Page 11 of Kingmakers, Year Three

I check my own schedule, finding the same thing.

“Who’s Professor Snow?” Bram says.

“You don’t think . . .”

“What?”

“Filip Rybakov fought under the name Snow.”

Bram stares at me, uncomprehending.

“He was the heavyweight champion. He held all four titles at once.”

“When?” Bram says.

“Twenty years ago.”

“You think he’s here? To teach us?”

I shrug. “Could be. He got his start in St. Petersburg in the underground matches. He could be Bratva.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Bram says. “First class is tomorrow morning.”

The next morning,Bram and I cross the commons to the Armory with a pleasant sense of anticipation. Rumors have been flying around the school that we are indeed to be receiving instruction from one of the most famous boxers of the modern era.

The other students are jealous as fuck, because only a select group of us have been enrolled in boxing. Everybody else has to be content with their normal Combat classes with the decidedly less-glamorous Professor Howell.

It’s a mark of honor to have been placed in Snow’s class. I’m not surprised to see Silas Gray, Bodashka Kushnir, Kenzo Tanaka, Leo Gallo, Ares Cirillo, and Hedeon Gray already waiting inside the gymnasium. I’m less pleased to note Vanya Antonov in attendance, straining the bounds of a white t-shirt deliberately bought two sizes too small.

Bodashka Kushnir is trying to chat up Ilsa Markov, one of the only female Enforcers at our school. Her father Nikolai was at the meeting I attended in Moscow. Ilsa is tall and well-built, with her long, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and her Wonder Woman thighs filling out her gray gym shorts. I can only imagine the continual harassment she must get from idiots like Bodashka in the male-stuffed Gatehouse. But Ilsa has no problem taking care of herself.

Bodashka seems to be bragging about his summer exploits, which apparently involves him flexing his substantial biceps for Ilsa. Pretending to be impressed, Ilsa challenges him to try to hold his arm at a ninety-degree angle while she pulls down on his elbow. Bodashka agrees, planting his sturdy legs while Ilsa pulls on his arm with all her might, even hanging off of it so that Bodashka is holding up her entire weight with one arm.

Bodashka grins, sure that he’s impressing her. Until Ilsa abruptly lets go of his elbow, making Bodashka punch himself in the face.

Bodashka stumbles and almost falls, while Ilsa throws her head back and roars with laughter. Vanya, Leo, Ares, and Hedeon all join in. Even Silas Gray chuckles, and he wouldn’t know a joke if it danced naked in front of him.

Bodashka shakes his head, stupefied by the force of his own ham fist. He knows he’s a fucking fool, but Ilsa’s laughter is so infectious that even he has to shrug and admit that the prank was well-played.

Usually our classes only include students from our same year, but the Senior Spy Jasper Webb is leaning up against a heavy bag, methodically cracking the flexible knuckles of his skeleton-tattooed hands. His dark red hair hangs over his face, and he looks moody and standoffish. Still, he gives me a nod as I pass, which I suppose means that he doesn’t hold a grudge over the fact that I beat him in the final round of the tournament last year.

I see Kasper Markaj, likewise a Senior, and August Prieto, a Sophomore, which must mean the boxing class will be attended by anybody good enough to fight.

With only one minute left before class time, Kade Petrov comes sprinting through the door, along with a baby-faced blond boy who must be a Freshman, though he’s as big as any of theSeniors. His face looks familiar to me. When he says to Kade, in a French accent, “We barely made it!” I realize he must be one of the Paris Bratva.

The blond boy is right. The moment the clock hits 10:00, Snow comes striding across the mats.

There’s no fighter like an old fighter, with shoulders and traps harder than petrified oak, and fists of pure calcified bone. His face bears the marks of a thousand punches, delivered by men who train on heavy bags, tires, and even fence posts.

His nose is broad and broken, his brows scowling, his mouth sternly set above a jaw as hard as steel. His graying hair lays closely buzzed against the skull, and his ice-blue eyes pierce each one of us in turn as he surveys the students lined up before him.

“My name is Snow,” he says, in a deep, booming voice that instantly silences even the slight shifting of feet upon the mats, until you could hear a butterfly’s wings beating in the still air. “Boxing is the fight for perfection. We can never be perfect, because we are human and flawed. But every single day in this gym, we will strive for perfection. We will believe in perfection. And we will inch toward it, with infinitesimal steps, until we are the closest to god that man has ever been.”

He walks up and down the line of students, those sharp eyes examining us as if he’s already tallying up the weaknesses in every one of us. He sees Bodashka’s swollen face and Ares’s dingy,torn sneakers. His gaze fixes upon me, and I hold his eyes, refusing to flinch beneath that frosty stare. He won’t find a hair out of place on my person. My body is already a shrine to the gods. I sculpt and shape it every fucking day.

“The fight is not won in the ring, in the brilliance of shining lights and cheering of the crowd. The fight is won here, in this gym. It’s won in countless hours of training and conditioning, in the punishment you’ll take and the honing of your skills, for months and years before you ever face your opponent.”

I can feel the fierce energy swelling in my fellow students. Snow has the powerful presence possessed by all great teachers and leaders. He sets a standard before us. He’s painting a picture of what we could become: tempered, hardened, perfected. Already we strain against the bounds of inaction, wanting to show him that we can do as he says, wanting to impress him.

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