Defection E-Book

Keyla Damaer

• Herausgeber: Keyla Damaer
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The lies she teaches may be the only thing keeping her alive.

A history professor teaches the regime propaganda to protect her family, but her world crumbles when a mysterious visitor arrives at her doorstep. Faced with a life-threatening choice, she must succumb to the regime’s oppression or join the visitor in the fight for freedom. Will she risk everything in the name of freedom?

Join Rotima in her fight for freedom.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Rotima

Notes

Guide

Contents

DEFECTION

by Keyla Damaer

https://keyladamaer.com

***

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or a used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. I really mean this. Totally not you.

All rights reserved. Any reproduction or unauthorised use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

I write in British English. Colour and leant aren’t typos. It’s the funny way Brits spell the words.

That said, even if several set of eyes looked for errors (aka horrors), and despite the great professional editing by Kerry Murphy, you may still find typos.

Some kind souls have reached out to me to warn me about them, and I promptly corrected them. You can do the same here: https://keyladamaer.com/report-an-error

Other kind souls who had an opinion about the story have left reviews. I thank them all and you for snatching a copy of this story. Feel free to leave a short, honest review.

This story is part of the Tales from the Sehnsucht Series.

Copyright © 2022 Keyla Damaer

www.keyladamaer.com

Rotima

Defection

Manderian year 2468

At the end of the last class of the day, Rotima gathered her tablets and sat down at her desk. The silence of the empty classroom closed in a suffocating embrace as she set to write the lecture for the following day—a long dissertation on the glory of the Halden. As an Institute of Art’s history teacher in the capital of the Halden, she detested every word—and herself—for brainwashing another generation of young Manderians. Still, those words she despised kept her family alive.

Her stomach grumbled, a reminder of the Halden’s policy towards the families of unworthy Manderians: no meal breaks for them. The contract didn’t include accommodation in the dorms, either. There’s no room, was the official excuse. The truth was, her husband Draken Kosset, fell under the label of anunworthy citizen after being dismissed from the army twelve years before.

She stuffed the tablets into her bag and headed home, resisting the temptation to steal some fruit from the mess hall for Draken and their ten-year-old daughter, Milvar. Empty pockets, an empty purse, and a sagging spirit were all she had to take home.

While she plodded to a water stand and waited her turn in a queue to collect drinking water, her mind wandered into forbidden places. Screens all around her showed images of a glorious Halden that was no more. What future was there for Milvar? Under normal circumstances, in four years, she would graduate and apply for a job as an attorney or a judge. However, as the daughter of a disgraced Manderian, she might end up unemployed like her father.

If only Draken had passed that damned test. That would have changed their financial position for sure. Not their social one, though. They’d still be slaves to the Halden regime. Slaves with privileges.

A sigh escaped her lips when Rotima approached the run-down condo where they lived.

Dim lights seeped through the street-level window. Inside, her daughter would be waiting for her while doing her homework alone. They had no money for school, and no state-subsidised school would accept her thanks to Draken’s failure.

Rotima opened the door and froze. A stranger occupied her husband’s tattered armchair. Nearby, Milvar sat on the floor with her legs crossed and a tablet in her hands. A lone ray of the setting sun shone through the wrapped crown braid of her obsidian hair.

‘Greetings, Pedagogue Kosset.’ The broad-shouldered man stood and bowed his head. Over his dark-blue scales, he wore an embroidered red tunic over black trousers and polished boots. His dark eyes stared at her. ‘My name is Esian Cressel.’

Milvar stood and turned to face her. ‘Good evening, Mother.’ A grin enlightened her beautiful features. Her scales, red and orange-hued like her father’s, twinkled despite the poor indoor lighting. The illumination was enough to see she bore no sign of injury or concern. Still, a well-dressed stranger in their raggedy house meant trouble, even if it was someone Milvar knew.

Rotima willed her hands steady as she set the water bottle on the table between the entrance and the little kitchen. ‘I’m sorry. Should I know who you are?’

Cressel showed her his ID. ‘I work at the Department for Public Security.’

Rotima’s stomach churned, but she kept a stern expression. The Department for Public Security? That means you’re a spy. This wasn’t good. Not good at all. She had learnt long ago never to speak her thoughts out loud. That was the trick of surviving under a dictatorship. ‘What can I do for you, Agent Cressel?’ Her voice took a harder edge than she would have liked.

‘He said he wanted to talk to you, Mother.’ Milvar rose to her feet and crossed the room.

‘I wish to speak to you. Alone.’ Cressel added the last word with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Rotima took her chance to remove her daughter out of immediate harm’s way. Given Cressel’s credentials, she suspected their future rested on the edge of a poisoned blade. ‘Milvar, go out. Watch the stars as Sunneth sets.’

Milvar grunted her disapproval, her emerald eyes casting a sidelong glance at her.

‘I said go.’