{"id":4685,"date":"2021-08-16T18:55:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T22:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4685"},"modified":"2021-08-16T18:55:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T22:55:06","slug":"twenty-four-02-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4685","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-four – 02"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Matt paused, looking away from Lin and into the forge itself, staring at the embers that glowed faintly.\u00a0 His nephew\u2019s announcement was neither a surprise nor did it make the bottom drop out of his stomach the way he\u2019d expected it might when this day finally came.\u00a0 Instead, he just felt…empty.\u00a0 Empty and a little sad.<\/p>\n

\u201cUncle Matt?\u201d<\/p>\n

He took a deep breath.\u00a0 He must have been silent for too long.\u00a0 Matt bowed his head, shifting the metal in the coals for a second, then finally spoke.\u00a0 \u201cWhen do you think they\u2019ll leave?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re\u2014you\u2019re not going to fight me on this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt sighed and shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cThey warned me that the moment would come someday\u2014and even then, they didn\u2019t have to.\u00a0 There was always going to come a day when you wanted to see well beyond the walls, to learn the truth of the world you were born into.\u00a0 All of us knew that.\u00a0 I was just never sure what the context would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you\u2019re not mad?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said, then sighed.\u00a0 \u201cWorried as hell?\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Yeah, that\u2019s something I am.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t be mad.\u00a0 Do they know about this decision?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lin shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 I really haven\u2019t outright told anyone.\u00a0 Aunt Caro, but she found me out by the graves.\u00a0 We talked.\u00a0 I just\u2014Uncle Matt, there are questions I\u2019ve got that won\u2019t get answered if I don\u2019t go with them and I think they\u2019re going to need me, and not just them.\u201d\u00a0 He wet his lips and stood up, coming to stand next to Matt.\u00a0 \u201c…I think that Mom and Dad are going to need me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt Astoris’s point of view.] Matt paused, looking away from Lin and into the forge itself, staring at the embers that glowed faintly.\u00a0 His nephew\u2019s announcement was neither a surprise nor did it make the bottom … 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":[336,337,374,14],"tags":[340,150,171,170,181,149,148,168,147,165,200,146],"class_list":["post-4685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-24-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-matthew-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-1dz","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4685","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=4685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4686,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4685\/revisions\/4686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}