Warden (Elemental Paladins Book 1) by Montana Ash Page B

She was able to manage the somewhat milder myoclonic seizures – they were brief shudders of her muscles and lasted only a second or two and they were pretty much a daily occurrence now anyway. Unfortunately, if she didn’t listen to her body and acknowledge those early warning signs a more severe, and potentially very dangerous, tonic-clonic seizure would follow, as evidenced by her current position on the bathroom floor.
    Max sat up gingerly giving her jaw a wiggle to release the residual stiffness. Her whole body was now one big tooth ache and she was thirsty as hell. At least she hadn’t bitten her tongue … but her bottom lip did feel a little swollen. Probing the offender, she groaned; perfect! She had bitten her lip and it was extremely unlikely it would go down by morning. Eyeing the deep bath tub Max almost whimpered from the desire to immerse herself in a vat of steamy hot water. Nothing would be more cathartic for her tense muscles. Unfortunately, if she had another episode she would likely drown herself. First item on the agenda in the morning would be bathing of some description but for now she would have to settle for some drugs and that big comfy-looking bed in the adjoining room. She only prayed her stupid brain would take this rare opportunity to actually sleep as opposed to the visions and nightmares that routinely plagued her.

 
    EIGHT
    After a restless but still a successful night sleep by her usual standards, Max basked for an indulgent thirty minutes under the hard spray of the shower. She then rummaged through her bag finding a semi-clean pair of faded jeans and a black tank that read ‘Girls Rule’. Rubbing the towel over her wet hair and finger combing the now nearly black-looking damp locks, she considered herself done. She made her way down the spiral wooden staircase to her left rather than the straight stairs she had ascended the night before. Spiral stairs were cool. Her hosts had kept their word and no one had bothered her during the night but Max found herself nervous about her reception in the light of day. What did they expect from her? They had made it sound like there was a whole culture she was missing out on. Wardens and paladins and councils. And she still didn’t understand the whole ‘vitality’ thing. Beyden had mentioned something about controlling her abilities and although she still didn’t trust them fully, she was very interested to learn more.
    Her powers had scared her on more than one occasion in the past. With no knowledge of where they came from or what they were precisely, the first few years after her ‘awakening’ had been a series of disasters in trial and error. She had hurt people on more than one occasion, destroyed property and damaged the landscape. After one particularly bad incident where she had almost drowned a wannabe mugger, she had come to realise her powers were closely linked with her emotions. Horrified at what she had nearly done she had spent the next few months in anger management, meditation and yoga classes. It was at the latter where she had met Daiki, a Japanese sensei who had taken her under his wing. After four months she had followed him to Japan and he had taught her how to defend herself and manage her emotions. Balance. It was all about balance. Where Daiki was actually a Kyoshi – an eighth dan black belt master – Max had now achieved the level of fourth dan black belt herself. In essence she could kick some major butt … and also not cause rainstorms when she was sad anymore. Daiki had also been the one to present her with her sword. Lovingly named Joy after Charlemagne’s sword Joyuese , the tanto knife was a type of Japanese short sword, single-edged. It was traditionally carried by the samurai as a last line of defence if their katana, or samurai sword, failed. Max found it a rather fitting weapon as she wielded it for that exact same purpose. She had the dagger on her possession as per usual but under the circumstances