I slay him with a stare while he lifts another shard, swapping something out, his features cast in stone as he spears me through with a simmering gaze.
“Your turn.”
Right.
Clearing my throat, I sweep the dice into my hand and flick it across the table, swapping my sowmoth for the Moltenmaw.
He rolls, but rather than pick a card from the board, he slaps the woetoe on the table, its furry face leering out at me from the upturned shard.
Fuck.
I flash him a smile, further fanning my deck as I extend my arm across the table to give him easy access to whatever card he decides to steal.
Holding my stare, he pinches the Moltenmaw, and I grind my teeth so loud I’m certain he can hear it.
“Apologies,” he says before he’s even had a chance to look at the powerful shard in his hand, threading it into his fan while still holding my eye contact.
“Don’t want your apology.” I toss the dice, my mood immediately brightening when I pick up the Moonplume. “I certainly won’t be offering one if I beat you.”
He throws the dice again, lifting a shard and swapping it out for another. “And the Mindweft? Will you apologize for that?”
Clearing my throat, I collect the dice in the cup, giving it a shake.
He lifts his gaze, meeting mine as he says, “Skripi.”
The dice flies free, bouncing across the board. “Already?”
Silence.
Internally, I groan—placing my nilacle he trumps with a colk. He places his Moltenmaw next, forcing me to reveal my Moonplume.
“Ouch,” he says, and a sour smile spreads across my face.
I slam down a swamp hag he trumps with a velvet trogg. Teeth gritted, I play my hushling—my remaining power card seeing as he ended the game so fucking quickly.
A beat passes before he slowly—almost gently—sets his doomquill on it, effectively handing me the play.
I look up, catching his stare.
Holding it.
Holding my breath, too.
“If I’m losing you again, I need to know why,” he implores, his gravelly words shaped more like an apology than an admittance.
My brow furrows as he pulls another shard from his fan and settles it on the final spot.
I break his stare, looking down.
My heart plummets so fast I almost vomit.
He sets the rest of his shards face down on the table and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms.
I release a shuddered breath, scouring the heavily tusked face of the roaring Sabersythe, a ball of red flame illuminated at the back of its throat—the only other shard that can possibly trump it already placed in the second stomp.
My Moonplume.
“Well played,” I rasp.
He dips his head.
I tap my finger against my shards, dropping my stare to my remaining spread, filling my lungs before I pull the smox free and set it on his Sabersythe.
A moment of pause, then “What is it?”
“A tick.”
The smox swirls, then congeals into the shape of the tiny bulbous bug …
Kaan’s eyes darken, a heaviness settling, like gravity just bore down on us.
“Your Sabersythe is feral,” I whisper. “Now it’s dead—slain. Unable to so much as lift its wings and soar into the sky to rest with its ancestors.”
All the color leaches from his shard, like the Sabersythe just perished between us.
Silence.
The promise that was scrawled across my palm squiggles free, releasing me from its clutch.
Kaan draws a deep breath through his nose, exhaling slower than a setting aurora. “Impressive,” he says, barely moving his mouth.
“Thank you.”
Another stretch of silence burdens the space between us, his eyes dark shadows still set on the final play.
I clear my throat, filling my cheeks with a blow of air I audibly release. “So … is there somewhere for me to store my gold so we can enjoy the festival without lugging it everywhere?”
Kaan blinks, drawing another deep breath. He lifts his head, evading my eye contact. “I have guards beyond the exit. I’ll send them in to bag it up and take it to the hutch so it’s ready for your departure.”
I nod, more of those fluttery things swarming through my chest at the thought of what this cycle could hold.
Anything’s possible.
We get to live this fantasy out, then I can get back to living my solitary life lifted by the knowledge that he’s safe from whatever curse seems to follow me around like an invisible scythe, slaying anybody I form attachments to.
“I’ll need to pay Pyrok back the gold I borrowed—”