Outside the Game: Prequel Chapter for THE JACK OF SOULS, Book One of the Unseen Moon series by Stephen Merlino

Author:Stephen Merlino [Merlino, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tortoise Rampant Press
Published: 2014-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

Excited confusion rippled through the crowd.

“Don’t do it.” Bettis laid a strong hand on Harric’s arm. “I do not believe you can win.”

“I am resolved,” Harric said. “I’ll write the deed myself.”

Someone laid out parchment and quill, and Harric wrote. It amused him that he could ink such a vile document without the smallest pulse of dread. On the contrary, he felt detached and calm. If anything could win the gods’ attention, surely this would do it. Word of the wager spread. More and more people squeezed into the card hall, and by the time he finished the deed, the space was stuffed with perspiring bodies. Stable boys swarmed the rafters. House girls stood on tables.

Two of Iras’ guards loomed behind Harric and stationed themselves behind his chair to make sure he didn’t cheat. Bettis and her guards stationed themselves behind Iras. As if in response to the guards’ scrutiny, one of the cards in Harric’s sleeve slipped out of its band—the Jack of Souls, he realized, by its location among the high cards. It must have been knocked loose in his retreat from the lunging guard.

Cursing inwardly, Harric dropped his wrist against the edge of the table and pinned the card before it emerged.

He held it there as four witnesses signed the deed, and he kept it there as he laid the deed alongside the girl’s in the middle of the table.

Iras picked up a deck and gazed across to Harric. The hall fell silent.

“Tarot poker,” Harric said. “Two-draw minimum before call.”

The lord shuffled and dealt. At Iras’ side, the girl sat motionless, a figure of saffron marble. Her eyes locked on Harric. Was it dread he saw there? Fear of a new master? Her expression seemed to ask, Why? And he had no easy answer. Because he hated Iras and his kind? Because he hated his mother for cursing him? Because he saw a chance to pluck meaning from the void and maybe seize the attention of a god?

All of it, surely.

Bettis and her knights hovered behind Iras.

Harric kept his wrist immobile against the table until Iras finished dealing, then feigned to scratch his wrist so he could nudge the card back in place.

Both Iras’ guards leaned in at once. “What’s wrong with your arm?” said one.

Harric looked up. “Can’t a man scratch?”

“You’re a bastard, not a man. Keep your hands apart.”

Harric shrugged and picked up his cards with his free hand. He could pin the Jack of Souls against the table until he needed it. But his palms perspired at the thought of removing it or any card under such fierce scrutiny. To have any access to it, he’d need to create a distraction.

His initial hand was terrible, but since the two-draw minimum ensured he’d have at least two draws, he discarded the entire hand and drew again. Iras smiled and, without dropping his gaze from Harric, followed suit, discarding his entire hand to draw again.

When Harric peeked at his cards, his breath caught in his throat. He’d drawn all four queens.

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