now isn\u2019t the time to be withholding anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d he said softly, closing his eyes for a moment.<\/p>\n

Phelan stood slowly and I looked at him sharply, grimacing at how pale his face was.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhelan\u2014\u201d I began. He shook his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m all right,\u201d he said. He was lying through his teeth and both of us knew it\u2014his cousin did, too, but she kept silent, just staring at me. He moved slowly toward me, stopping to stand by my side, wavering on his feet but there with me in case I needed him.<\/p>\n

I barely stopped myself from shaking my head at his perhaps misguided nobility.<\/p>\n

Cariocecus cleared his throat.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not one of them,\u201d he said. \u201cNot really.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of what?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of Olympium\u2019s get,\u201d Cariocecus said softly. \u201cThey took her when they obliterated the Otherland she came from. They thought she might be useful to them.\u201d He paused, glancing down. \u201cI suppose they were right, weren\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n

Phelan put a hand on my arm and squeezed gently. I took a deep breath, glancing at him and then back at Cariocecus.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep going,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

He nodded slightly. \u201cThey gave her to a man named Aietes\u2014one of the lesser among them, but just the right mix of smart and cruel to do the job of breaking her to their will. They married her off to him when she was barely old enough to know that that really meant and the work began.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere weren\u2019t many survivors of her Otherworld to begin with, to be honest, but I\u2019m pretty sure she watched most of the others of them either be killed or suffer the same fate she did\u2014broken to the will of Olympium or another Otherworld. I can\u2019t even imagine what that must have done to her psyche. I know what it would do to mine.\u201d He took a deep breath, leaning his head back against the wall and staring at the ceiling instead of me. \u201cShe\u2019s a broken thing,\u201d he said, his voice as close to sad as I\u2019d ever heard it. \u201cShe\u2019s hardly responsible for more than half the shit she\u2019s done. Some of us knew that. Some of us tried, ones from the outside looking in. That was part of the reason why I took her, Seer. That was why I came and pulled her away that day she launched her attack.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.] I met his gaze with a long, hard look and he drew a rasping breath as he finally managed to straighten, leaning back against the wall and staring at me with those … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,233,14],"tags":[150,226,171,170,152,151,149,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-3039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-5","category-chapter-44","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-cariocecus","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-marin-astoris","tag-neve-vaughan","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-N1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}