{"id":3677,"date":"2018-08-01T00:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T04:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3677"},"modified":"2018-07-31T16:58:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T20:58:03","slug":"forty-three-04-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3677","title":{"rendered":"Forty-three – 04"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Leinth appeared in seconds, as if either sensing Seamus\u2019s need or by sheer luck\u2014or perhaps she\u2019d seen me starting to try to carry him down the ladder alone. Her face was pale in the dim light, though not the color of ashes like her lover\u2019s. Her jaw tightened as she reached to help me, wordless until we\u2019d carried him down to the sodden ground below.<\/p>\n

Then, finally: \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe covered us,\u201d I said. \u201cHe decided to play a damned hero and covered us when the arrows started to fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

She winced. \u201cThat sounds like him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m right here,\u201d Seamus murmured, leaning more against Leinth than me. \u201cAnd this isn\u2019t anything that some stitches and a good poultice and shit-ton of rest isn\u2019t going to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leinth\u2019s gaze slid toward me and I saw in her eyes the thought that I knew was reflected in my own\u2014that Seamus was full of shit but both of us could understand why he was trying to downplay the injury. It was something we all did when we thought people should be worrying about something\u2014or someone\u2014else.<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t buying it, not yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more wounded further down,\u201d Leinth said after a few seconds and a dozen feet. Together, we carried Seamus toward the tents, toward the cookfire and shelter from the storm. \u201cNot a lot\u2014seems they concentrated fire around the gate rather than stretching it all the way down. It\u2019s as if they knew where most of the leadership would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something we\u2019ll have to fix,\u201d I murmured, thoughts already racing. \u201cCan\u2019t have them being able to take out our heaviest hitters in one lucky shot.\u201d There will be a next time. There\u2019s always a next time.<\/em><\/p>\n

For a second, I squeezed my eyes shut.<\/p>\n

There would be a next time and there was nothing I could do to prevent that from happening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.] Leinth appeared in seconds, as if either sensing Seamus\u2019s need or by sheer luck\u2014or perhaps she\u2019d seen me starting to try to carry him down the ladder alone. Her face was pale … 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":[240,295,14],"tags":[150,171,170,166,152,149,148,159,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-3677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-43-book-6","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-leinth","tag-marin-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-seamus-vaughan","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-Xj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677","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=3677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3678,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions\/3678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}