{"id":4709,"date":"2021-09-27T09:52:41","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T13:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4709"},"modified":"2021-09-27T09:52:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T13:52:41","slug":"twenty-five-02-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=4709","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-five – 02"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Thunder growled in the distance and Thordin winced, staring into his mug.\u00a0 \u201cLonger and stronger,\u201d he muttered again.\u00a0 Hecate sighed, scrubbing a hand over her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe storm?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of things,\u201d Thordin grumbled, then shook his head hard and sighed.\u00a0 \u201cSorry.\u00a0 I should wait for Matt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless you want to repeat yourself,\u201d Hecate said, her gaze straying toward the door for a few seconds.\u00a0 \u201cWhere\u2019s Sif?<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said something about having a word with Neve. \u00a0I didn\u2019t ask what it was about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMm,\u201d Hecate frowned.\u00a0 I wonder what that\u2019s about.\u00a0 Maybe what we all suspect is happening\u2014hell.\u00a0 What we <\/em>know is happening and we\u2019ve pretended for years never would.<\/em>\u00a0 \u201cAre we prepared for this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor our children to make their own choices,\u201d Hecate said, smiling wryly over her shoulder at him.\u00a0 \u201cYou know what comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I?\u201d\u00a0 Thordin took a long swallow of tea, making a face that suggested that he wished it was something stronger as much as she did.\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019t know anything for sure, Hecate.\u00a0 All we know is that the camazotzi<\/em> are back, that something\u2019s stirring, and that those kids\u2014I mean our visitors, because none of us can delude ourselves into thinking they\u2019re any more than children themselves\u2014are on some kind of quest that they might not even understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, they understand the quest itself,\u201d Hecate said softly.\u00a0 \u201cThey just don\u2019t understand what it means\u2014for them or the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I didn\u2019t suspect,\u201d Hecate admitted.\u00a0 \u201cI wish it wasn\u2019t something that I feel like Marin warned me about long ago\u2014something that was eventually going to happen whether we liked it or not.\u201d\u00a0 A sigh escaped her.\u00a0 \u201cThordin, we knew a long, long time ago that there are cycles to this world.\u00a0 We knew that another conflagration would come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you think that this is that?\u00a0 The next war, the next convulsion of the world?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t that two decades ago, then I imagine it\u2019s that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He closed his eyes, tilting his head back.\u00a0 \u201cYou might be right.\u00a0 But if that\u2019s the case, then maybe this one leads to the better, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly if we help them succeed.\u201d\u00a0 Her fingers tightened around her mug as she crossed her arms.\u00a0 \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know that we\u2019ll have an easy time figuring out how to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we will,\u201d he murmured.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll try,\u201d she agreed.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll certainly try.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.] Thunder growled in the distance and Thordin winced, staring into his mug.\u00a0 \u201cLonger and stronger,\u201d he muttered again.\u00a0 Hecate sighed, scrubbing a hand over her eyes. \u201cThe storm?\u201d \u201cA lot of things,\u201d … 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":[336,337,375,14],"tags":[340,150,171,170,194,149,148,168,147,165,169,146],"class_list":["post-4709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambrose-cycle","category-book-8","category-chapter-25-book-8","category-story","tag-ambrose-cycle","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-hecate","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-thordin","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-1dX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709","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=4709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4710,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709\/revisions\/4710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}