The Warmth of Waking Read online

  The Warmth of Waking

  Copyright © 2020 by Quick and Animus, LLC

  All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  Published by Quick and Animus LLC

  ASIN: B088P47DRK

  Contents

  Character Chart

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Message From The Author

  Notes From The Author

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Character Chart

  Those Who Watch

  The Sisters Fate

  Myself

  Kim Yong

  The Respected Deceased

  Counselor Jayden Smoker, Veteran Leader of the Hanged Man conroi

  Thies Krausmann, a recruit

  The Recruits

  Raya Monsalud, a recruit and dream

  Preston Rudio, a recruit and best friend

  Lucy Nyambane, a recruit and friend

  Katy Bishara, a recruit and friend

  Savannah Thoele, a recruit

  Kyle Phister, a recruit

  Todd Howland, a recruit

  Lee Hughes, a recruit

  The Fighting Irish

  Conall Lynch, a recruit and asshole

  The Last Men Standing

  Marcia Moyo, a recruit

  Sandra Haro, a recruit

  Jessica Escalante, a recruit

  Davis Lao, a recruit

  Akram Ayoub, a recruit

  The Dragons

  Maxwell Telano, a recruit

  Mari Kumakubo, a recruit

  Angela Kendhammer, a recruit

  Rahul Shiravadakar, a recruit

  Alejandro Baptista, a recruit

  Other Recruits

  Riley Wilson, a recruit

  Mario Bombara, a recruit

  Souraya Noon, a recruit

  Loysa Yoron, a recruit

  Sarama Sirasikar, a recruit

  Enzo Simon, a recruit

  Alex Mecklenburg, a recruit

  Emma Lie, a recruit

  The Legionnaires

  High Priestess Jada Monción, Council of the Legion

  Andressa Acevedo, the Fool, Council of the Legion

  Master Bringer Diane Pantheras, Veteran Leader of Death Conroi

  Justice Shelly Hin, a Guardian

  Justice Carson Bossett, a Guardian

  Dr. Esther Lawley, the Lovers conroi

  Dr. Imogen Ridding, the Lovers conroi

  Builder Erskine McKinley, a Guardian, the Tower conroi

  Builder Wesley Valance, a Guardian, the Tower conroi

  Mage Lena Fras, a Guardian, the Magicians conroi

  Andreas Skjoldebrand, a Guardian, the Hermit conroi

  Ember Stocke, Veteran Leader of the Four of Wands

  Prologue

  2304 Citadel Time

  June 20, 2020

  When I first see her, she is being hit on by a man of medium build.

  He has the persona that I hate. Overly confident. Arrogant. Attention seeking. There is a certain inherent expectation with these types of people. This is simply who they are, and those of us who are not like them should choose to be unbothered. An attitude often championed by my father.

  Still, we are all strangers in the strangest place, struggling to adapt to a forced military training — it is not the time for this behavior.

  I admit, I fall a little in love with her the moment I see her. More, though, it is her body language that speaks to me. The defensive crossed arms. The tilt of her body, leaning away. The small steps of retreat backward as he comes too near to her time and again. I hear her voice. She is treating him with courtesy of words, with a quality of respect that he will never have towards her. I find her attitude honorable. At the same time, with everything that she is displaying, she is asking for him to step away.

  In my own life, I tend to be formal, polite even, due to my upbringing. It is a hard-earned skill, this ability to hide my emotions. I put it to use, then, ignoring a hatred born of experience with the vainglorious. Fitting a polite, quizzical mask on my face, I step in just as he asks her to be in a team with him.

  I touch her, gentle, placing tentative pressure on the shoulder to alert her to my presence. In the brief glance she gives me, there is a myriad of emotion. Unease and reservation, even relief. Curiosity and doubt as she scans me over. I read it in the tension around her eyes, the tight line of her rosebud mouth. She is beautiful, spectacular even, and I can’t help but be taken in for a moment.

  “Is everything all right?” I ask her, shaking free of the wonder which has dazed me.

  “Everything’s fine, mate. Just speaking to my teammate here.” He answers for her, as I knew he would.

  I turn to him, standing taller. It is enough for him to be intimidated. I see it in the tilt of his head, the rounding of his shoulders.

  “That’s interesting. I don’t recall you being on my team.”

  The comment throws them in that moment, but she is quick to recover. “This is my team leader,” she says. “I’m sorry . . . Conall, was it? I know that you asked me to be on your team, but I’m already committed.”

