Page 46 of The Stars are Dying

As I said it, Cass swiped the bottle again, holding it up to me with a devilish smirk before she brought it to her lips. Then she squinted at the bottle, tipping it upside down to be sure it was empty.

“We probably shouldn’t have drunk it all—” A hiccup escaped me, and we broke into quiet giggles that made the grim event we’d witnessed easier to deal with.

My face fell as I glanced one last time over the side of the building. All was still. Yet the speck on the ground that could have been mistaken as a crate reminded me a life had been taken and discarded as no more than that.

Cassia’s backtracking snapped me out of my tunneling sorrow. “Seriously, sometimes it’s like you have this whole trove of skills somehow locked away.”

“Hardly,” I said.

“Except for swordplay.”

“Swords are heavy.”

“We all have our weaknesses.”

“And yours are…?”

Cassia pretended to think long and hard, and I nudged her playfully. “It’s cold as shit,” she said through chattering teeth. “Come on.”

I followed her inside, where clumsily we made it to the main room that hosted nighttime gambling and drinking. It was still thriving.

Cassia was already at the bar ordering a drink while I scanned the establishment carefully. It wasn’t as esteemed as Hektor’s. In this setting the air stung with heavy notes of cheap ale and unwashed bodies. The furniture was all wooden and aged. My vision was lagging and sometimes doubling. It had been so long since I’d even come close to being drunk, but I was riding an unexplainable high tonight and could conquer anything.

At a rowdy burst of laughter and jeering, I found a man standing from his seat in frustration and defeat while those around him jostled him playfully. Another seated man rearranged something on the table.

“My prize still stands, lads. Two gold coins if you figure it out.”

A tankard was thrust in front of me, and I took it but didn’t look away from them.

“What do you think it is?” I asked Cassia.

She squinted over at them. “A game, perhaps.”

“A puzzle,” a low voice corrected.

I turned to find a tall man with dark brown hair and gleaming brown eyes. My intuition told me not to trust him, and I shuffled closer to Cass, studying what I could of his attire and finding some element of it to be familiar—such as the texture of the leather, almost like layered scales. The form was fitted, and an elegant cloak was clasped at one shoulder.

“You’re great at those!” Cassia’s cheer stole my observations.

“No, I’m not,” I insisted as she tried to drag me away.

“Sure, you are! Remember that time…”

Cassia reeled off every memory of us playing cards, games, and figuring out the smallest riddle while she pulled me over to the table. By the time we stood before the men, all attention was on us.

I looked down to see what it was. Matchsticks had been arranged in the shape of a boxy house, and my brow furrowed, my mind already trying to figure it out without hearing the object of the game.

“You ladies want a try?” the older man coaxed.

I surveyed them again, wanting nothing more than to leave at the crawling sensation I’d been here before. But my sights on the puzzle kept me in place.

“She does!” Cassia exclaimed, pulling out the chair and pushing me down onto it.

I could figure it out quickly. Then we would sleep.

The man gave a hearty chuckle that relaxed my nerves around the others. “No one has solved it tonight, girl. Have your try. Move two matches to make five squares. Once you move them, your try is up.”

I barely heard the final sentence. The room drifted away as I rearranged the matchsticks over and over in my mind. The noise of the inn faded, and the only thing that took me a few beats longer than necessary was my drunken state.

---