Page 34 of A Pact of Blood

He makes the process look easy. It can’t be more than a few minutes before he’s stepping onto the final wall and loping down the far steps, his teeth flashing with his grin.

Cleric Nellia has come around the maze to meet him. She ushers him onto the decorated dais and spreads her arms toward the citizens swarmed around us. “Emperor Marclinus has proven his understanding and intellect. Estera welcomes him onto the throne!”

As if to emphasize her words, a streak of lightning slices across the clouds. Its glow flares off Marclinus’s crown.

Even knowing what a psychopathic prick he is, my breath catches a little at the spectacle.

The audience roars their own approval. Marclinus lifts his arms to accept it, tipping his face toward the sky. Then he motions for the cleric to pass over her amplification charm.

“Thank you for witnessing my first rite of confirmation, my good people of Dariu!” he calls out. “You’re lucky enough to get to observe an additional honor today. My wife, Empress Aurelia, will complete the rite herself to prove how worthy she is to stand by my side.”

That’s not exactly how I’d have put it, but it isn’t the worst possible framing.

The applause that follows my husband’s announcement is more hesitant. I wave to the watching civilians and head down the slope as if I’m every bit as sure of my success as Marclinus was.

When I reach the bottom of the first set of stairs, I tap my hand down my front in the gesture of the divinities.Estera, see me through this trial so I may guide the empire in a wiser direction. Elox, give me a calm mind so I can recognize what needs to be done.

As I climb the steps, the loudest burst of thunder yet cracks the clouds. Raindrops sprinkle down on my coiled hair and patter against the stone.

I swallow thickly and keep walking.

Wonderful. Now the tiles will be slippery as well.

It won’t matter as long as I choose the right path. There has to be a strategy, something that’ll become clear to me if I pay enough attention.

I can’t let myself think about falling—about how easily my bones could break and my neck snap if I tumbled into the midst of these shifting slabs of stone.

The cool dampness seeping across my scalp and dappling my face shocks my mind into sharper alertness. I step onto the tiled surface on top of the wall and start forward in the same, obligatory direction Marclinus did.

My gaze slides ahead of me—and lingers on images carved into some of the tiles up ahead.

The grooves etched in the stone are shallow enough that I couldn’t see them from the edges of the hollow. The first one lies just a few paces away, near the first turn Marclinus took.

It’s an owl—Estera’s patron bird. Is that a clue to my course?

As I come up on it, the walls swivel around me. Two swing to a stop on either side of the owl tile, both with a similarly styled carving at their ends.

To my left, there’s a tree. To my right, what looks like a smoking chimney.

This one point was fixed all along. I know Marclinus veered to the right.

Recognition flares in my head.

There’s a fable about Estera in which she gives advice to an old man who later discovers an owl in his chimney.The truth will come to you if you search for it, but it’s often not as easily found as lies.

You could say owls belong in forests far more than chimneys, but that clearly wasn’t the point of this association. Are we meant to think of Estera’s deeper messages rather than common understanding?

I step to the right and hold still there. The rain picks up, soaking into my dress.

The wet silk clings to my legs. I can already feel how clumsy I’ll be if I make a wrong move and end up on a moving wall.

So I’d better not let that happen.

As they did for Marclinus, the slabs rearrange themselves again. I don’t think it’s quite the same configuration he was faced with, though. From what I remember, he took his next turn from the middle of this section, but no other passages branch away from that spotnow. My next options wait all the way down at the end, five paces away.

There, I can either step onward onto another wall straight ahead or turn to my left.

The tile in front of me shows an image of a feather—no, a quill, for writing. Beyond it lies an image of a scroll. To the left, a pot of ink.

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