  “I see.” The other man is disappointed but more aggravated at the interruption. At the denial of something he has decided he wants. I observe these emotions moving through his eyes as he assesses me. I see the very moment when he determines not to allow it to stand.

  I touch her gently again, this goddess who I do not know. A soft, reassuring squeeze.

  “Shall we?”

  She smiles an apology to the dark-haired man as we set off.

  A friendly face from my housing is standing in the corner of the cityscape hallway, flashing me a thumbs-up. I steer her over to him.

  “Who is this?” she asks.

  I’m not sure, but an answer comes to my lips as I improvise. “He is in my barracks. A friend.”

  The man takes her hand without it being offered. It is a move born of good-nature. She has far fewer compunctions about his proximity than Conall’s, who still lurks a few yards off, watching.

  “I’m Preston. Most people call me Rudio.”

  She smiles at him and it is true, a warmth evident that was not on
display moments before. I begin to see the barest outliers of who she is, having hidden behind formality when necessary. I wonder if she is unafraid to be who she truly is around friends. Still, the smile itself is compelling to me, like the first bite of a sweet, crisp apple in the morning.

  Like winning the lottery for the second time in a day.

  “Raya . . . Monsalud, if we’re doing last names.”

  “And I am Yong. Kim Yong.” I smile as graciously as I can, and she returns it, thanking me for my intervention. Raya explains she had been trying to extricate herself from the man for several minutes.

  We exchange basic information, and then begin to speak freely about the Legion. The absurdity of being able to perform magic. What the thrill of learning it will be like. How much it has already changed our lives.

  It is sour luck that strikes not a day later, placing Conall on our team by decision of the High Priestess. I make the best of it, anyway.

  And in the first month of our service to the Legion, through the trials and tribulations that bring us closer to being battle ready, I grow to adore Raya. She is wrapped so deeply in layers of thickened suspicion that it is truly challenging to see the person behind the shield. But she is there. Waiting. Wholly wonderful. I see it in the quiet moments. I see it in the gentle love for life that she exudes. And I am falling in love.

  It isn’t until a month later that she tells me she is not just a pleasant fiction, that the idea of us is not beyond belief but perhaps only a matter of time, and time spent. That I can dare to hope. That those dreams could become reality.

  It is then that Conall makes his move.

  1

  1807 Citadel Time

  July 23, 2020

  They say she was thrown from the walls of the fortress. It wasn’t the height that killed her but the arrow that accompanied her down, one that pierced her heart.

  The message that she carried never found a home, and the Legion was beaten back from the walls, their goal lost. A goal. I’m not even sure what the point of the war is. We’re not far enough in training yet to understand it.

  I hear murmurs from the older Legion members. The color of the arrows, the marking. It was one of the Merim. Retribution for the death of one of their own.

  I stand perpendicular to her coffin. She was one of the Legionnaires from Hanged Man. Their leader, even. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone of that rank could find themselves dead. From the expressions on the Legionnaires wear, the events of the last Raid didn’t occur to anyone as a possibility.

  Behind me, the gentle warmth of Raya shifts against me. She’s cocked one of her hips. I’m intimately aware of her. The scent of her is all soft leather and lavender. Just her presence gives me a courage I would not have found otherwise as I speak. Not for the woman in front of me but for the coffin on the other side of her. The one that is for Thies Krausmann.

  I tell a small story about the man that I knew for only a brief time. He was the best of us, the closest example to a true leader that I have seen from the recruits. The tale I tell is about the time he carried me.

  We were running hills in the rocks of the Sword Arena. I was at my limit. Bleeding. Exhausted. I fell.

  I see the recollection gather in the faces around me, the elder Legionnaires smile in wry memory, the recruits grimace with the fresh unpleasantry. I feel Emma Lie's eyes on me.

  I tell the story to her. About how Thies, after having completed the course, ran back along the trail, lending aid and encouragement. How he picked me up and made sure I finished.

  Tears do not touch Emma’s face, held in check against the moment. The shaved side of her head stands in odd contrast. She was absent during the Raid. Gone, they say, to find Thies and save her friends. Something to do with the green goop that had lingered in the last month. She is broken. Angry. It is plain to see. Still, there is an accompanying nod as I finish, showing her gratefulness to me. Her hand is still clenched as if holding the sword she was given. Its deadly, pulsing blade was covered over by a simple black sheath and taken away by Legionnaires of the Star.

  I think about the Iron Gate and how, as we passed, no one shouted up. How we as recruits have already flouted the traditions of the Legion. Looking at the coffin Thies should lie in, I wonder if it is right. I wonder if the rules are changing around us.

