Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

them was going to complain. It was the largest structure in what amounted to an abandoned neighborhood, functionally sequestering them from the rest of the town and the army. This, combined with a large basement beneath the house, made it the ideal location for Milo’s training to continue.

True to form, Ambrose had begun to take stock of what could be done in regards to preparing something to eat. Imrah had scuttled to the basement to make “preparations,” leaving Milo with his reading. He couldn’t bring himself to fish out the codices just yet.

“Is that rhetorical?” Ambrose called from the other room.

“Yes,” Milo shouted back irritably, but then thought better of it. “Well, maybe. Do you have something useful to share?”

Ambrose peeked around the doorway.

“That will depend very much on what is vexing you, my good wizard,” Ambrose replied with a look of serious concern. “What doesn’t make any sense?”

“What Lokkemand said, obviously,” Milo snapped, pausing in his pacing to give the bodyguard a dirty look. “I understand he’s a drunk, but what business is he rambling about, blaming me for Jorge’s decision to have him work alongside some rebels in the army?”

“Seems fairly simple,” Ambrose said, ducking back into the kitchen, where he raised his voice to be heard. “You’re the only wizard ever, so you need time to learn, and Jorge is going to give you that time no matter what it takes.”

“How does working with that kind of people buy us time?” Milo demanded.

“Because conspiracies, even unmagical ones, work much harder at isolating enemies and potential enemies than they do friends,” Ambrose called back. “Exposing Nicht-KAT exposes them, and Jorge knows that.”

Milo supposed it made a kind of sense, but the idea of Lokkemand blaming him for the loss of his soul caught and tore at Milo’s psyche on multiple levels.

“You seem to know an awful lot about this cloak and dagger business,” Milo growled, knowing he sounded petulant and not caring at the moment. “If you were the witch, things would be going a lot smoother, I bet.”

“But I’m not,” Ambrose hollered. “Now, stop whining about being the chosen one and do your homework!”

Milo tried and failed to keep the smile off his face as he grudgingly surrendered and snatched up his bag.

He drew out the codices, and the smile faded from his face. Only hours ago, he’d been aching to dive back into his studies, but now the sheaves of parchment felt like lead in his hands. Search as he might within himself, he couldn’t find that hungry spark, that longing to know. The longer he stared at the codices, the more he felt a fathomless ennui crawling up his body. It wasn’t just that he was distracted by what the captain had said, but he actually didn’t want to read them, and the thought of doing so sapped him.

What was wrong with him? What had changed?

After staring at them for a while longer, Milo realized the truth.

Ambrose was not only right that he was whining, but he’d been leading him to a point, intentional or otherwise. Milo realized he was fixated on what Lokkemand had said because for the first time, responsibility was settling over him, and he hated how it felt. Milo hated the idea of Jorge hanging everything on him, even Lokkemand’s conscience and stability. He hated thinking that if he didn’t learn things quick enough, didn’t master magic of some kind in time, everything would come apart. The work and lives of so many hung on Nicht-KAT, and if he acknowledged that, he could take it a trembling step farther and remember why Jorge was betting so much on him; the War. Colonel Jorge had bet on Milo being the one who could end it, which if true, meant every misstep or failure meant the War lasted longer and more people died needlessly.

Like a mountain was settling on his shoulders, Milo sank to the floor, still clutching the codices.

“How am I going to do this?” he gasped, his eyes staring through pages of parchment at a yawning gulf threatening to open before him and swallow him.

“Simple,” Ambrose called, still shouting in a jocular tone from the kitchen. “You open to the first page and read. Once you get to the end of that one, turn the page and read the next.”

Milo lifted Awakening Moro, and the effort felt like lifting a bucket of cement.

“Far as I know,” Ambrose chuckled, mostly to himself, “all any of us can do is the next thing, right?”

“The next thing,” Milo whispered to himself, staring at the spidery script.

Maybe Ambrose, however unwittingly, was right.

Milo couldn’t end the War, couldn’t save Nicht-KAT, couldn’t even rescue Captain Lokkemand from his conscience. What he could do right now was read. Read and study, then maybe eat whatever Ambrose was concocting before Imrah emerged to lead him through another lesson. That was what was in front of him. That was what was next.

Right where he’d crumpled to the floor, Milo settled into a more comfortable position and began reading Awakening Moro, not even looking up to see Ambrose peeking from the kitchen to smile at him.

“Wake up.”

Milo started with a sharp intake of breath and looked up into darkness. He had a vague impression of someone standing over him, but little else. He felt the stone floor underneath, and his joints gave a small series of crackles as he sat up.

“What’s going on?”

He remembered eating with Ambrose and then going back to finish Awakening Moro. He’d wrapped up the abridged text, his head swimming with concepts of alchemical combination and necromantic catalyzation as he scooped up the next codex. He must have fallen asleep very early into Spectral Ruminations: A Guide to Shades and Their Permutations because he remembered next to nothing about the text.

“Imrah?” he asked and then gave a long yawn. “Is that you?”

“It’s time for lessons to resume.” The voice confirmed his suspicion. “My preparations are complete, and it is time we begin in earnest.”

“Earnest?” Milo