Wind Crown by Kay L. Moody

Author:Kay L. Moody [Moody, Kay L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-25T22:00:00+00:00

TEN

TALISE’S MUSCLES WENT RIGID AS THE EMPEROR prepared to speak. His mouth curved downward while his nostrils flared with each breath. Apparently reasonably well was the farthest thing from how she had done in the maze.

For a moment, she wasn’t sure whether the emperor would yell at her or storm off before she could speak. Once he sucked in a breath, she knew exactly what was coming. She braced herself for the yelling.

“That was embarrassingly poor.” He hadn’t raised his voice, but the disappointment dripped off his words like acid.

Her feet begged her to take a step back, to re-enter the maze, to run away, anything. Somehow, she convinced them to stay.

The emperor slammed a fist against his palm, and this time, he did raise his voice. “You excelled in the strategy trial, but you have absolutely no common sense. None! Kamdaria needs shapers who can do more than pretty demonstrations and tricks in a board game.”

“It’s not her fault,” Aaden said. From the way he took a step back, it seemed like he had spoken louder than even he expected.

“Of course it’s her fault,” the emperor said, never breaking eye contact with Talise while he punctuated each of his words with perfect precision. “She had as much opportunity to find the shortcut as you did. It was right by the entrance. If you were able to find it so quickly, she shouldn’t have been far behind.”

The words hit Talise in the chest sinking down like rocks. A shortcut right by the entrance? In a flash, she understood the trial. It was all a trick. A ruse. The huge hedges. The simple obstacles. It was all designed to look like a difficult trial, but the true test was in common sense.

Right at the beginning, there were two places to go. Left or right. When she chose right and nearly fell off a cliff, she should have gone back to the beginning and gone left instead. The way Aaden went. If she had done that, she would have found the shortcut almost as quickly as he had.

But she hadn’t done that. Instead, she found a tiny path that was never meant to be used.

Aaden stood in front of the emperor now with his hands almost in fists at his side. “We decided to separate at the beginning of the maze. I went toward the shortcut, so she had to go the other way. It’s not her fault it took her so long. She was just trying to give me space.”

The emperor spared a small glance at Aaden before he pushed past him to sneer down at Talise, raising his head to its full height. “Then you shouldn’t have separated. You could have passed the trial with flying colors, but now I don’t know if you deserve any points at all.”

Aaden’s fingers clenched into fists, but he stayed rooted to his spot. At least he did until the emperor spoke again.

“Despicable,” the emperor said so forcefully that a spray of spittle shot out of his mouth.

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