Part of her longed to leave the room and join the others but a deeper ache of shame burned in her chest. The Wyndgaarts were a proud race but Keryn had done little of which she could feel proud.
Closing her eyes, she ran through her combats and subsequent defeats repeatedly, remembering every painful maneuver with crystal clarity. She sought the one revelation that would help her succeed tomorrow and, with hope, during the rest of her time at the Academy. No matter how many times she replayed the day’s events, however, she couldn’t figure out what she did wrong, or what Zalide did that was special enough to result in his repeated victories.
As she grew tired and irritated by the thought of her failures, she considered the coming day’s training. Before the end of class, Victoria stood at the front of the room with a deep frown. Keryn wasn’t the only one who performed dismally during training, and the Avalon instructor was disappointed.
“Spend tonight thinking about your failures,” Victoria said, visibly upset. “Tomorrow, take the lessons from today and apply them in combat. You won’t have the safety net of knowing your losses are only in a simulation. Tomorrow, your combat will be real, your losses painful. For your first time this year, but far from the last, you’ll have the opportunity to experience the aerial joust.”
Keryn tried to imagine what an aerial joust might be without success. Nothing she read or heard before arriving mentioned such an event, but Victoria spoke the words as if they were capitalized and were important enough to warrant blatant emphasis. How did one prepare for something, when one didn’t know what it was?
You could always get off your lazy ass and try to find out, the Voice chided.
“I’m not having this conversation with you,” Keryn said angrily. “Unless you have some insight into the joust, shut up.”
Sorry, Keryn, the Voice said with disdain. You’re the first Academy student in our genetic history. I never had much of a need to learn about what happens in this…school. The Voice’s disapproval was evident.
Silence stretched between the two as Keryn stared unseeing toward the ceiling. Frustration with the Voice flooded her thoughts, which she knew the Voice shared. The knowledge that it knew her displeasure gave her some degree of happiness.
As minutes dragged by, she looked away from the ceiling and around her rather barren room. Aside from two beds, two tall wall lockers dominated the wall space at the foot of each bed frame. Near her head, butted against the wall opposite the door, two desks sat side-by-side, allowing each student to read, study, and run exercises on a personal console.
She sat upright, staring at the desks. Over the past week, she completed a series of reports on the Academy’s history, using her console as a reference to sort through the hundreds of documents stored in its database. It was feasible the console held information about the aerial joust as well.
Excited, she slid from bed and pulled out her chair, flicking the power switch on the side of the console’s monitor. A cold, blue glow filled the otherwise darkened room as a query screen appeared. Blinking against the bright glow, she entered her request and submitted a query to the system.
Leaning back in her chair, she waited as the console processed her request. Shortly, it filled the screen with a scrolled list of positive results. Starting at the top, she perused the files, passing by a multitude of text files. After completing research projects and preparing for demanding classes, she had no heart for more reading.
Near the bottom of the first page, she found what she wanted—a video result. Smiling, she accessed it and leaned back as the air above her console shimmered.
The darkness vanished as the video played. A warm sun over Arcendor appeared, casting a brilliant reflection off the lake behind the Academy. Keryn almost felt the warm breeze blowing over the water as she watched ripples move across the lake.
From the periphery of the projection, figures dressed in black flew into view. The group of cadets dived around and through one another in an obvious battle, with pistols and strange, glowing knives in their hands. The air was soon filled with laser fire as cadets spun in graceful arcs and turned into intense dives to gain a tactical advantage on their adversaries.
Slowly, one at a time, cadets were struck by their peers’ laser fire or slashing knives. Stiffening, they plummeted from view, diving stiffly toward the lake.
Keryn watched the stunning acrobatic dance above the lake for nearly thirty minutes until only three students remained, their flights becoming little more than a blur. Though she tried to follow their movements and strategies, they moved too fast for her to track. Not needing to see any more, she flicked off the console and the room was again enveloped in the dark gloom of night.
Though temporarily blinded, she remained seated at her desk.
“I am so screwed,” she said into the darkness.
Burden of Sisyphus (Brink of Distinction book #1) Page 10