Seeker’s World by K. A. Riley

Author:K. A. Riley [Riley, K. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-26T16:00:00+00:00

The Academy for the Blood-Born

When we reached a set of double doors at the base of the stairs, Merriwether stood to the side and gestured for me to proceed. But as I reached for the handle, both doors swung open without so much as the touch of my fingertips.

“Welcome to the Academy for the Blood-Born,” Merriwether said in his rich, deep voice as a long hallway appeared before my eyes.

“The door?” I asked, my mouth open. “Did I do that?”

Merriwether answered me with a cryptic, “Hm.”

Side by side, we walked into the hallway. Large, arched windows lined the walls on the right side, inviting beams of sunlight to splay out in big rectangles on the floor. I wasn’t much of a church-goer, but when I was little, I did like the way the millions of dust particles would dance in the light from the stained glass at the old church in Fairhaven. Oddly, there was none of that here. The air was as sterile as the glass was pristine. The light beamed in pure white.

Up ahead of us, uniformed students walked the hallway’s length, stopping here and there to talk or to sit down on leather-upholstered benches to examine their books. Most of the kids were my age and were dressed in outfits that appeared to be a hybrid of school uniforms and some sort of medieval body armor. Red, navy blue, or fitted green leather waistcoats. Trousers that looked like Merriwether’s loose linen pants, and boots that reminded me of the ones in all those war movies I’d watched with Will over the years.

The students’ haircuts, too, were a mystery. Some of the boys looked like they’d just stepped out of 2019, their hair tidily trimmed, while others had shaggy, unkempt manes that brought to mind movies about Arthurian times. The girls generally had long hair, tied back in one way or another. I could only assume this was for practical purposes—whatever sort of training they were undergoing at the Academy was probably physical, and I knew from years of experience with uncontrollable curls that there was nothing as distracting as locks of hair falling in your face while you were trying to focus on the task at hand.

A few of the students had weapons sheathed around their waists, while others looked as though they themselves were weapons. A boy who must have been at least seven feet tall slouched over a much smaller girl with a sheathed dagger tucked into a leather belt at her side. The girl had silver eyes, her pupils vertical like a cat’s. The boy, meanwhile, had hands the size of frying pans, and looked like he could break through any one of the Academy’s walls with little more than one angry punch.

“Who are they?” I asked Merriwether.

“The Academy’s trainees. Soldiers in our army. The Academy has always been a training ground for the Gifted, even when we aren’t at war. Someone needs to keep the peace, after all. Of course, most of the students you see right now are here to train as part of the Elite.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.