from Soldier’s Duty
Chapter 1, Book 3 of Return of the Aghyrians
IZRAMITH OPENED her eyes, flicked back the blankets, rolled off her mattress onto her hands and knees. For a few dazed moments, she sat on the floor, staring into the utter darkness where her hands would be if she could see them.
Something was very, very wrong.
Through the roaring of blood in her ears, she couldn’t hear the sound of weapons fire or explosions. There was no shouting, no one was swearing and rummaging for clothes and gear in the tent. She wasn’t, in fact, in a tent, and there was no supervisor yelling orders. No group of fighters scrambling to get ready and armed for battle.
The soft stuff under her hands and knees was not sand, but the carpet in her bedroom. This was not a military base. She was at home,