  The High Priestess stands, her pristine snowy armor gone. I recall the look of it as she shot arrow after arrow at the Merim. The emotion still rides high within her. Her eyes glow with the magic of it like lit cigarettes, though the strands of power roping away have gone. Under the crimson tint, there is a resigned look, haunted even. Her words acknowledge my contribution.

  “Thank you, Kim Yong.”

  On the other side of Raya, Conall hides a smirk under a crude wipe at his brow. He is the reason that I was bleeding that day. I feel the tiny flicker of hatred edging larger, harder to control. His eyes meet mine, the beautiful girl between us oblivious. It will not be the only time one of us bleeds. We know there is no backing down from this fight.

  My time to speak is finished, and so I look away from my enemy, paste a polite smile on my face, and taking a small half step backwards, leave the spotlight. Raya squeezes my hand, and my heart stutters. The warmth of her lingers on my skin.

  The next to speak is a tall, thin man with curly brown locks. In grave tones, he begins a somber regaling of Counselor Jayden Smoker, his friend and team leader. Rudio claps me congenially on the back from behind, any traces of his habitual cynicism gone. “Good job,” he mouths.

  I nod at my best friend, silent in the moment out of respect. It is a funeral. And though the Well has taken his body, we are burying one of our own.

  2

  0550 Citadel Time

  July 25, 2020

  I bolt upright, my heart pounding in my temples, a dark snarl crawling from my throat. It’s a sound I don’t recognize, and it sets my neck to itching. I thrash about, fighting for my life.

  The nightmare creature I held with desperately clenched hands?

  It’s only a comforter of commonplace hotel white. The squawking, only moments ago a horror risen from the icy waters of the fjord, is just my karte, chirping the wake-up call. I find the edge of the bed and rub my face. My hands are rough and have become toughened by the Legion training. Yesterday, these hands held only a thick wooden quarterstaff between creatures in the Well and my life, but the dream had been real for the briefest of moments, filled with absolute surety.

  I was going to die, shredded by sharks’ teeth.

  There in my recruit dorm, the hard truth hits me like a hammer blow. In the dream, I was dying, but Thies Krausmann is really dead.

  I felt it again in the dream, that terrible power that came and snuffed Thies out and left Emma a broken shell. Still unsure, I stretch out my senses, searching for the magic around me. All I can feel is the ever-present magical hum that comes from the Well.

  It's a couple of minutes before I catch my cool. The alarm comes early for us. It’s graduation day, or at least one of them. I look at the time displayed on the karte in bright, glowing magical numbers.

  The nightmare has eaten a bit of my precious time. If I don't hurry, I'll be late. I launch myself out of the room and move for the showers with an instinct born of the working class.

  Swords Barrack is quiet in the morning air – what passes for it. We’re never really sure of the time of day. Soft, believable gray light filters in from the simulated windows to compensate for the darkness of the Ninth Level.

  I’m on the first floor of the barracks, a two-story building housing all the recruits in the Swords section. We’ve come to know the Citadel well over the intervening month. Although much is still off-limits for us, the Levels we travail are familiar, homelike even. In front of the barracks lies a long, clean courtyard of marble. Pillows and low, plushy couches are piled around small, smoking braziers, coated in pools of fiery-orange light. No matter when I see them, they are lit. While it’s much different th
an the décor of the other barracks, I’m happy to belong to Swords. Pentacles is a garden, complete with grapevines and fountains that must be a terror to navigate in the night. Cups is a long, sandy stretch surrounded by tents. I've seen those recruits emptying the sand from their slippers.

  I spot Lucy Nyambane rising from one of the couches, already awake for hours. She gives me a lazy wave, the darkness of her skin gleaming in the light, yawns with a broad flash of teeth as she starts towards her room. Most everyone has acclimated to the shift in time zone already, either through exhaustion or capitulation, but she hails from Kenya and never seems to sleep.

  The couches are a minor obstacle as I pick my way through to the bathroom opposite the barracks.

  Usually, I am the first to arrive. This morning, from the ladies' side of the barracks, there’s a soft sound of running water when I enter. I wonder who is up already. My thoughts run to Emma, where she is, and how she must be feeling. It wouldn’t be likely that she would be in Swords Barracks shower, but my first impulse is to check. I bite it back. I don’t know her that well, and it certainly isn’t my place to barge into the ladies’ room. No doubt someone is taking care of her. With another glance at my karte, I carry on with my morning ritual, moving a touch faster to keep the pace I know I need to.