The Academy Read online

  The Academy

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The Academy

  by

  Emmaline Andrews

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Emmaline Andrews on Smashwords

  The Academy

  Copyright © 2012 by Emmaline Andrews

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

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  Chapter One

  “The time has come for you to uphold the honorable name of Jameson. I have enrolled you in The Royal Academy for the last two years of your education and from there, you should get a commission in the Space Corps with ease. I fully expect you’ll be commanding your own ship by the time you’re twenty.”

  The words filled my heart to bursting, excitement bubbling up inside me like the fizz in a carbo drink from Earth-that-was. There was only one problem—they were meant for my twin brother, Kristopher, not for me.

  Kristopher and I were the closest of siblings. Years of chronic lung disease as a child had kept my brother home and I had stayed with him instead of being sent to a charm school for privileged young ladies and married off, like others of my social class and sex. I had taken classes alongside Kristopher from the first, although I was a woman and, to my father’s way of thinking, not worth educating. But my brother worked better with me beside him, a fact not lost on his many tutors. Now, though, he was going where I could not follow. Taking classes in the comfort of one’s home was vastly different from enrolling in the Academy.

  “Father, no.” My brother’s mild brown eyes grew large with horror. “I cannot go to the Academy now—not when Maestro says my technique is almost perfected. I need to practice for hours each day. I can work my lessons into my practice time here, with my tutors, but I am quite sure that wouldn’t be possible at the Academy.”

  Our father frowned, his face filling the viewscreen which hung over the fireplace like a thundercloud. “I only allowed you to start that music nonsense in the first place because you were too sickly for school. But my physician tells me you’re sound now—completely fit. As there is no longer any need for such idle distractions, I expect you to drop it immediately.”

  “Drop it?” Kristopher’s face went pale. “Drop it? But Father, soon I’ll be eligible to audition for a chair in the First System Orchestra and Maestro thinks I have a really good chance of—”

  “I said you will drop it and drop it you will!” My father’s eyes, the same dark brown as my brother’s and my own, blazed with anger. “What good is having a son to carry on my name if he does not honor it in the correct fashion? There are four Star Commanders in our family and two Fleet Admirals, including myself. You will continue that proud tradition as you should.”

  “But Father—” Kristopher began.

  “I know you are capable,” our father continued, ignoring my brother’s protests. “Your Astro Navigation tutor has told me what excellent work you do and your Inter-dimensional Calculus teacher says he has never seen such a prodigy. I expect you to be at the top of your classes.”

  Kristopher and I exchanged a glance. I was the one who had excellent marks in Astro Navigation and Inter-dimensional Calculus . I did almost all the work his tutors assigned to him in order to give him more time with his precious violin. The one thing I could not do for him was his physical education classes. But even there his tutor had been lenient, teaching me to fence and fight alongside Kristopher because he requested it, saying that having his twin sister nearby made him feel stronger. And now we were about to be separated forever.

  Father probably wouldn’t have let me stay with Kristopher in the first place if our mother had not died soon after our birth. Being raised by a succession of tutors and nannies had made my brother and I cling together and form a bond much closer than that of most siblings. Often I had shored up my brother’s failing health, getting him through one medical crisis after another through sheer force of will. But now that his lungs were strong and healthy, my father thought no more of separating us and casting me aside than he did of sending my brother to a school he was unfitted for—one he would surely hate. The honor of our family name was all he cared about—all he had ever cared about.

  “Father, you cannot do this,” I said, stepping forward and placing myself between my brother and the viewscreen. “Music isn’t just a pastime or diversion to Kristopher, it is his life. He doesn’t want to be a Star Commander or an Admiral.”

  “Silence, young lady!” Father’s face went nearly purple with rage. “You have nothing to do with this.”

  “I have everything to do with it.” I lifted my chin. “I love Kristopher as you do not—as you cannot since you haven’t been to see us since our twelfth birthday.”

  Father glared at me. “My duties to the Corps keep me busy, as you well know. Besides, between tutors and nannies and butlers and maids, I pay out enough money keeping the two of you in style—”

  “Money isn’t love, Father,” I interrupted quietly. “I love Kristopher and want what is best for him—going into the Royal Academy and the Space Corps would make him miserable.”

  “Get out of the way and let him speak for himself,” Father demanded. “Kristopher, stop hiding behind your sister like a coward!”

  Reluctantly, my brother stood and took his place by my side. “Father, what Kristina says is right. I have no head for flight coordinates and no stomach for commanding other men. I only want to play and compose. Please, Father.”

  Father’s eyes flicked angrily from one to the other of us. “Disgusting, the both of you! When I think of the trouble I have gone to, engaging the very best tutors to get Kristopher ready for this moment…and now that he is finally fit and able to uphold our family honor, what thanks do I get? This…this sniveling display of cowardice and self-pity! Well, enough.”

  “Father,” Kristopher and I said together but he was truly enraged now, angrier than I had ever seen him.

  “You,” he roared, pointing to Kristopher, “Will report to the Academy in two days time. If you do not, I will come myself and hunt you down. Though I warn you, if I have to do that the consequences will be severe.” He glo