Chapter 14
Straining While Training
The midterm was in one week, and I was officially panicking.
Three more people had abandoned the outpost after the lesson in the bamboo grove. Whether it was due to homesickness, second thoughts about becoming a Voyager, or nerves around the midterm, the last seemed most likely to me.
Sarina, Orin, Talissa, Rosa, and Henrik had all tried to reason with me about it over lunch earlier today, but no amount of comforting words would convince me that I was ready to face whatever came next.
Because I could barely complete the daily training exercises.
Zevrial’s scathing words during the dagger training still rang with frosty clarity in my head.
Instructor Garcien and Zevrial had both noticed that I was struggling under the pressure. Instructor Garcien had been gracious enough to answer my followup questions after lessons.
Deep down, most of my concern was about the upcoming physical requirements. It was getting harder to ignore the reality that if the daily exercises kept ratcheting up, I'd be failing them soon.
I couldn't run fast enough. I couldn't maneuver my limbs precisely enough. I was too short, too small.
Too weak.
Just earlier today, I had collapsed under the strain of the weighted vest and belt while attempting to do two hundred push ups.
Summer showers were a regularity now as the wet season neared. Today was yet another dreary rain-filled day. It suited my emotional state.
To stay dry, I was doing more training with Sarina in the Fitness center. We'd been here for three hours already. At some point, Izaiah had joined us.
I kept myself positioned to face toward the door, where I could keep an eye on Veridiana as she lifted weights. She looked too comfortable lifting twice my current maximum. My gut told me not to trust her, and not because she had enough strength to bend me into half a dozen deformed pieces.
Sarina collapsed into a seat beside me, panting. “On my grave, I want it to say 'She died how she lived. Going hard. Too hard.'”
If I had the air to spare, I might’ve laughed. “You're doing great,” I encouraged.
“Nope. I'm done. Cooked,” she disagreed, laying down on the floor fully with arms flopping. Her skin was flushed and sweaty all over.
“You sure you're not,” I gritted my teeth as I stood back up from yet another lunge, my thighs burning, “just taking a break so you can try harder in a few minutes?”
Sarina shook her head, “Nope. My legs are on fire.” Mine were too, but I kept it to myself. She eyed Veridiana while she caught her breath and I completed a few more sets. “Something isn't quite right with that one,” she muttered.
Something came out that sounded more like a huff than a laugh. Veridiana had been here as long as we had, and hadn't shown any real signs of fatigue yet. I hadn't told Sarina what I had seen Veridiana do during the Mistrun, but it felt like Sarina liked her even less than I did.
“What makes you say that?” Izaiah asked from beside us where he was doing sit-ups.
“That is just...” she grimaced, “Too much weight for any human to be lifting.”
My eyes flicked up to Veridiana again as I slowly lowered myself back into another lunge. The weights looked heavy, and the ease with which she lifted them irked me. Her gleaming onyx hair, pretty face, and voluptuous body had nothing to do with how much she bothered me. Nothing at all.
“I could watch her lift weights all night,” Izaiah pushed sweaty hair off of his forehead where it had stuck to his skin. He'd used enough volume that I was sure Veridiana heard him.
“This ought to be good,” I muttered.
Sarina dragged an arm over her face. “Just when I thought you couldn't be more of a pervert, you rise.”
“What? The only fun we're allowed to have around here is the horizontal kind. And strong women are hot.” He hadn't lowered his voice at all. I continued watching this drama play out, Veridiana was doing remarkably well at not reacting to his comments.
“You think all women are hot. Hell, you'd think a tree was hot if it had enough curvature to it.” I declared with similar volume, and Izaiah shot me a dirty look.
“She's right,” Sarina added. “I mean, she's wrong about a world of other things.” Now it was my turn to send her a dirty look.
“But she's right about this. You live like you’re in a storm, and any port will do.” Sarina turned her head toward me from her spot on the floor.
“You should take a break, though. You look even worse than I feel.”
“I feel great,” I lied, my legs trembling as I forced them back up again. They were starting to lock up from overuse like they had during the Mistrun. I stood heaving for a few seconds to catch my breath.
I could do this. I had to. I had to get stronger.
This wasn't a choice, it was a necessity. At least, that's what I told myself.
Passing the midterm was required. And if it involved running, swimming, climbing, or any manner of other movements that required strong legs, I couldn't risk coming up short. The instructors had been distressingly silent on how we were going to be judged, and about how many would pass.
