Shadows of Divinity by Luke Mitchell

Shadows of Divinity by Luke Mitchell

Author:Luke Mitchell [Mitchell, Luke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Whale Press Books


23

Sunshine and Flowers

The next morning, I gritted my teeth, removed my IV, and pulled myself out of bed. Having officially reached my limit at thirty hours of bed rest, I sidled gingerly out to the hallway to find the others, refusing to be waited on a moment longer.

I headed for the kitchen, figuring I might find them at breakfast, and ran into James halfway there, carrying the tray of bacon and eggs he’d been bringing to me. After only minimal fussing, we adjusted course and joined everyone else in the kitchen, where a choir of relieved smiles and well-wishes greeted me. Even Phineas gave me a stoic little nod, which was more of a greeting than I’d ever merited before.

Maybe the beating I’d taken had earned me an ounce of respect in his eyes. Or maybe it had something to do with Franco having made it clear that Carlisle and I were officially welcome residents of their home, terrorist status or no.

Much as I blessed his name for that, he also made it clear, with a pointed look at Elise as I joined them, that we wouldn’t be discussing business over breakfast. Elise rolled her eyes at the look, but said nothing.

I don’t think talking would have accomplished much anyway without more information. Clearly we needed to stop Vantage, but how? Destroy the facility? What about all the innocent civilians? And what if they’d already built another one, or several? We didn’t know the first thing about what they were truly up to, or how extensive the operation was. Until we did, anything we had to say would be blind speculation.

So we tried with limited success to enjoy a normal breakfast. How are your ribs feeling, Haldin? Cough up any blood lately? What do we do if the Legion comes knocking, asking about our harbored fugitives? You know, normal.

With the aid of the nanites, I did heal remarkably fast over the next couple days. Elise probably deserved a good chunk of the credit too, keeping a smile on my face in the many hours my recovering body proved too exhausted for me to train even with my mind.

I apologized to her for trying to keep quiet about Vantage. She shrugged it off and said it wasn’t like I owed her anything, and that she might have done the same were our situations reversed. She still might’ve been a bit hurt underneath the bravado, and continuing to keep secrets from her ate at me, but I didn’t know what else to do.

Mostly, I trained with my abilities, day in and day out.

In addition to refining my Shaping, Carlisle began instructing me in the basics of guarding my mind. As usual, we started off with Carlisle encouraging me to simply follow my intuition and try to keep him out as he telepathically probed for weaknesses in my defenses.

There were a lot of them.

It didn’t grow any less bizarre or unpleasant with practice, having another sentience break into my mind. Carlisle kept his own mental barriers tight, as he claimed an enemy telepath would when invading.



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