{"id":4353,"date":"2020-07-03T18:47:31","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T22:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4353"},"modified":"2020-07-03T18:47:31","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T22:47:31","slug":"eight-04-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4353","title":{"rendered":"Eight – 04"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\u201cFine.\u201d The word came as an exhaled breath. \u201cFine, dammit, fine<\/em>. There are riders coming cross-country. I saw them from the orchard. They\u2019re armed. They might be scouts, they might be something else, we don\u2019t know. Dad\u2019s getting everyone ready for a fight and he wants you<\/em> below where you\u2019ll be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

My heart started to hammer. \u201cWhat about you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me to find him after I\u2019d gotten you somewhere safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then why the hell is he sending <\/em>me into hiding?<\/em> Even as the thought crossed my mind, though, I already knew the answer\u2014I was hurt and needed to be protected. But how many times had my parents gone to the battle lines hurt? I knew from their journals that it had happened dozens of times. Each of them had worried every single time, but they\u2019d still done it.<\/p>\n

It was what they had to do. What they were <\/em>supposed to do.<\/em><\/p>\n

I swallowed, standing up. I pulled on a clean shirt over the bandages, then a pair of pants and socks. Kailey watched me, chewing on her lip. Outside, the clamor of the village preparing for a potential attack hadn\u2019t abated at all. I wondered how close they\u2019d gotten, or if they were still where Kailey had spotted them.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long was it since you saw them?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

She frowned. \u201cI don\u2019t know. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Why?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust curious,\u201d I said. That\u2019s about the time I woke up.<\/em><\/p>\n

Everything\u2019s connected.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Everything.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Thomas Merlin Ambrose’s point of view.] \u201cFine.\u201d The word came as an exhaled breath. \u201cFine, dammit, fine. There are riders coming cross-country. I saw them from the orchard. They\u2019re armed. They might be scouts, they might … 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":[336,337,351],"tags":[340,150,171,170,345,149,148,168,147,165,200,146],"class_list":["post-4353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-08-book-8","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-kailey-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-thomas-merlin-ambrose","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-18d","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4353","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=4353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4354,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4353\/revisions\/4354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}