“Make that two silver,” he says, tossing in another coin.
“All right my turn,” Fox says, winking at me. “Primero ten, and I’ll match your bid, Saimenimus.”
The play continues for three rounds. I keep expecting to catch on to something, to figure out what the numbers mean, or why each of them seem to be calling out different words, but nothing sticks. Every time I think I understand, something new is mentioned, or Eparah becomes excited about a card I didn’t expect her to. All I know is she is extremely confident when she calls a maximus forty-six, and utterly devastated when the game ends and Sai reveals chorus eighty-four.
“You expect me to believe you actually won with the best hand you can possibly get in this game?” Eparah exclaims. She’s holding on to the tops of his hands, preventing him from grabbing his bounty.
His glare is playful. “Unless I’m more intoxicated than I realize, and my eyes are no longer reliable, it would appear so. This is a hand of four sevens, correct? One of each suit?”
She growls, releasing him with a huff as she sinks back into her seat. “I demand a rematch.”
Sai drags his winnings across the table, the bottle rocking but his eyes fixed on it and ready to catch it should it fall. Of course, it doesn’t.
“So sorry,” he says. “I believe your turn is over. Fox’s maximus forty-nine beats your maximus forty-six. And, Güthric…better luck next time, friend. It looks like the two of you are out, and Halira and Silver are in.”
“Oh,” I say, blanching. My arms fly up in defense. “I don’t think I could.”
“Nonsense,” Sai says. “Besides, you need to warm up before your match with Güthric. As you can see, he’s not much of an opponent, but still. I wouldn’t want to throw you in with the wolves blind, even if that particular wolf is more like a sheep.”
As Eparah frees her chair, a swagger to her step that hadn’t been there the first time we switched seats, I am overcome by a warmth that I can’t place, one different from the heat radiating from the fire, or the blanket of intoxication and relaxation that has wrapped itself around me. No, this is something else, something more profound.
For the first time in the month since my parents’ deaths, I actually remember what having a family feels like. Whatever void had been created when their deaths tore my heart apart, I realize for the first time in weeks that it has been slowly filling. With Eparah’s friendly smile, Fox’s wry humor, the way Güthric lumbers like an ox but has as a heart as gentle as a butterfly. These people—the strangers I traveled from Gravenburg to Nigh with, nearly losing our toes to the frost, losing everything else before then—they are my family now.
And I realize now, in the glow of the firelight, that there is nothing I am more grateful for than having them.
“All right, all right,” I say, scooting my chair out from under me. My legs, too, are unstable beneath me. I’ve lost track of how many drinks I’ve taken—seven, eight?—and so when I sidestep to the seat beside me, I crash into the arm and nearly fall to the ground. Warm laughter fills the hall, and Sai is surprisingly quick to offer me a hand up.
With his help, I settle into my chair. My silver hair hangs before my eyes, tussled from the fall. I blow the strands away from my face and point a challenging finger at Fox.
“Fine. I’ll play your game. But you’ll need to walk me through it better than last time. I could hardly keep up—”
Bing-bong.
I’m cut short by the brassy, hollow clang of the bell tower’s toll. Güthric jolts out of his chair, sobered in an instant. Sai, Fox, Silver, and I are a bit more delayed, but we spring to our feet before the second toll, looking over our shoulders toward the direction of the tower as if we’ll be able to see through these walls and the corridors between here and there.
“Two rings,” Eparah says, still standing behind me. “They want everyone in the courtyard.”
Sai scoffs. “Seems a little late in the evening for a—”
Bing-bong.
Everyone stills, becoming as rigid and silent as death itself.
Three tolls mean the arrival of the Magistrate; it’s the same throughout all of Arcathain since the number three is revered as a number of great power. There were three sides during the Great Rift: the mages, the Primordials, and the humans. There are three lands now: Illashore, the Shadowthorn, and Arcathain. Three is believed to be the perfect balance of all things, thereby being a number of great power, a number perfect for announcing the Magistrate, the most powerful man in all of Arcathain.
Only, each of us already knows how unlikely an impromptu visit from the Magistrate is, which can only mean—
Bing-bong.
The fourth toll.
“Demon scourge,” breathes Silver, a shudder in her breath.
But when the bell rings a fifth time, Eparah gasps. In almost one motion, she slams the bottle down and rips her silver insignia from the table, pinning it back in her black leather.
“Get to your rooms!” she shouts over her shoulder, already racing toward the door. “They’re inside the castle.”
“They’re w-what?” Sai stammers.
Güthric clamps a fist to his chest. “I help.”
“No!” Eparah roars, spinning back around to face us. All traces of her usually friendly expression have vanished behind the hard lines of her face. “Inducted Crusaders only. I won’t have any more of my recruits dying tonight.”
“What’s going on?” someone asks as they rush into the room.
I turn to see that it’s not just one someone, but many. A dozen or more of the male recruits have come out of their dorm to see what the excitement is about. My heart flutters when I spy Dimitri among them.
“Dimitri!” I blurt, stumbling to his side. I crash into his arms, and I’m grateful he catches me.
Thoughts of the scourge in Gravenburg are too fresh, too painfully seared in my mind to think of anything else. My friends. My neighbors. The refugees from Ashenvale who we’d been sheltering. My parents. Dozens of lives were claimed that night by the foul creatures that preyed on us, but Dimitri and I had survived. Dimitri protected me. If I’m to survive tonight, I know it will be at his side, so I cling to him like he is a cliff’s ledge and I am dangling over it.
“You can’t just expect us to hide out while the rest of you defend the fort,” Fox says, stepping forward. “If they’re inside, we should join the fight!”
“That’s enough!” Eparah roars. She looks every vision of a lion roaring at her pride, and she stares each and every one of us down. “You will return to your rooms, and you will stay there until you are sent for.”
“But—”
“That’s an order!”
We’re given no other chance to argue. Eparah ducks out of the room and into the dim halls without another glance back. Most of the recruits who joined us head back toward their dorms. The rest of us gawk at each other, ears straining for the guttural, screeching sounds of impending danger that could be anywhere inside these stone walls. But I hear none. Wherever the demons are, they’re not in this wing.
I remember then, the night I met Eparah in the east wing. She’d told me that the demons infiltrated the castle through the Blighted corridors. She insisted that they now had Crusaders posted but, thinking about it now, how often do Crusaders fall in the Shadowthorn? How many demons would it take to get past the—what two? Three? Four Crusaders, maximum, who are placed at the eastern wing?