We walked back to the table where Charis and Darya sipped wine and nibbled torn bits of a thin, round bread dotted with flecks of green.
I took a seat. “Do you know what they’re discussing?”
“News from the capitals, I expect,” Darya said. “Murder is forbidden in the caravanserai, but spying is a ubiquitous and lucrative business, so they must be careful where they speak.”
Charis nodded. “We’ll find out some of it later, but not all. Savaadh believes he can protect us by keeping the more salacious information to himself.” She rolled her eyes, and even that was beautiful. “But we always learn the truth eventually. While we wait, let’s play cards.”
“Cards?” I asked, concern about presumptuous soldiers and secret conversations now fading away. “I love cards.”
“I thought you might. You look like a woman skilled at many things.” She opened a pretty lacquered box and removed a stack of thin wooden cards. She dealt them into three stacks in the center of the table and one small stack in front of each of us. “Have you played Crown the Queen?”
We both shook our heads.
“The goal is to obtain power,” Charis continued. “The higher the card, the greater the power. Enough power, and you can crown a queen.”
“So go the cards,” Darya said, “so goes life.”
Crown the Queen, it turned out, involved a lot of cursing, bartering, lying, and outright theft. I loved it immediately.
“Are you sure you haven’t played this before?” Charis asked when I’d added all but one of her cards to my hand.
“Never. But it suits me very well.”
“You don’t seem to be soldiers,” Darya said.
“We’re working.”
“Because you can see Anima?” Darya asked.
I nodded. “How did you know?”
“I can see a bit,” Darya said, “and there’s a touch of the Aetheric about you.”
“There’s been a lot to go around lately,” I murmured. Before she could respond, Nik and Savaadh emerged from the alcove. Together, they looked like the princes in the storybooks sold in the market. Savaadh moved to a group in the corner, and Darya and Charis rose to join him. Nik strode to our table, and Galen moved from his sulking spot in the corner to our group.
Savaadh was smiling and looked utterly relaxed; Nik’s face gave nothing away, but his hands were fisted in frustration.
“What did he do?” I asked quietly.
Nik looked surprised at the question. “Nothing. Why?”
“You’re angry.”
“I’m not angry. I’m frustrated.”
“By? And yes, I’m nosy,” I said, anticipating Galen’s comment. “I want to know if we’re in for more trouble.”
“The Emperor Eternal is aging. And there’s new maneuvering among the princes to take the crown.”
“Our prince?”
“No. The Eastern Prince, the son of the current Empress Eternal”—he paused, looked meaningfully at Galen—“is to be given control of the entire Eastern Army.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“He has.”
“It’s, what, forty thousand troops? Fifty?”
