The young king shook off a lingering unease as he waited for the path before him to clear of arachnids. It was always an unsettling business, being psychoanalyzed by spiders. He did not want to ponder that the creature was able to dismiss him with three words of shrewd observation; neither did he did want to wonder how else he might’ve survived these trials had he not trained for so many years as a Diviner. If he’d been unable to communicate with living creatures, if he’d been unable to wield magic to fight for his life. It bothered him to think of it as anything but coincidence; he didn’t
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