Read Online The Unspoken: Book One in the Keres Trilogy by A. E. Waller - Free Book Online Page A

air out of my lungs anymore. They could kill me? My own death hadn ’ t occurred to me; being trained to mutilate or kill others certainly crossed my mind and that was disturbing enough. I feel blindsided, tricked somehow.
    Back in my den, I stand in the middle of the sitting area, hands behind my back waiting for Abbot. I don ’ t even change back into my black suit. It ’ s still in a crumpled pile on the floor. It ’ s strange that The Mothers haven ’ t been in to tidy up. They usually start in on a room as soon as you ’ ve left it.
    The other Unspoken are returning from lunch now. I hear their footsteps and voices echoing in the hall. Standing in the center of the den, I clench my hands behind my back and set my feet in a wide stance. Setting my teeth, I tilt my chin in the air and wait. There ’ s a knock on my door and I call, “ It ’ s open, ” in the calmest voice I can muster. Abbot opens the door and steps in. He looks me up and down and shuts the door.
    “ Well, let ’ s have it, ” he says with a sigh.
    “ Could you kill me? ” This is not how I wanted to start.
    “ Absolutely. But not the way you are thinking. ”
    “ With this tattoo, could you kill me? ” I nearly scream yanking down my collar.
    “ No. But you could. ”
    I can feel burning angry tears welling up. Of course I would cry now. Why can ’ t I ever just stay calm?
    “ Sit down, Keres. You are steamrolling through a very complex arrangement and we have skipped a few key educational points. I should have anticipated you would not follow the prescribed training regimen. ”
    “ I ’ d rather stand, ” I say, keeping my feet planted. I have no desire to turn this into a cozy fireside chat, sharing confidences. Abbot shrugs and stretches himself out in one of the overstuffed chairs.
    “ That tattoo has a great deal of power because you have a great deal of power. Probably more than anyone on this hall, ” he begins. “ We, everyone who was left with the black diamond, are marked from birth for this Service. Not by The Mothers or the Pedagogics, but by a series of circumstances that are not in anyone ’ s control, ” he pauses, considering me. He props his left foot up on his right knee, “ Within each of us, there is a certain level of power called intusmagus. In simple terms, it ’ s the ability to control and contort our nervous systems into performing atypical functions. ”
    “ Those are not simple terms, ” I say.
    Abbot curls in his fingers into a fist, leaving his thumb straight out. “ I have a specific thought, ” he says. He puts his thumb over the swirl pattern tattoo on his neck, “ and I tell a group of nerves to act on that thought, ” he traces the outline with his thumb and the ink begins to glow, “ and I perform that thought, ” he flings out his hand, fingers spread wide, shooting light across the room, shattering the timepiece on the desk behind him.
    I sit down. Abbot closes his hand again, drags his thumb over a tattoo on his exposed left ankle and sends a rush of air over his shoulder. The bits of timepiece whirl up and rejoin, the cracks glowing. “ Repair isn ’ t my best. Barely earned that one, ” he says apologetically, “ Doesn ’ t really matter, my role isn ’ t about fixing the things I break. ”
    My mouth is dry. “ How- ” I try to say but the words get stuck in my throat.
    “ That ’ s what your training is for- you will learn how. It starts with understanding the human body as it is normally, for everyone else. Specifically how their nerves receive a signal, send it to the brain to interpret and the brain sends back instructions on how to react.
    “ Then you ’ ll learn how our nervous systems work. You ’ ll learn how to manipulate your thoughts and how to apply those to activate the ink. When the ink is active, it sends a message to a specific nerve group. That group sends a signal reaction to your brain. Your brain then sends the original intentional thought in