Flock

Chapter 27

Eventually, Prewta went inside. Honestly, I think the heat was starting to get to her. Once she had disappeared inside, Vas was on his feet motioning me to follow him. His cheeks were flushed, and his lips looked dry. He swiped the teapot from the table as we passed and led me back through the halls to our quarters.

"Heat get to you, too?" I asked, once we were safely behind closed doors. He shrugged.

"I could withstand it, if I had to. I'm a soldier — but yes, the heat was becoming uncomfortable."

Vas sat down at the table and poured the now cold tea into a metal cup. He took a swig and grinned.

"I like this tea better cold."

"When will Evound be back?"

"Not sure, probably by the end of the day."

Vas' coloring was slowly coming back to normal. His black vest showed no sign of perspiration, and I wondered if they sweat. I noticed Kiliyan had worked up a light sheen during any exertion, but not the familiar dripping sweat I was familiar with in humans.

I could feel my mind whirring away. If the rebellion could cut off the northern route of the Kriyjia when they were making their journey back for the winter—they would be weakened and potentially trapped in their residences until winter arrives again. Or at least until the fall cooled off enough for them.

I was sure that the rebellion had thought of that, but now I would be inside the walls. If I could get a message to Kiliyan, to Bogan even, maybe we could time it perfectly. It was a small window, but something to keep in mind.

Vas pulled out a stack of thick paper rectangles. He shuffled the cards. The zipping of the thick paper slapping into each other was a pleasant, familiar sound. The cards were bigger than the ones I played with underground, but they were the same in every other way.

"Come on, I'll teach you how to play."

"What's it called?"

"Executioner," Vas winked at me. "Much easier than it sounds. A lot less bloody, too!"

He dealt me nine cards. There were three suits, Swords, Cups, Kryifem, and Flowers. Each suit had thirteen cards ranging in value from one to eleven; and one wild card. In the tunnels, we likened the suits to Violence, Sustenance, Power, and Beauty; the wild card being a rebel, hidden amongst the rest. We played a simple game of trumps: high card wins.

"The object of the game, is to essentially be the executioner," he explained. I rolled my eyes.

"Really?"

He ignored my sarcasm, set the remainder of the deck in the middle of the table and picked up his cards. He looked at them, organizing his hand as he spoke.

"I keep the cards together by suits—normally from highest to lowest. We will each draw a card at the start of each turn. You need to collect a bribe to avoid your execution, which is five matching cards of each suit. Each turn you must discard one of your cards into one of two piles: the prison," he said, flipping one card over from the center deck and placing it off to one side. "You can choose not to draw a card from the deck, and instead pick a card from the prison. But, keep in mind that once you do; you may give away what you're collecting. And then there is the block—" he said. Flipping another card over and placing it to the other side.

"The block is prepping for execution. You cannot touch the execution deck once a card is discarded there. When we run out of cards from the main deck, we will shuffle the execution pile and that will become the draw deck.

"Once you collect your five cards, you place them down—face up. After that, you can begin your search for the executioner. That's the executioner card. Essentially, he kills the opponent and ends the game."