Christian J Gilliland [Gilliland - Resurgence

RESURGENCE

Book Three of THE BLACK KNIGH T Series

Written by Christian J. Gilliland

2019 Mountaindale Press. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by US copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

For my girls. Brielle, Penelope, and Everly

Everything I do, I do for you.

For Michael, Chris, Shannon, Pete, Scott, Justin, Isaac, Rico, Neal, Kenny, Jason, Jeff, Ashley, and Reggie. Thank you for your support, encouragement, and overall belief in the simple idea that I can be something much more. It has been a huge driving force in my completion of this trilogy. Someone may need to read this for Shannon

For Dakota and Danielle. Thanks, is all I can say.

For Nick, Jay, and Ezben. Thank you for all your work.

For Mom.

Chapter One

Crinnan XVIII

23rd of Ramlia - 346AG

00:30 - Pado Village

He opened his eyes and gasped. The air surrounding him was filled with smoke, and the flickering light from the fires around him cast dancing shadows on the faces hovering above his own. As his vision became clear, he snarled at what he saw. Crinnan thrust his hand outward and snatched the collar of President Cade, the one whose actions had put him in that position in the first place.

"Crinnan," Cade did not struggle or try to free himself from Crinnan's grasp, "Crinnan, do not worry, you are okay. Everything is fine."

"What is going on?" Crinnan demanded weakly. He tried to lift his head but found that he was much too disoriented. His head fell back again, and he groaned, "Why are you here?"

His body felt weak, very much like it had when he had woken up that morning. His thoughts took him back to when he had found himself in Sage's home. He thought of the white room, of the catheter he remembered the smell of bacon and the explosions as the Govian soldiers tried to capture him. His head spun at all the sudden thought, and it took all his energy to force himself to sit up and look around.

Crinnan noted that the sensation he was experiencing was different than the one he had that morning. Unlike earlier, he did not feel like his body had just rolled out of a fire. His temperature felt normal, and although he was experiencing some disorientation, he did not feel like his senses were going haywire. Everything felt normal.

"Crinnan you need to relax," Cade reached behind him and pressed his hand against his back for support, "You are probably feeling..."

"Stop," Crinnan held out a hand and shook his head. His words were weak, and his body was still unstable, "I am sick of these stupid explanations. Just tell me why you are here!"

He pushed his body up off the ground in an attempt to stand, but he quickly lost his balance and fell to his side. Dust flew up into his face, and he coughed and let out a low grumble. Cade reached out and took hold of him. He gently helped Crinnan sit back up, and shook his head in pity as he did so.

"You are fine now," Cade reassured him as he returned his gloved hand to Crinnan's back, "Do not try to rush things, you need to let your body catch up with you."

It took all of what little strength he had for Crinnan to restrain himself from throwing Cade to the ground and bashing his face in. He glared up at the president from behind the mess of hair that hung in his eyes and let out a low snarl. He didn't like how Cade was babying him; it felt weird. He greatly wished that he could throw a punch...

As he realized that he wasn't going to get anywhere anytime soon, Crinnan looked down at his thighs and continued to breathe. He thought about where he was and remembered the bullets that tore through his body. For a moment, he relived the entire incident. He thought of the Govian that shot him, of the faces of everyone around him, as he thought about it all; however, something extraordinary happened.

A terrible almost electric feeling pain shot through his chest and visions suddenly flashed through his mind. He saw faces, images of beings whose names he could recite even though he could not remember ever meeting them. "Ander DeMaario... Auroch" He heard cries of pain and desperate pleas for mercy; he felt fear, love, and rage. More than anything though, he kept getting lost in the deep blue-green eyes of a pale-skinned female half-blood. The eyes gazed at him intensely, maybe even longingly as the dark world blazed behind them. He knew whose they were, and the knowledge of it made his heart feel like it wanted to jump from his chest.

"Milinka..." Crinnan found himself reciting the name as if he were somehow programmed to do so. The sound of it brought clarity to his mind. Not answers, but a certain peace that momentarily calmed him, "Milinka..."

"You are okay now Crinnan, you are okay," Cade continued to hold him up and kept him stable. While Crinnan didn't like the fact that the Agra President was so supportive, he also felt that the embrace, in some sort of strange and nostalgic way, felt familiar. His touch was naturally welcomed and surprisingly comforting. Crinnan noticed Cade's smell and the familiarity of it thrust him back into his childhood. He recalled a time laying in the grass being beaten with a stick as another much larger and older child shouted "For the Empire! For the Empire!" Crinnan gasped, pushed Cade away and looked more closely at his face.

"You..." He whispered as he squinted and tried to focus on his brother. Crinnan's thoughts had completely diverted from the strangers in his head, he had realized that Cade was in fact not. Cade was Kiersen, "I thought you were dead."

"Understandable," Cade replied, "Your friend did blast me out a window."

"No, dammit," Crinnan growled and once again grabbed Cade by the collar, "You are Kiersen."

Crinnan stared fiercely into the dark brown eyes of the being before him. He was trapped both by his little brother's grasp and by his own temporary loss for words. Though half of his face was covered in leather, Crinnan knew exactly whose eyes he was staring into. He examined the scar on his lower lip where his familial tattoo had been removed, and he knew for sure that he was looking into the face of his eldest brother.

"Well," Cade exhaled a sigh of frustration and defeat as he spoke, "You seem to have me figured out," he let go of Crinnan and took a seat on the ground next to him, "I am mildly surprised you recognize me after all these years, though I did not completely rule out the possibility of being discovered."

"Why are you here?" Crinnan tried to fight the disorientation that weighed heavily on his mind. "What, I mean why are you alive?" He was unable to formulate a better sentence.

"Like nearly everyone else, I saw the demon vision this morning," Cade looked down at the ground next to him as he thought about what to say next. He had gone over it in his head at least hundred times, but when it came down to actually reuniting with his brother, things were not going as he planned, "I knew you were in trouble, and I knew how to protect you. I felt compelled to help."

Crinnan did not know what to think. His brother Kiersen had vanished when he was only a boy shortly after his eldest sister. It had been years, and Crinnan had not seen either of them since. The fact that he suddenly reappeared as one of the Presidents of the Agra Triangle Corporation would have been perplexing enough had he been in his right mind. With his confused and tired state of being, it was utterly mind-blowing.