Crush the King by Estep Jennifer

Author:Estep, Jennifer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Published: 2020-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

A series of bells chimed, signaling the start of the kronekling tournament. Everyone in the center of the ballroom stepped back, while the servants brought out two tables, along with several chairs.

The royals huddled with their respective entourages, and my friends and I ended up in the corner, next to one of those annoying fountains that kept spitting out gold coins.

“Now, remember,” Cho said. “Watch the other players for nervous tics and tells. That’s half the battle of winning kronekling. Along with counting cards.” He winked at me.

Xenia might have schooled me in the Tanzen Falter, but Cho was the one who’d spent hours reviewing kronekling rules and strategies with me. The dragon morph loved the card game as much as he did sweets, and we’d played hand after hand with Sullivan and Serilda, most of which he won. Of course I had played kronekling before, but only casually, and the pressure to win had never been so high.

“Oh, leave her alone,” Serilda said. “Evie is going to do fine.”

“Did you see that with your magic?” I asked, not quite joking. “Please tell me you saw that with your magic.”

“I don’t have to see it with my magic. You’re smart and a quick thinker and ruthless when it comes to winning. You’ll do fine. Now go out there and make Bellona proud.”

Xenia, Paloma, and Auster nodded their encouragement, while Sullivan kissed my cheek.

“I would wish you luck, highness,” he murmured. “But Serilda’s right. You don’t need it.”

I flashed him a grateful smile, then strode forward and took my place at one of the tables.

Eon, Heinrich, and Zariza filled the remaining three seats at my table. Maximus was at the other table, along with Ruri, Cisco, and Driscol. Even though he wasn’t a royal, it made sense for Driscol to join the game, since you needed four people to play. Perched at each table was a dealer wearing DiLucri colors.

The two dealers grabbed their decks and started sliding cards across the wooden surfaces, which featured squares embossed with gold crowns and silver swords. A hush fell over the ballroom as we all picked up our cards to see our first hand of the night.

Kronekling was played with a regular deck with four suits—crowns, coins, hearts, and swords—and cards ranging in value from two to ten, along with kings, queens, and jacks. But what made kronekling different from a more common game like rummy were the four extra cards in the deck. Two of them were jokers and utterly useless, but the other two cards—a gold crown and a silver sword—were the most important ones in the game. The gold crown, or geldkrone, could trump any other card, while the silver sword, or silberkling, was the second-most powerful and capable of trumping every card except the geldkrone.

Each one of the four players was dealt twelve cards, while the dealer put the last four cards from the deck in a stack called the armory. After each player looked at their cards, they could decide whether they wanted to bid for the right to look at the cards in the armory.

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