Alliance of Serpents by Kevin Domenic Page B

could've known what kind of underwear they wore
without asking.
    He took the new set of clothes and headed
through the narrow door to the left of his bed where something
called a "washroom" was located. Damien had shown it to him before
he'd gone to bed. It was sort of an all-purpose room for personal
hygiene. Arus had wished he'd known about it sooner, and Damien had
apologized, saying that he'd been so busy with everything that has
been happening that he hadn't had the chance to explain it all. The
lights flipped on when he entered, illuminating the various devices
arrayed inside. There were three main fixtures, the "shower," the
"sink," and the "waste disposal unit," the latter of which he'd
found to be much more useful than the chamber pots back home. It
was the shower that he'd come to use today. A good cleaning was
long overdue.
    Thankfully, Doc Nori's assessment of the
implant's resistance to water had been correct, and he made it in
and out of the shower with no complications. After running a brush
through his hair and cleaning his teeth at the sink, he donned the
new clothes and slipped on his trusty brown boots. His sword rested
on the counter across from his bed, and he examined it closely
before latching it to his belt. He'd given the blade a good
cleaning and a fresh polish before going to sleep, and the
razor-sharp steel glistened like new.
    The memory of his sword piercing Eaisan's
chest flashed in his mind and boiled his blood. His master had
taught him to fight for truth and honor, virtues that seemed to be
fading from society. Arus had built his whole life around his
dreams of being able to help anyone who needed him. And his
mother—he missed her so—she'd always told him that he could be
every bit of a man his father was and more. But all of that paled
in comparison to one thing. Vultrel, my best friend and
practically my brother, thinks I'm weak. And it was my weakness, my
bloodthirsty need for revenge that put this cursed implant in my
head. Well, there'll be no more of it. No more! He would show
Vultrel he was not weak. He would show Eaisan he wasn't weak. He
would show Sartan Truce he was not weak. He would even show this
Kindel Thorus that he was not weak.
    By the time he'd reached the gym, he'd gotten
himself so worked up that his fists were clenched and his eye was
thin. Thankfully the halls had been vacant, or someone may have
gotten the wrong idea from his demeanor and tried to detain him.
His only companion for the walk had been the clopping of his boots
across the floor. But that, in itself, had been strange. Why was it
so quiet? Where was everyone?
    When the door slid open, his stone gaze and
fierce anger vanished under a wave of shock and amazement. Kitreena
had said she'd be training, but he had no idea her workout regiment
was so vigorous. A dozen pitch-black combat dummies were set up
across the open end of the gym, set in a random formation and each
with a weapon of some kind attached to their wooden hands. They
were separated only by a series of steel gymnast bars elevated
nearly six paces from the floor. The lights were dimmed, and she
was the only other person in the room.
    As Arus stepped into the room, Kitreena, in
her snug black pants and sleeveless blue shirt, leapt to the first
bar and grabbed hold with one hand while wielding her whip with the
other. She swung her body forward, using the weapon to snap the
swords from the hands of the first two dummies with one hard snap.
As her body rose, she threw her legs over the next bar and released
her grip on the first. She rotated down beneath it, again using her
whip to lash out against the targeting dummies as she gripped the
bar behind her knees. Even upside-down, the accuracy and intensity
with which she used her whip were incredible. Her body rose again,
and her free hand gripped the next bar as her legs released the
previous. Over and over she went, from bar to bar, hand to knees to
hand again, sending an endless stream of weapons