Page 153 of A Game of Veils

I owe them my life.

I won’t be able to thank them for their help unless I reach the end of this obstacle course first. I may have gotten a head start on Fausta, but Leonette has taken advantage of our scuffle to pull far into the lead. I spot her up ahead, her sky-blue dress rippling around her dark limbs.

Just as I push even more speed into my legs, she lurches to one side.

Sinuous shapes ripple across the dirt around her. She scrambles this way and that, avoiding them as well as she can. The nobles who are just catching up holler with a mix of encouragement and derisive jeers.

Out of caution, I slow to a lope. As I close the distance, the snake-like obstructions come into clearer focus.

They’re vines—thick cords of vegetation that are lashing back and forth across the cleared earth. Someone must be directing them with their gift.

And more of them stretch across our course as far as I can see into the fractured sunlight up ahead.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Aurelia

Ipause to observe the patterns of the vines’ lashing movements, haphazard as they seem. I don’t have much time before the thudding of footsteps behind me propels me forward.

Fausta didn’t take long to recover from her stumble.

I leap over a few vines and dart from one side to the other, avoiding their twisting forms as well as I can. One hits the back of my calf. I heave forward a few steps, nearly tripping over another.

Only a few paces ahead of me now, Leonette’s foot gets snagged. The vine flings her to her knees.

By the time she’s scrambled up, we’re neck and neck. Fausta mutters a curse right behind me, her shoes scuffing frantically across the dirt.

It’s obvious this isn’t going to be a simple sprint to the finish line.

As we jump and stagger around the writhing vines, more of the court nobles reach this part of the path, many of them venturing ahead of us.

“Look at them dance!” someone calls out, followed by a raucous laugh.

Bianca’s arch voice quavers with worry as it carries through the din. “You can beat them, Fausta. Don’t let anything slow you down!”

The cleared route through the woods veers to the left, and I spot the end of vine territory several paces away. Pushing myself onward with a frantic patter of my feet, I manage to draw ahead of Leonette.

I leap over the last few vines and dash across the apparently safe stretch of path.

It only takes a few steps to reveal my error. The dirt gives way abruptly beneath one of my feet.

I have just enough wherewithal to throw myself forward so my hands and knees take the brunt of the fall rather than my ankle.

Glancing back, I see my foot has broken open a pit in the path, several inches deep and the same around. More than enough to sprain an ankle or even break a few toes.

Leonette and Fausta were racing after me. Witnessing my tumble, they slow to scan the earth.

I shove myself back to my feet, restraining a wince at the stinging of my knees and palms. Brown smudges of dirt mar the white silk of my dress.

I can’t make out any indication of where the rest of the path in front of us might be unstable. Whoever conjured the obstacles in this stretch of the trial laid their traps well.

“Go on, then,” Fausta says in a sneering tone.

She wants me to uncover the pits by stumbling into them myself so she knows where it’s safe to walk.

Before I can retort, Leonette strides ahead of us with an impervious air. She sets her feet swiftly but carefully—and hops to the side the moment another span of earth crumbles beneath her shoe.

I’m not going to look like a coward in front of the court. I hurry after her, imitating her method, narrowing all my attention on the feel of the earth under me.

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