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.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.Master Allet was one of our more unpredictable teachers, whimsical and infuriating at times.I suspected that he had paired us up to see how we would react.He would know in the arena if something was going on between us.The female students flocked to me at the news.They knew that this was more than just a particularly uneven match-up.Rumours had been flying about us for years.‘You can’t go easy on him,’ I was advised.‘It’ll take everything you’ve got.’‘It’s sick, what they’re doing.’‘How could he bring himself to hit you, anyway? What a bastard!’This was somewhat pre-emptive, I thought, but I let it pass.‘He can’t refuse the Masters, though.He’ll be thrown out of the Academy.’‘I don’t see your problem.’ This from Clisa, a particularly level-headed girl, whose advice was rarely welcome because she always spoke sense and usually I just wanted sympathy.‘On the battlefield nobody’s going to care if you’re a girl.If you can’t beat a larger opponent you shouldn’t be in the Cadre at all.’‘Shut up, Clisa,’ snapped one of my comforters.‘Can’t you see she’s upset?’‘We’re training to be the elite forces of our respective masters,’ Clisa replied.‘It’s supposed to be tough.’She leaned in, past the disgusted tuts of the others, and addressed me.‘You know what you need to do, Orna? Think of everything you hate about him.Every time he’s made you angry or sad.And then go and kick the shit out of him.’It was good advice, and I took it.I excused myself from the other students and went to meditate.But I wasn’t looking for calm as I sat in the Silent Room of the Academy’s main building.I was running chants through my head, basic chua-kîn techniques for manipulating emotions.Taking my fury, my frustration, all the confusion and hurt I felt when I was around him, and screwing it up to a hard, bitter point.Teaching myself to be angry.It was a fine balancing act, because rage makes you sloppy, but I nailed it by the sixhour of the turn.Anger can be controlled.It can freeze instead of burning.When I left the Silent Room, I had convinced myself that I really wanted to hurt him.The arena sat atop an elevated plateau on the floor of the cavern, overlooked by other buildings and gardens on the slope behind.It was little more than a gravelly circle, fringed by a wall of rocks that thrust upward like broken teeth.The stone was heavy with veins of bright minerals, rhodonite and clinoclase and celestine, their surfaces glittering faintly.There were three entrances to the arena, gaps in the rock leading to downward-sloping paths.Lanterns stood on poles to boost the natural light.The other students ringed the arena, dressed in the plain grey robes of students.Several Masters were here to observe, clad in crimson and wearing the insignias of their station.I spotted Master Allet as I entered: head shaved, nose hooked, face heavily patterned.He was wearing a scowl, as ever.Rynn was waiting for me.He was six spans high already, and still growing.His body was bulking out fast, and he was much heavier than I was.I was a little over five spans, and the only thing still growing on me were my breasts and hips, neither of which were going to do me much good in a fight.But I didn’t care about any of that.As soon as I laid eyes on him, I wanted to scratch his eyes out.I wanted revenge for the instability he had introduced into my nicely ordered life.Don’t you see what you’re doing to me? Are you so stupid? I wanted to shout at him, but I held it back.Saved it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]