Spycraft Academy B. Miles (new ebook reader txt) 📖

get out of this lecture unscathed. He would manage to avoid his teacher reporting that he was incompetent to the administration, at least. No need to get reported for insolence.

Hilda sniffed dismissively and gave Sam her back. He got to his feet. He knew when he was being excused.

He wasn't surprised in the slightest when she patted Delcan's head like a good dog and said, "You are forgiven, and you honor your ancestors with your candor and commitment. Go join your people, your next class will start soon."

When Hilda turned to march away, Delcan shot Sam a smug smirk and it was all he could do to simply walk away instead of punching the blonde again.

The group was already filing down the bleachers and climbing over the rail to hop onto the ground. Sam made a beeline toward Mattie and Drina, who were standing in the sand and waiting for him.

"Wow, I guess you were right, Mattie." Drina smiled right at him as she spoke, "He is a badass."

"Is that why you volunteered me?" Frustration and adrenaline were ebbing away, elation crowding his chest. He didn't think he'd actually win, but he did.

"We made a bet." Mattie shrugged.

"Well, I hope the wager was good, because I almost got killed by that lunatic."

Sam narrowed his eyes and flicked them toward Delcan, who was joining his own group. They were all giving Sam nasty glares. Great.

"You could say that . . ." Mattie said. She shared an unreadable look with Drina and Sam sighed. He guessed he'd find out what it was sooner or later.

"Oh look, Delcan's staring right at you." Drina chirped. She wiggled her fingers at the blonde flirtatiously and sure enough, Delcan went from glaring at Sam, to glaring at Drina, to glaring right back at Sam with the fury of a million suns.

Yeah, that wasn't a good sign.

6

The rest of Sam’s day passed by in a blur. From the time he walked out of the arena until after dinner, his veins sung with adrenaline and his stomach filled with hot air. It wasn't that he hadn't been in a fight before, he'd been in plenty of those. He got into scraps as a child when some of the other kids would try and nab his rations. When he was an adolescent, he ran into plenty of ne'er-do-wells and beggars who thought him an easy target. By the time he was a man, he stopped counting.

Sam had been in plenty of fights, but they were never with a noble. They were never with somebody who was formally trained, well-fed, and versed in actual dueling. He never expected to win, but he did, and he might have regretted goading Delcan had the other man not said such vulgar, disgusting things about Sam's crew after the fact.

Every time he thought about Delcan’s words, his whole body would tense up and all he wanted to do was fight again. He noticed his classmates looking at him throughout the day and if he could have, he would have spent the rest of the day in his room.

It wasn't the new consideration in their eyes, the way they looked at him as if he were something impressive. He liked that part. It felt amazing to be looked at as something more, something that mattered. The part he didn't like, the part that made him want to duck his head, was the expectation that he was going to do something impressive again.

It was like an anchor being tied to his foot, one he had to pull along for the rest of his attendance at the Academy. It was unreasonable to believe it, he knew that on a logical level, but the respect he saw in the eyes of the people who were far more able than he was felt like a responsibility. It felt like back home, when his crew was eyeing a job, then eyeing him because he would come up with a plan for it. A plan that was solid, thorough, and would ensure their survival yet again.

The thing that kept him from screwing up, the thing that drove him to sleepless nights and bloody knuckles, the thing that made his execution damn near flawless—it wasn't skill. It wasn't talent. It was a blatant fear of disappointing people, because in his world, letting people down meant letting them die.

And now, everybody expected him to do what he did with Delcan again. And again. It was fine when it was his crew expecting big things—that came with the territory of being the head of the crew. The difference here was this wasn't a crew of four. This was a crew of forty-nine. Forty-nine people that would die if he didn't live up to their expectations.

No.

No, they wouldn't die. He had to keep reminding himself that. He had to lay on his bed and stare at the grey stone ceiling for two hours just to pinpoint why he wanted to simultaneously brawl and flee all day, then he had to stare at the ceiling for another hour to consciously remind himself again and again that nobody would die if he lost another fight, that he was being illogical.

But that's the funny thing about emotions, he guessed. Trauma.

When one grows up relying on the power of the mind, one forgets to practice the power of emotion. And when an unwelcome emotion creeps up, bares its teeth, forces its will upon the thinkers, the thinkers have no idea how to tame it. Their usual tools—logic, pragmatism, reason, realism—turn into dust.

Maybe it's the same for the feelers. When forced to use the power of the mind, the ideas and problems and routes required to untangle them overcome their hearts and they dissolve into a mess just like him.

There were people who could master both worlds, but they were called wisemen, and Sam was far from such a lofty moniker.

Nobody will die if you lose the next fight.

He mouthed his new mantra again. He'd felt better than he