Ice Crown - Kay L. Moody (ereader that reads to you .txt) 📗

Books by Kay L. Moody

 

The Fae of Bitter Thorn

0: Heir of Bitter Thorn

1: Court of Bitter Thorn

2: Castle of Bitter Thorn

3: Crown of Bitter Thorn

4: Queen of Bitter Thorn

 

The Elements of Kamdaria

1: The Elements of the Crown

2: The Elements of the Gate

3: The Elements of the Storm

 

The Elements of Kamdaria EPISODES

This series was originally published as short episodes. The series above (The Elements of Kamdaria) includes these same stories, but they are packaged as bundles and read like full-length books. Most readers prefer to read the bundles (above). But you can also get the individual episodes (below).

1: Ice Crown

2: Wind Crown

3: Dust Crown

4: Flame Crown

5: River Gate

6: Smoke Gate

7: Vine Gate

8: Ember Gate

9: Water Storm

10: Air Storm

11: Earth Storm

12: Fire Storm

 

Truth Seer Trilogy

1: Truth Seer

2: Healer

3: Truth Changer

 

To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases, sign up for Kay L. Moody’s email list! You’ll also get this story for FREE. Winds of Flame is a short story companion to The Elements of Kamdaria series. Manipulate the elements. Do an illegal job. Save a life. It’s all in a day at Kamdaria’s finest academy.

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Ice Crown

The Elements of Kamdaria Episode 1

 

The competition could save her life…

But only if she wins.

 

Talise can manipulate the elements with ease; water, air, earth, and fire all bend to her will. As a citizen of the Storm—a crime-laden land where death is the only constant—her only chance for a better life is to become Master Shaper.

 

A competition for the position takes place at the end of her training years. If she wins, she would live in the palace, work for the emperor, and escape her inevitable death in the Storm. But she’s not the only one with a chance to win.

 

Aaden is another talented student. As a citizen of the Crown, he was born with unlimited privilege and resources. When someone from the Crown wants to win, they do. End of story. And his shaping is unlike anything Talise has ever seen.

 

Complicating matters, Talise’s loved one in the Storm gives her reason to abandon the competition altogether, forcing her to make an impossible choice.

 

Torn between duty and freedom, she must learn that clinging to the past, might destroy her future.

 

Publisher’s Note: This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, organizations, or locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business or government establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

Ice Crown

The Elements of Kamdaria Episode 1

By Kay L. Moody

 

Published by Marten Press

3731 W 10400 S, Ste 102 #205

South Jordan, UT 84009

 

www.MartenPress.com

 

© 2019 Kay L. Moody

 

All Rights Reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

help@martenpress.com

 

Cover by Germancreative-fiverr

Edited by Deborah Spencer

 

 

The Elements of Kamdaria, episode 1

 

Ice Crown

 

 

 

Kay L. Moody

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

 

 

ONE

 

 

 

IT WAS AN HONOR TO TRAIN AT the academy.

Talise recited the words to herself over and over again as she stood stiff-backed in the crowded deck of the riverboat. If chosen, she’d be ripped away from the home and family she loved. She’d leave behind the life she knew. All to train at the academy. An honor.

It didn’t seem so great to her.

A stuffy, humid heat hung thick in the air of the lowest deck. The lowest deck had no windows, offering no sunlight and no view of the river to help with seasickness. Two small lanterns hung from the ceiling, each giving off a flickering glow. Whenever the boat jostled, several people were thrown off balance.

Marmie gripped Talise by the shoulders, tucking her into the corner where no one could hurt her. The top of Talise’s head only barely reached Marmie’s elbow, which meant she couldn’t do much to free herself from the corner. Instead, she folded her arms over her chest and pouted. They’d been saving for this trip for months. Two years really. They had always known it would lead here. She always imagined it would be less stuffy and more exciting.

Most people from the outer ring of the continent—or the Storm as it was usually called—couldn’t shape. Talise had the ability to mold and manipulate elements while most of her neighbors in the Storm could only worry about their next meal.

The academy would be safer than her harrowing and vicious life in the outer ring. She never wanted to live in the Storm, but she didn’t like the idea of being away from Marmie either.

