Word and Breath Read Free

especially after the adrenalin of being mugged and then rescued by him.
     
    Not Riana.

    It was a good thing his instincts had told him not to push too hard or come on too strong. He would have spooked her for sure. He would have to be a lot more subtle and think through strategies to draw her to him.
     
    To his surprise, he was almost looking forward to the challenge. Not just because it wasn’t easy. But also because he would get closer to Riana and her spicy, untouched spirit. She felt—tasted—new in almost every way. He couldn’t wait to see her again.

    He was a Soul-Breather by genetic makeup. He was one of the Union’s covert agents by trade. He was good at his position, and he made a lot of money doing it. He had power by nature and more power given to him by the government.
     
    But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked forward to a job.
    ***
    The next morning, Smyde gave the entire Office of Readers a lecture on being careful and not making mistakes like Riana had the previous day.
     
    Readers—like all other government employees—weren’t trusted implicitly by the Union. Their work was randomly checked to make sure nothing slipped by them. Most Union officials couldn’t read so they relied heavily on Readers to keep track of subversive information in covert circulation. The Front, the most organized of the underground movements in the country, had been disguising messages in written texts for four years, following the example of other anti-government groups in earlier decades.

    Looking for suspicious messages was top priority for a Reader. Everything else—collecting valuable information from the past, archiving fragments of literary art, sorting through documentation from the Union’s early history—all fell second to tracking down possible threats.

    Riana tried not to cringe as Smyde used her “error” as an example for her colleagues on what they should never do. After five minutes of humiliating her, Smyde finally moved into a more general rant. “The Union counts on us. Every employee has a role to perform in protecting its sanctity and security. Our job as Readers is vitally important. We have this maniac calling himself the Librarian …” He made a face as if he tasted something foul. “Using written language to stir up discord and raise rebellion. Plus, the Front isn’t the only threat the Union is facing.”

    Riana knew this to be true. The Front was the most powerful and the most influential, but there were other underground movements forming every day. Some, like the Front, challenged Union values by espousing free thinking and personal liberties. It was ironically fitting that the leader of the group—whether real or mythical—called himself the Librarian, since the movement upheld the archaic ideals of a world when libraries had existed.
     
    Other groups held up the other side of the equation, objecting to Union compromises and demanding a more absolute commitment to traditional Union values—to the point of being scarily extreme. These fanatics were popularly called Zealots. In Riana’s mind, the latter groups were more dangerous than the former.

    She was Reader, though, and reading was one of the things Zealots wanted to do away with completely. She was probably rather biased on that particular issue.

    “I will not allow any slack in my office to damage the Union. Remember that.” Smyde waved an arm toward Riana to remind everyone that she was the loser who had brought this lecture down on all of them. “Next time I find an error like this, someone will be penalized for it. Now get back to work.”

    As they all returned to their cubicles in the huge cheerless office, Riana looked discreetly over to Jenson Talon, who was walking back to his cluttered desk. He was a quiet man in his thirties who generally minded his own business. She liked him fairly well and had always assumed he felt the same, but she never would have expected him to step up in her