Page 34 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

Grinning, I turned back to Kessara’s team. I was supposed to be watching all of them, but dammit if I didn’t want her to do well after forcing them to go last.

Kessara’s shadows ended up being such an advantage that they made it to the exit door without any major wrong turns. Only to find out they needed a key.

“I saw one,” Sam admitted. “When the three creeps chased us. Just before that, I turned a corner and saw something shiny, but I didn’t have time to figure out what.”

“But what are the odds it’s still there?” Molly asked.

“We have to try,” Kessara said as she led them back that direction.

I looked to the area they were talking about to find that Magnolia’s group had just found the key Sam had seen.

For a fleeting moment, I felt worry in the pit of my stomach.

Kessara needed this. She could lead this team, have an excuse to stay in Wylan.

I wanted that for her. She couldn’t be out at the very end like this.

If she didn’t pass this trial, I couldn’t save her. Not from this.

And not only that, but I had paired her with Molly and Sam. Two huge pieces of this team. I wasn’t sure there was a team without the three of them in it. Had it been a mistake making her go last? What if in an effort to not play favorites, I had given this group too much of a disadvantage?

When they made it back to the men waiting to chase them, Kessara hid them in shadows. They walked right on past without them even knowing.

“It’s gone,” Sam cursed. “I’m sorry, guys.”

“That only lost us a minute,” Kessara told her. “Think. Where else would there be a key.”

“Where the two tall balance beams were,” Molly offered. “We took the one without a dead end. But Kessara said there was another. The dead ends aren’t really dead ends. Not all of them. They’re the keys. ”

Internally I was clapping. They could still do this. They were only nine minutes in, so they still had plenty of time. Pippa’s team had just made it out. Two groups passed, two to go.

Without delay, they sped around corners; Kessara’s shadows seemed to understand what they were looking for and were leading the way, reaching out and guiding them.

They had to go back across the tall balance beams, to get to the fork in the maze where they had seen the dead end with the other balance beams. But at that one, after a step up to an even higher balance beam, there was a key suspended in the air in an orb.

Molly tried to use her Enchantment to move the orb holding the key, but it didn’t budge. Kessara tried with her shadows, but no luck. Little did they know, there were three members of Team One assigned to make sure that key and orb held.

Kessara stalled for only a moment, looking to the Team One guys as if wondering if she could just knock them off the wall. “Screw it,” she said as she headed for the beams. Though I wouldn’t have faulted her for messing with Team One, she had decided to do this fairly.

“You’ve got this,” Molly told her.

She gracefully ran across one beam, hopped up on the other, and that was when Allen from Team One moved the orb holding the key slightly higher. Kessara was going to have to jump.

I wasn’t annoyed with the move, but for Kessara’s sake, a muddy landing below her, I hoped she got it on the first try. Having to remove the mud before trying again only wasted precious time.

With a deep breath, she launched herself into the air, snagging the key from all the magic, and dropping the orb.

Molly realized she would fall and put out her power to catch Kessara.

“Thanks.” Kessara landed in a net of turquoise, somewhat surprised, and mud free .

“Good work,” Sam stated.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Kessara said. “And hope this is the right key.”

“It is,” Sam responded confidently as they broke into a run. “If it hadn’t been, they wouldn’t have made you work for it.”

On the way back through, they began sprinting, Kessara calling out directions with her shadows ahead of them, Molly’s power sprawling out on the ground just before them, lighting the way. I glanced at my watch, willing them to move faster.

Dammit if I didn’t want my wife to win this.

Kessara’s shadows were still crawling before them, guiding them, when she came to a stop and turned her head at one little corner. In the corner of one dead end was tucked another key, the extra.

She quickly ran to it and snatched it up. “Another?”

“Options,” Sam commented as they began running again. “I love options.”

“Either a fake or one for another team?” Molly asked.

“Either way, it’s coming with us,” Sam commanded.

When they got to the portion they would be chased, Molly cut off her Enchantment and Kessara grabbed them each by the hand and doused them in shadows. Or that’s what I assumed because one moment they were there, the next they were gone.

I walked along the walls of hay, making sure they were going to make it. At the current rate they were moving, they were going to beat Magnolia’s group back out, who also had a key in hand.

I recognized it as Sam’s voice who whispered, “Boo,” to the men before the three of them were laughing and running.

The men turned this way and that, but they couldn’t see them.

