Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
I belong here, and yet I don’t.
That’s why sneaking out of the academy is my one joy.
Eclipse is full of people who are free to make whatever decisions they want. It’s chaos out there. It is a high-tech city, with a whole lot of mechanical automatons and electric tools and artificial intelligence and a whole lot of money going around in a whole lot of ways. We don’t get a lot of education about things like the economy, but I know Eclipse City is one of the richest cities on the planet. It’s got a lot of poor areas too, where the tech breaks down, or never reached in the first place, but they’re exciting too.
I’m told that Eclipse has changed a lot in the last hundred years or so. I’ve only been here for seventeen years, I’m assuming. Add three for when I got here, and that makes me twenty, almost twenty-one. I have no idea who decided to leave a toddler outside a military academy, but I’m guessing it was my parents.
There’s never been any information about them. I used to ask, when I was old enough to be curious. Nobody knew anything. The nicer teachers told me that I’d been left for safekeeping, that I was special. I thought that my parents would come back for me, but they never did.
So now I just do what I want. I’ve been at the academy long enough to do the entire syllabus three times. I’ve read the books so many times I could recite some of them backwards.
If a tutor gets mad at me for not attending class, I generally pick their main text out of my brain and perform a passage for them. That really pisses them off. They think I’m too arrogant, that I know it all. I don’t know it all. I just know everything they usually teach a king’s guard, which isn’t that much.
There’s a stack of books on the bedside table. My favorite Elements of Deception and Disguise by Sir E. Bitten sits on top, open, many of the pages dog-eared. It’s the best book, because it was written by a king’s guard who was around when king’s guards actually did something. Sir Bitten’s book is full of stories of sneaking into enemy encampments and detecting spies in the royal household. I’ve used a lot of techniques from that book in my own life already.
There are not too many other books, maybe three or four. The academy isn’t really a book-heavy place. There is a library, but hardly anybody goes there.
Truth is nobody wants smart guards, beyond what they need to know to keep bad guys out. This place doesn’t train people to do algebra, or any of the other subjects I’ve heard my city friends talking about over the years. I’m not technically supposed to have city friends, but my whole life could basically be summed up by the phrase ‘not technically supposed to.’
Apparently algebra is hard. So are biology and chemistry, and physics isn’t that simple either. I can do enough maths to count whether all my fingers and toes are still on, which is all a king’s guard needs.
I also don’t pay a lot of attention to politics, or the news. Both are frowned on at the academy. The King’s Guard aren’t supposed to be political. They’re—we’re—supposed to serve the king without question. I hear things when I am out and about, though. Most of them indicate that things are bad and getting worse.
I think about this stuff as I stand naked in the middle of my little room. It must be maintained to military standards, so it has a cot bed with two starched sheets and one starched pillow and a blanket that’s so scratchy it’s often easier for me to take my wolf form and just curl up on the bed rather than sleep inside it.
They don’t know how much time I spend taking solace in my animal self. It’s frowned upon to do it publicly, but when I am alone, I like to melt into my simpler brain. I sleep better. My appetite is better. The academy meals actually seem tasty. And I don’t feel as lonely.
But I’m done with being a wolf for now. Now I’m turning my attention to appropriate attire for a city visit. We’re allowed to have a certain amount of street clothing, and I’ve pushed that limit the same way I push all the limits. It’s pretty impressive given the fact that I have no money.
I look out my window, checking out the guard configurations for the day. They like to switch them up, but I can always tell. The academy has a pulse, and I know it as well as I know any part of my body. This place formed me.
My window overlooks the rear of the grounds. Basically, the academy is a big square building with a courtyard in the middle. There’s the main tower at the front middle, then four other erections at each corner. A center courtyard is where most of the training takes place. From where I am, I can see guards walking the parapets, as well as down on the ground at the gates. It’s a light number, which makes sense. Nobody has attacked the academy since I’ve been here. The guards working now are students who are practicing for one day walking in circles at the palace.