{"id":4517,"date":"2021-01-18T19:02:38","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T00:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4517"},"modified":"2021-01-18T19:02:38","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T00:02:38","slug":"sixteen-01-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4517","title":{"rendered":"Sixteen – 01"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

It wasn\u2019t yet dawn, the village still quiet.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t sure how long he\u2019d been sitting outside the door of their guest cottage, his back pressed against the painted wood.\u00a0 Bryant\u2019s gaze remained unfocused as he stared blankly out into the unfamiliar darkness, unable to sleep.\u00a0 Behind him, the cottage was dark, his friends long since gone to sleep\u2014or so he hoped.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t have surprised him at all if Issy was laying awake, or worse, curled in a chair next to David\u2019s bed.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d hoped making it to relative safety would mean that his friend slept.\u00a0 He was starting to suspect that it was a vain hope.<\/p>\n

Nice of me to hope she\u2019d sleep, though, when I can\u2019t even find rest myself.<\/em><\/p>\n

He suppressed the urge to shake his head at himself there in the darkness.\u00a0 He\u2019d barely seen a hint of movement since coming out here.\u00a0 It was, he guessed, maybe an hour or so before dawn.\u00a0 Torches flickered out closer to the gates and the wall, though the sentries on duty were as silent as a tomb. \u00a0Even the wind had died away, leaving trees still in the night air.\u00a0 Even as peaceful as it was, something had him on edge\u2014and that something had nothing to do with the fact that they were among strangers.<\/p>\n

They did seem to believe us, though.\u00a0 That must account for something.<\/em>\u00a0 Bryant closed his eyes, tilting his head back.\u00a0 I wonder if any of them thought this day would come eventually.\u00a0 Maybe the Taleisin did.<\/em>\u00a0 That part wouldn\u2019t have surprised him.\u00a0 The stories that Aoife had told\u2014the stories that Gray had remembered and repeated time and again\u2014suggested a much deeper history and deeper meaning.\u00a0 While he wasn\u2019t sure exactly how much he believed them, he believed in the conviction behind the words.<\/p>\n

And he believed in the prophecy embedded in those tales, just like they all did.\u00a0 It was what had set them on this road into the unknown in the first place, hoping that they\u2019d find the key to a promised better tomorrow.<\/p>\n

He just hoped they were right about all of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Bryant Tapping’s point of view.] It wasn\u2019t yet dawn, the village still quiet.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t sure how long he\u2019d been sitting outside the door of their guest cottage, his back pressed against the painted wood.\u00a0 Bryant\u2019s … 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":[336,337,365,14],"tags":[340,150,358,171,170,350,149,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-4517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-16-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-bryant-tapping","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-knights-errant","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-1aR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517","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=4517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4518,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517\/revisions\/4518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}