Future Dreams Read Free Page B

air rushed out to meet them from the chattering flame in the fireplace carved into a side wall and the warm spring fed waterfall and pool tucked in the back of the chamber.
    Jame was surprised to see that everything was as she had left it. A shrine to a life that felt like it had been lived by someone else.
    “I bet it feels good to be home.” Argis grinned as she followed Jame into the chamber. “I’m happy to see you.”
    Jame realized that Argis would never understand what it was like to be away from home for so long to pursue something she truly enjoyed. “I missed you, too.”
    Argis’s odd uncertain look softened into one of happiness as she wrapped her arms around Jame and kissed her.
    Jame’s stomach rumbled and spared her the need to remind Argis that they were expected in the dining hall. If she had been ambivalent about her feelings, Argis’s arms around her brought them into acute focus. She knew at that moment the intensity of their romance from two years before had faded. Maybe returning home hadn’t been such a good idea.
     

    “WE UNDERSTAND YOU have to adjust to having your mental enhancements cleansed,” Paldon said.
    Tigh sat on her cot and stared at the piece of parchment in her hand. She listened to her mother’s words and knew that a sheltered merchant could never understand what she felt.
    “She knows we understand.” Joul turned from gazing out the window. “She’s just uncertain about taking this next step. Isn’t that right, Tigh?”
    Tigh looked up at the use of her nickname, a sign of acceptance of her chosen identity. She was too confused and exhausted to argue anymore. “Yeah, that’s it.”
    Paldon knelt in front of Tigh. “We know everything seems hopeless right now. Healer Sihlor said every Guard feels that way when they’re first cleansed. You just have to trust us and take the next step. All you have to do is sign that parchment and let the healers help you to adjust to the cleansing.”
    Paldon’s reasonable voice had always soothed Tigh’s unsettled mind when she was young. She stared at the floor. “Did they ask you to come here?”
    “We received a letter explaining your situation and we offered our help,” Paldon said. “You’re our eldest daughter and our heir. We’ve long gotten past our bitterness against the state for misleading us about what it meant to be a Guard. We only saw it as an opportunity for you to gain some worldly experience.”
    “Besides, they wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Tigh raised sad eyes to her mother. “And the compensation was hard to say no to.”
    “All the Guards’ families were equally compensated,” Paldon said. “It was only right that they paid for your services.”
    “They did pay us for our services,” Tigh said. “Plus the spoils of our conquests.”
    Paldon frowned. “Spoils?”
    “War is not the bright glamorous campaigns depicted in the books you like to read.” Tigh gazed across the room and saw in her mind’s eye bloody battlefields and ransacked cities. “We conquered, then we sacked and took whatever we wanted. We were ruthless without mercy. The Guards were used to spread fear to the next city that thought of resisting our advancing armies. We were never allowed to go near a city or army that had surrendered. We couldn’t be controlled enough to act civilized. So we fought armies in the field and were brought in to suck the life out of cities foolhardy enough to think they could beat us. We weren’t treated like human beings. We were weapons tipped with poison, carefully controlled until pointed at a target. Then we were let loose to create terror and mayhem. That’s what I have to carry around up here.” She tapped her head. “And it’s never going to go away. The best the healers can do is help me live with the memories.” She raised bleak eyes to her parents who looked shaken by her words. “Would you want to pretend to live a normal life with memories like that clawing forever