I stayed up late each night either training myself physically or studying that material from lessons.
My inkling was this midterm, like that lesson in the bamboo forest, would be a challenge requiring some degree of improvisation, and a great deal of physical strength if training was any indication.
Falling short wasn't an option. And breaks were only cutting into the limited time we had each night for additional training.
“Well, I'm going back to our room,” Sarina announced, peeling herself off the floor. “If you need to borrow any of my notes later, help yourself, but don't you dare wake me up with any questions.”
All I could manage around the wheezing breaths as I started another round of lunges was a wave. She almost-crawled her way out of the Fitness center.
The lesson material was difficult to understand and memorize, but Sarina possessed a talent for concentrating that I did not.
We'd compared our notes from some of our earliest lessons and discovered she had about three times as much written down.
Since then, I'd been borrowing her notes to study instead of relying on my own.
“You really don't look so good,” Izaiah commented. “You're very red.”
I spared a few seconds to rest after coming up from another lunge. “Didn't ask,” I retorted.
Lowering myself down, I prepared for more push ups. They’d be a nice break for my legs from squats and lunges.
“I wonder what it’ll be like being a Voyager,” Izaiah mused.
“Can’t be worse than being a trainee.”
“True.” He laid flat to rest after another set. “I’ve always wanted to see the outer isles though. Nobody ever talks about them.”
Because they couldn’t. Like Skinscript, it was knowledge the Ascendancy kept a lid on.
Sarina walked into the Fitness center, waving when she saw us. “Hey strangers!”
Izaiah grunted. “There’s no way you bounced back that fast.”
She frowned, slowing her steps. “Oh, I uh, I forgot to tell you that if you wanna borrow my notes, they’re in the top drawer of my desk.”
Where they always are.
“U-huh,” I said slowly, straining as I completed another push. Sarina turned on her heel and hurried out of the Fitness center. She wasn’t wearing the bracelet I’d made her. I could’ve sworn she’d been wearing it earlier. My exhaustion was playing tricks on me.
“Well, that was weird as fuck,” Izaiah said.
“Maybe she found a mystical source of endless energy. Or a badass Skinscript we don’t know about.”
“Yeah, sure.” Izaiah curled himself up into another sit-up.
My arms were about to fall off. Standing up, panting, I positioned myself to start a set of squats. “She can be–” I bent down into another squat and felt something twist underneath me. The floor rushed to greet me. It met me with an ungentle amount of force.
“Shit!” Izaiah yelled, scrambling over.
Propping myself up on my arms, a shooting pain exploded in my ankle.
“Do not,” I ground out with a hiss of pain, “say I told you so.” Touching the ankle that had given out underneath me, I flinched at the soreness. There would be some beautiful new bruises where I'd fallen.
Izaiah let out a low whistle. “That'll go great with your skintone right now.” Veridiana had sauntered over after I'd fallen, and she now crouched too close for comfort, inspecting the injury.
“I think it’s twisted.” I touched it again with another wince. It was the searing red of abuse. Soon it would swell.
“Looks to me like it's broken,” Veridiana taunted.
“Can you stand on it?” Izaiah asked. I pushed myself up onto my knees, which still burned from exhaustive exercise. Using my arms to stabilize myself, I moved into a standing position, still staying off the ankle. Tentatively, I put weight onto the leg.
With the elegance of a drunken fish, I stumbled back down onto my knees as burning pain surged up my leg. Guess I wouldn't be dancing anytime soon.
“Wouldn't have happened if you hadn't overdone it. You should stick to your limits,” Veridiana continued.
I cast her a nasty look. “Yeah, because not pushing myself will definitely make me stronger.”
“At least it might let you make it through the midterm.” She tilted her head, a hard light glinting in her eyes. “Not that I'm complaining, the less competition the better.”
An icy wash of reality settled down on me.
Veridiana was vicious, but she wasn't wrong. I'd injured myself a week before the midterm. How could I have been so foolish? Would it still be possible for me to pass now?
“She'll be fine,” Izaiah defended. “As long as we get her to Medic services. Come on.” He reached under my arms to help support me as I stood again. I tried not to make sibilant noises through my teeth every time my wounded foot brushed the ground.
Once I got used to the burning sensation, it wasn't as much of a shock when I tried to take steps on that side. It was still incredibly painful.