{"id":4435,"date":"2020-10-02T10:52:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T14:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4435"},"modified":"2020-10-02T10:52:59","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T14:52:59","slug":"twelve-03-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4435","title":{"rendered":"Twelve – 03"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

She tried not to look inside the cottage\u2014she didn\u2019t want to see the man that Phelan had said was his nephew, didn\u2019t want to see or know more.\u00a0 The shock of what she\u2019d overheard in their discussion with her father was enough\u2014more than enough.<\/p>\n

Who the hell do they think they are, looking for a mythical king that may or may not actually be something that ever existed\u2014or exists today?<\/em><\/p>\n

Lin was staring at her, though, with that look of knowing<\/em> that she sometimes hated more than anything\u2014right now was one of those times.\u00a0 It was all she could do not to snarl at him in front of strangers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you can handle this from here, Lin,\u201d she said stiffly, then stepped away from the door.<\/p>\n

Let this be a freaking lesson, Kailey,<\/em> she thought as she resolutely walked away, not entirely knowing where she was going to end up as long as it was not<\/em> where she\u2019d been standing a minute ago.\u00a0 Don\u2019t go looking for answers you don\u2019t want to know the answers to.<\/em><\/p>\n

The answers always seemed to catch up with her somehow, though, no matter how much she tried to avoid them.<\/p>\n

After a few minutes of walking without seeing, without thinking<\/em>, she found herself at the edge of the wards, staring out over the ravine and the old bridge across it.\u00a0 There was still blood on the cracked pavement between the edge of the wards and the bridge\u2014Lin\u2019s blood, she realized, and darker splotches that must have come from whatever attacked him.\u00a0 There was a spot in the grass with a scorch mark.\u00a0 Her stomach lurched, bile rising in her throat.<\/p>\n

Why now?\u00a0 Why us?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sucking in a few breaths and trying not to give in to her churning stomach, she glanced back toward the village proper.\u00a0 Tears started to sting in her eyes.<\/p>\n

What if it\u2019s all true?\u00a0 What would that mean?<\/em><\/p>\n

Why didn\u2019t they tell us?\u00a0 What else don\u2019t we know?<\/em><\/p>\n

Why?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Kailey Astoris’s point of view.] She tried not to look inside the cottage\u2014she didn\u2019t want to see the man that Phelan had said was his nephew, didn\u2019t want to see or know more.\u00a0 The shock of … 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":[336,337,356,14],"tags":[340,150,171,170,345,350,149,148,168,147,165,200,146],"class_list":["post-4435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-12-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-kailey-astoris","tag-knights-errant","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-19x","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4435","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=4435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4436,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4435\/revisions\/4436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}