Sam, Molly, and Kessara emerged from the shadows and opened the door at the exit with one of their keys.

They stood at the door and deliberated heading back in with their other key to give to another team, until Miles called over to them and informed them the second key they’d found was just an extra, not required for Magnolia’s team.

Kessara must not have felt like taking his word for it, as she sent the extra key on her shadows toward the other team.

They stumbled out of the maze together, and I felt relief travel to my very toes. I knew Kessara could do it. I knew all of them could.

And within two more minutes, Magnolia’s team also made it out, not even needing the key from Kessara. I used my magic to jump off the top of the maze.

“Congratulations,” I told them, smiles to be found all around. “You all passed.”

Shrieking was the best way I could describe the sound that came next. They were hugging and I was pretty sure there were a few tears, hopefully from relief.

A few of them were muddy, but no one seemed to care. They passed.

After letting them celebrate a minute, Krew and Keir approached to offer their congratulations.

“Wait!” Jessina yelled at me. “Who won for time, General? Who got out of running today?”

I looked to Miles. I was fairly certain I knew the answer to this, but he was the man with the stopwatches.

“Kessara, Molly, and Sam won for time.”

Kessara grinned while Sam put a fist in the air. “We even found an extra key!”

Molly hugged them both.

Krew stepped forward and again congratulated them on the hard work, telling a funny story about our maze trial, making sure to point out how impressed with the team he was.

My eyes went to Kessara. She had a small spot of mud on her chin, but she was watching her brother intently. It was so obvious seeing her and Krew and Keir together that they were somehow related. High cheekbones and stubborn assness was a Valanova trait, it seemed.

I hoped our time at the castle during the break would give her the opportunity to get to know at least one of her brothers better.

By the time we made it back over to the training area to run, the women’s joy was not to be deterred.

All thirteen of them had passed the first round of training.

We had one more day tomorrow, mostly wrap up and instruction for how the second session would go, some advice for the break, and they were free. Free to go for a month.

I stood back, watching the women start their run and feeling a sense of pride over this group.

Their training was not done, but they were a third of the way there.

It hadn’t been easy. Somewhere along the way, I had wound up married to one of them, but it felt damn good to stand here with the team before me.

“Hey,” Kessara said as she came up beside me.

“Kess,” I greeted, keeping my eyes on the runners.

“Another nickname?”

I smirked. “Do you not like it?”

“I haven’t ever been called Kess. Kessa, yes. Not Kess.”

“I considered Kessa,” I told her. “But Warrick’s mom was named Cessa. I realize it is an S sound and not the K or C, but I still wanted something different for you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? No arguments, Princess?”

“No, General, ” extra emphasis on general, “we won the maze trial time, I’m not botherable today.”

I turned toward her. Confidence looked good on her. “As you should be. I knew you could do it.”

She reached out and dropped the extra key in my hand. “This was really just an extra? A lack of keys the disadvantage for the last team?”

“Yeah. It was supposed to be hard, but not impossible. ”

“I wasn’t taking any chances once I felt it with my shadows. So we brought it with us.”

“And offered it to the other team. The last team in the maze hasn’t won for at least four training teams. Impressive.”

She smiled brilliantly, “You do know that I can pick locks with the shadows?”

What? “No. I did not know that. So why didn’t you?”

“There’s winning, and then there’s beating the entire maze and being a sore winner,” was her response. “I can play by the rules. I didn’t need to cheat to win.”

“Kessara,” I groaned.

“What?”

“One of these days you’re going to have to stop holding back.” Her performance today was already wildly impressive.

“I don’t think you want that,” was the cocky response I got back.

I swiped my thumb out to catch the mud off her face and was surprised when she didn’t flinch.

She leaned in and whispered, “Either way, I still get to sleep with a winner. Me.”

I laughed. “You get to sleep at the barracks tonight. You are off the hook tonight. But....” I trailed off intentionally.

“But?”

“But you do owe me a conversation about Calix.”

Her face went from happy to pouty in record speed. “Can’t you just let me enjoy this a little longer?”

I crossed my arms. “Not when that prick could arrive any minute.”

“Fine,” she groaned. “See you for dinner.”

“You are going to willingly tell me everything? Or do I need to invite Amos too?”

“No. I will,” Kessara muttered. “I will tell you everything. ”

“It’s a date, wife,” I told her as I spun to talk to Emric.

To my back she yelled, “It’s a damn interrogation!”