Page 29 of Fallen Stars
Isra didn’t seem convinced, but Merissa nodded. “Okay. We’ll let you go.”
Elara kissed her on the cheek. “So adorable how you pretend your word would have stopped me at all.” She winked as Isra let out an unwilling laugh before fluffing her hair and turning towards her target.
Elara knew when to switchiton. When one mastered illusions, they could also master how one perceived them. She could shrink and hide in shadows when it was convenient, but when it was time to lift the veil? Yes, Elara knew how to do that very well too.
She raised her chin, straightened her back, and began to slink towards a round table, five men filling each of the six seats, bar one. As she squinted through the cigar smoke, she saw they were playing Bard—a variation of a widely played card game throughout Celestia. Elara remembered playing something of the sort with Sofia in the palace as a teenager.
The instructions of the game were straightforward enough. You were dealt a hand of cards with beautifully rendered depictions upon them.
There were five suits. The first was the Star suit. Twelve Star cards were contained within that suit. Well… eleven and a half now that she had killed Gem, Elara considered. Each carried a depiction of each Star. She had supposed the origins of the game were some fanatical bid to lick the Stars’ boots, weaving the most fantastical tales of whichever Star the player was dealt with the other cards that came along.
The other suits dealt in the pack were divided into the Kingdom suit—twelve cards within it—the Weapons suit—six cards within it—the Magick suit—twelve cards within—and finally, the Miscellaneous suit—a mixture of random cards to add to one’s storytelling skills.
Once dealt, the players placed their bets, usually based on how well they felt they could tell a story from what they received. The one who could weave the most riveting story with their cards won the game, as judged by the dealer.
A figure was speaking, the game having already started without a sixth member, and the moment Elara heard the quicksilver, dancing voice recount, she smiled. The smoke cleared to reveal the speaker dragging on a tobacco roll as he held his cards in his left hand, the other four men listening in rapture. Elara’s eyes perused him—his slicked back hair, dark eyes, shirt sleeves rolled up, and finally, a curling black snake tattooed around the speaker’s forearm.
“It looks like you’re missing a player,” she crooned, interrupting the man mid-sentence. The men around the table jolted as though broken out of a reverie before looking at her, their mouths agape.
The only tell that the speaker was shocked to see her was a glint of surprise in his dark eyes as he took another drag of his roll.
“Dealer, count me in.” She settled into the vacant seat, touching the pad of a finger to her lips delicately. The dealer looked at her, wide-eyed, before hastily shuffling the remaining cards in the deck and dealing her twelve cards. The other men were still staring at her.
“We haven’t need of another player,” the speaker finally drawled, leaning back in his chair.
“Pity, I came with big stakes,” Elara replied.
The speaker raised a brow. “You haven’t even checked your cards.”
Elara glanced to where hers were lying, face down. “I don’t need to.”
“You’re that confident in your storytelling?”
Elara leaned forward conspiratorially, her voice a mock whisper. “You of all people, Eli, know that I have averyexciting story to tell.”
The Star gave a small smile, stubbing out his tobacco roll onto an obsidian dish. Well, at least she didn’t have a knife to her throat yet. “Very well, how much?”
Elara only smiled, reaching to her cleavage. One man choked on his cigar as she produced a large cloth pouch. She dropped it on the table, a heavy thunk resounding as the coins spilled out. A bag full of midans, their gold glinting in the dimly lit space.
“Holy shit,” a man with greying hair in a smart suit said, eyeing the bag.
“You know what I trade in, and it’s not money,” Eli said. “Your lover can attest to that.”
Elara pounced, a shadow slamming the Star out of his chair and into the wall behind him, curling around his throat. The onlookers remained oblivious—she’d spent the last three minutes weaving an illusion of complete normalcy as she spoke.
“Clever thing,” he purred. “Who did you convince to take the blood oath so you could use your magick in here?”
“What does it matter?” She squeezed her shadows tighter, and Eli chuckled.
“This the kind of thing Lorenzo likes? I guessed you’d be into some dark shit.” He grinned, completely unfazed by the shadows tightening around his throat.
Elara squeezed harder, a snarl on her face. “Keep his name out of your fucking mouth.”
“I thought we were going to speak civilly, Elara. I’m disappointed.”
Elara tutted. “You know better than to assume that. Were three mutilated bodies hanging from the entrance to your precious fighting dencivil?”
Ah. There it was, a brief flicker in Eli’s gaze. She had struck a nerve.