21

The next two weeks went about the same. Michael continued his diviner training and gained more stamina both as a healer and also in general, his muscles, heart, and lungs recovering from exercise and exertion more quickly, meaning they strengthened faster, and he continued forging magicka channels before sleeping. He maintained his top spot in physical conditioning, though he ceded his leadership in shield twice to Han, who had an equal talent for it but a smaller frame that made him less able to take repeated blows. By the fourth week, things had changed. Almost everyone had started to hit puberty, including Michael himself. He was around fourteen physically, and the hormones produced by his rapid aging hit him like a semi-truck.

Within a week his limbs started growing a painful inch longer every night, his emotions became uncontrollable, and he was reminded of how maddeningly horny it had been to be a teenager. He found himself dreaming of his wife as well as all the girlfriends or wished-they-could’ve-been-his-girlfriends from his old life. He even found himself having fantasies about Meera, Crim, and a handful of the medics. He didn’t act on them, but his fellows made more than a few attempts.

Those attempts all failed miserably, for reasons that Michael had already figured out, hence why he had made no passes himself. If you were in these women’s shoes, and a fourteen-year-old with the mind of an old man who you considered a murderer tried to flirt, it would be understandably off-putting. The only woman that ever returned any of the flirtations was Crim, but she was subtle about it, and it was Marcus whose overtures seemed to be the most reciprocated. Something about that made Michael nervous, but he couldn’t put his finger on why and had to trust that Marcus’s previous life gave him enough sense to not do anything too stupid. Some of the Takers were so persistent or even aggressive that they received canings in the yard, though even if the flirtation was very minor, it could still end in canings if the woman pressed the case enough.

A few of the Takers gave into their hormones with one another, but Michael pointedly ignored that. He did not want to spend what mental energy he had thinking through all of the fucked-up ethical and moral problems that it did or did not represent. It made more sense for him to simply turn around in his bed and cover his head with his second pillow to get some sleep.

Injuries started to become more common as well as their regular sparring matches became more aggressive. Michael was often called over to heal broken hands or fingers so that they could continue their training without needing to be sent to the infirmary. Fights outside of sparring became more frequent as well, with everyone seeking any reason to get in one another’s faces and throw down. Michael had hoped that the wisdom and experience of a previous life would keep his hormones from making an idiot of him, but even he wound up in a meaningless scrap over nothing more than once, though he managed to keep his scraps quick and subtle enough that he avoided being sent into a tomb or getting a caning.

The worst part was that they were starting to spend more time with the regular recruits. The tension had already been high between them, but now that both sides were moody and hormonal teenagers, and one side hated the other, the results were to be expected. Michael managed to avoid any real trouble with the regulars—he was well known as a healer at this point and had healed at least three or four members of every class. Most wouldn’t go out of their way to help him, but it seemed to reduce the overall aggression toward him and his closest friends. He did help out in a few of the larger scuffles, jumping in to drag regulars off Ogun and Prakash during a particularly bad beatdown and even getting pulled out of a scrap by Lee at one point.

He wondered what the point of mingling with them more was. Was it to increase their combat effectiveness by sparring and interacting with fighters they were unused to? Was it to make them become more tribal and hateful as a form of motivation? Was it to keep irregulars in their place? Was it to bring them closer together by getting them used to working together? He couldn’t figure it out, but given how deliberate everything else about their training regiment seemed, he knew there had to be a good reason.

There were two new classes added where they were blended with regular recruits: archery and horsemanship. The reason given was because there was only one archery range and only one field on which the horses were regularly run. The horsemanship instructor was a man named Desdin. He was younger than most of the others, with medium-length red hair and dark brown eyes. He walked with an obvious limp that Michael surmised was the reason he was an instructor rather than being on the front. He stood in front of new recruits and the Takers, pointing at different equipment, identifying the saddle, then the bridle, and a number of other pieces of equipment. He took an extra moment on the stirrup.

“These,” he said, “are actually thanks to a Taker like all of you.” He pointed at where they were all standing, a few yards away from the regular recruits. He went to continue talking when his eyes hit Michael, and he stopped for a moment, staring at him. He looked confused.

“Are you okay, sir?” asked a regular.

He shook his head. “Oh, sorry about that. Little too much sun this morning.” He smiled, and there were a few polite chuckles. “As I was saying, stirrups, unlike firearms, have been one of the most useful inventions brought here by a Taker. They allow us to put our full force into striking enemies with sword and lance.” He continued on for a while before showing everyone the proper way to mount a horse and having everyone try once. He seemed to be paying particular attention to Michael’s face when it was his turn but said nothing as to why.

Archery class was a bit more simplistic. The teacher was actually a woman, an old huntress and militia member who’d earned a rare commission there for heroic actions during a Tusynian raid on her village. She showed them proper form by firing from her quiver until it was empty, then had everyone else give it a try. Michael was surprised at how accurate the bows were, at least when they were in other people’s hands. He didn’t need to draw the string back nearly as far as he expected to have it sink itself into a target even thirty feet away, and while movies and TV had told him that he should arc the shot upward, it really didn’t seem necessary unless he was very far away, and even then he felt it would just make more sense to wait until his target was closer. The final surprise of archery was how damned much his fingers and shoulder hurt by the end of it, though he was feeling much better than his fellows by the end of the day.

Michael continued to think about what he should do with the extra coin he was earning by making the top of the lists as often as he was, and he eventually settled on something. He managed, after a number of attempts and requests, to get a short meeting with Kline.

“You have two minutes, Penitent,” he said, standing in the classroom where he’d just gone over another hour of questions from the Penitents.

“I want to send my extra silver to the family of the body I took.”

Kline’s eyebrows raised. “That… is a very unusual request.”

“I know I can’t make up for what I took from them with silver, but I want to make the effort.”

Kline frowned, his relaxed smile falling away. “No one’s ever asked. At least not during my time here. You aren’t allowed direct contact with your body’s family.”

“I don’t need to be in contact. You can send it to them. I just want to do what I can.”

Kline took a deep breath. “I’ll send it for you. I’ll let them know that it was you that sent it. I can’t promise that they will respond. Though I think it would be for the best if they didn’t.”

Michael nodded. Silent acceptance was likely one of the best possibilities. He didn’t really need the silver. He worked in supply with Dugan, who, when he’d sold the new gloves to him, had actually smacked him upside the head and told him to save his silver. There would be chances to spend it during peacetime on much better things than old blankets and rags.

Michael reached into his coat and pulled out the coin he’d gotten so far and handed it to Kline.

He took it carefully, weighing them in his hands, and nodded. “You’re dismissed. Go back to the barracks.”