“Almost there,” Marmie said, her voice like honey and sparkles. She looked down at Talise and gave her a smile that was meant to ease fears. It helped a little but not enough.

Especially because the riverboat jostled again, and a heavy-set man lost his balance, nearly toppling Marmie to the ground. Talise let herself be tucked behind Marmie’s skirts after that. This time with no complaint.

She didn’t understand why they had to ride in the lowest deck at all when both the higher decks had plenty of room. At least up there she could feel a misty breeze on her face and smell the wet soil.

Truthfully, she did know why they stood in the lowest deck. It was the same reason they didn’t have enough food and couldn’t learn to read. They were from the Storm. They were the lowliest members of the continent of Kamdaria: criminals, thieves, murderers.

Once people were sent to the Storm, they never left. Even if the original crimes had been committed ten generations earlier, people still never left the Storm. They never left because life in the Storm required crime.

It required stealing from trade wagons just so there would be a slice of bread for dinner. It required threatening guards so they wouldn’t torment a neighbor. It required saving rainwater just so there would be something to drink after a day of labor.

Why it was illegal to save rainwater didn’t make any sense to Talise. No one from the Storm could shape the water, so it was far from dangerous. It just seemed like another way to control the people. Another way to force people to commit crimes, which then forced them to stay in the Storm. Where they belonged.

People never left the Storm. Never. Especially not children who were seven years old.

Unless they got into the academy.

Talise sighed. Marmie had been saying they were almost there for the last twenty minutes. Maybe she’d be right at some point.

A toddler’s sharp shriek broke through humid air of the deck. The mother looked mortified as she tried to appease her child with promises of what they would see when the riverboat stopped. Cherry tree blossoms and green-tiled buildings. Fresh air and gravel on the streets. Only small glimpses of mud instead of big mounds of it.

The toddler didn’t find any of these satisfactory. The heavy-set man gave the mother a hard glance, and he wasn’t the only one. Everyone shifted to move away from the child, but that only made him more upset. One man put his palms over his ears looking pointedly at the mother.

“Please Terreth. Please,” the mother begged. “We are almost there.”

The child looked more terrified by the minute as the bodies around him became angrier. His shrieking bounced from wall to wall while his little eyes filled with a well of tears.

As Talise watched the child, she tried to think of a way to help. Not for the sake of the other passengers. They could jump into the river for all she cared. But the child looked so frightened. He needed a distraction. Something fun.

Talise lowered her body until her hand hovered just above the floor of the deck. She’d been practicing hard, but even a little shaping still required her absolute attention. With narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw, she willed the dirt on the floor to rise into the air.

It took a minute, but soon, little dust particles rose up in a cloud. She clenched her jaw tighter. A cloud wouldn’t do her any good. She needed enough dirt to make something the boy could see easily in the flickering light. Something he couldn’t miss.

She narrowed her eyes even more. Her stomach tightened with anticipation. Finally, a solid clump of dirt broke apart, and the little dirt pieces flew up toward her hand. Now she had something she could work with.

Taking a tentative step out from Marmie’s skirts, Talise shaped the dirt so it would hover above her palm. She turned her back to the other passengers and bounced her eyebrows up and down until she caught the boy’s eyes.

When he finally looked at her, he was still shrieking. She gave him a crooked smile and looked down at the hovering dirt. Then, she bounced the dirt until it hovered as high as her head before it fell back down only a few inches above her palm.

The sour expression on the boy’s face hadn’t relaxed, but the volume of his shrieking had lowered. She did it again. This time she wore an expression of surprise as if the dirt bounced of its own accord, and she hadn’t shaped it at all.

The boy quieted mid-shriek as his eyes opened wide. Now that she had his full attention, she shaped the dirt until it formed a long line. It didn’t look much like the snake she was going for, but it was close enough.

She had to pull her stomach muscles in tight as she moved the line of dirt to look like a snake slithering. Again, it didn’t look as neat as she wanted, but this was probably the first time in his life the boy had seen a citizen of the Storm shaping. He was more than mesmerized.

After the snake,