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.The harsh training, the punishing regime, the way they regulated our sleep, our diet, our activities - all this was a comfort.After growing up a Gurta slave I was used to strict order, and the idea of taking responsibility for myself terrified me.In my more introspective moments, I wondered whether it was fear, and not overwhelming gratitude, that had led me to swear myself into Bond to my rescuers.I put my life in the hands of others so easily.Here at the Academy all I had to do was excel at the tasks they set me.Life was clean and simple.I never wanted to leave this place.The complex was set on many levels, across steep slopes.Chthonomancers had sculpted it into an enormous rock garden, with the buildings of the Academy set amid great crystalline formations, fungal glades and arbours, ornamental pools and waterfalls.Light sources were artfully arranged, through phosphorescent stones and plants, lanterns and a single, squat shinehouse atop the circular Gathering Hall.It was always warm in the Academy.The cavern was set deep underground, heated by the fire at the heart of our moon.I had many friends here, but the first was an older student called Rynn.He was assigned to orient me during my first few turns, and we took to each other immediately.At first, he treated me like a little sister.Even at thirteen years old, he was larger than most boys his age, and I enjoyed the feeling of being under his wing.New inductees were often bullied until they found their place, but nobody dared with Rynn looking out for me.We had grown since then, and things had started to change.I had no idea how it happened, but there was an unspoken tension between us now.Glances, blushes, awkward silences.We would snap at each other, frustrated by something we didn’t understand.He found excuses to touch me, and I wondered if he had always done that and if I was only now noticing it because of these new feelings.He would become sullen and moody, and resist my attempts to winkle him out of his shell; but still I tried, instead of leaving him to sulk as I used to.It took me a while, but I eventually admitted it to myself.I was attracted to him.More of my time was spent considering him and his needs than my own.I invented reasons to hug him, making it seem like play.I started to have fantasies about him, and felt vaguely ashamed of them.But his feelings were harder to read.I interpreted everything he did as possible flirtation.Every innocent comment was picked over for hidden meaning.Every time I thought that I had proof, unequivocal proof that he had similar feelings for me, he would confound me by being suddenly cold and distant.His behaviour had become uncharacteristically erratic, without rhyme or reason.He would seek me out and then seem resentful, as if I was forcing him to be with me.I’d cried myself silently to sleep in my dormitory more than once on account of his cruelty.That was where we stood, when Master Allet announced we would be fighting each other on the sevenhour of that turn.The news shook me.Combat training had always been one of the most ruthless and exacting areas of our regime, but while I was good at it I was far from the best in my age group.I was an accomplished meditator, and I outstripped everyone in feats of dexterity, stealth and the mental disciplines associated with spycraft.It was already decided where my talents lay, and I was being steadily narrowed towards them.But Rynn was a consummate warrior.It was not only his size and strength, both of which were formidable, but his technique.He compensated for his slower speed with an uncanny ability to predict his opponent’s next blow, and he had developed a natural fighting style that was quite unique and very effective.Fighting was his talent, and he was relentlessly competitive.He was generally recognised as the best in the Academy, even by the older students, many of whom he had beaten in the past.When we first began to learn, we were limited to sparring and training with our Masters.But we had outgrown that now.Combat was full-contact, and it hurt like fuck when you lost.I didn’t want to fight Rynn for a lot of reasons, but foremost was that I was afraid of him.The Masters had a tendency to randomly pull students out to fight each other, but so far we had escaped direct confrontation.Master Allet had come across us arguing in one of the communal glades the turn before.I don’t know if he thought he was doing us a favour by letting us work out our aggression on one another, or if he was just being spiteful.Students were forbidden to indulge in relations with the opposite sex.It interfered with their studies, and led to situations just such as this
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