The Soulstoy Inheritance (8 page)

I was breathing hard, my eyes bright and my hair beginning to escape its braid, barefoot with my coat flapping open. There was really no explanation. The way they stared at me, I could have been a ghost, but eventually, recognition set in and the man closest to me dropped clumsily to his knees. I realised then that they had been drinking.

“Oh get up,” I said, “be at ease, all of you. I don’t deserve to be kneeled to anymore than any other person in your kingdom. We’re all wretched monsters.”

To my surprise, the man who had fallen to his knees laughed, and soon the other two had joined in. My eyebrows shot up and I moved to reexamine them more carefully. Beneath their synfee gold, their true colouring was consistent, the similarities in their features enough to convince me that they might be related in some way. They had hair of a russet shade that varied from red-gold to my own blood-red, and green-gold eyes that reminded me of Cereen, though hers had been darker and more hostile. The one now getting back to his feet was the tallest, and also seemed to be the bulkiest, whereas the other two had the kind of streamlined strength about them that I usually associated with the fae. The man who had drawn his sword had a dangling golden piercing in his left ear, and glittering golden rings scattered across his fingers. They caught my eye as he slid his sword back into its sheath.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“What
isn’t
funny?” answered the big man, shaking his mane of golden red hair and righting the table. “The queen busting in on a card game in her nightgown, looking for all the world as if someone had set the dogs on her.”

I felt my shoulders sag a little bit, the surprise of finding them there wearing off and making room for what I had momentarily forgotten.

“I’ve never been a queen before, and I don’t feel like much of one now,” I offered, as they all re-seated themselves and began sorting through the cards that had gone flying.

They acted as though nothing had happened, as though I were nothing more than a common foot soldier, come to drink with them.

“A queen doesn’t wander alone at night,” said the man with the earring, devoid of the fear, patronisation and uncertain worship with which the rest of the kingdom seemed inclined to throw my way, further endearing me to him.

He had astoundingly translucent skin; clear and pale, only the dark bruise flowering over the sharp slope of his cheekbone marred the perfection. The others boasted similar complexions, with similar bruises. There was a tangible camaraderie within the tower room, a oneness of being that existed within a bubble of impishness. They didn’t worry about their words or actions, because I had stepped right into their bubble, and my status no longer mattered.  

“And she certainly doesn’t do it dressed like that,” added the third man, who had reached behind them for a bottle of light golden liquid, refilling his glass and raising an eyebrow at the other two.

They nodded, and he topped up their glasses.

“What’s that?” I asked him, pointing at the bottle.

“Tears, it’s called.”

“A queen wouldn’t drink with her own soldiers,” said the large man solemnly, though I wondered if he were goading me in some way, as the man holding the bottle grinned.

“Why Tears?” I asked. “And what are you playing?”

“A queen doesn’t—“ the man with the earring started, but I cut across him.

“Play cards? Ask so many unseemly questions? What else doesn’t a queen do?”

He chuckled, and kicked out a chair, nodding to it. “Come have a drink, Lady Queen. We won’t tell anyone, and you look like you could use it.”

I stared at the chair a moment and then moved to take a seat, accepting the glass that was handed to me.

“I’m Teddy,” said the big man with a smile, “this is Quick,” he gestured to the man with the earring. “And Sweet.” The remaining man.

“What strange names,” I remarked, taking a sip of their drink and gasping aloud.

Quick laughed and thumped me on the back as some of it spilled from the side of my mouth. “It gets worse, the more you drink.”

I stared down into the glass, mollified. “Why drink it then?”

“It’s a challenge, Lady Queen. You’ll see.”

They explained the rules of their game, which seemed all too absurd. Their deck was sorted into five piles, one to each of us, and the remaining in the middle. There was a new rule for each round, which was decided by the winner of the last round. First of all, the top card of the middle deck was revealed, and then the top card of each individual deck, where it was then the aim to grab the card closest in value to the middle card—regardless of whose deck it sat upon. The winner of the card then had to complete the rule decided in the previous round before anyone else, as absurd as it was. The winner was the only person spared from their drink that round.

“Teddy won the last round, so he gets to decide the rule this time,” Sweet explained. “What’ll it be, Teddy?”

Teddy seemed to consider this with great care, and then declared, “touching the ceiling.”

I looked up dubiously, but didn’t argue, and soon it was time to flip the middle card. It was an eight.

“On the count of three,” sang Sweet, “one, two… three!”

I flipped my card, and found a seven staring back at me. I didn’t even look at the others, merely snapped mine to my chest. This seemed to stun them, but they didn’t cover their own cards quick enough for me to decipher that I did indeed have the closest number. The problem lay with the fact that I really had no idea how I was going to reach the ceiling, and my companions seemed to have reached the same conclusion. Teddy laughed gleefully and jumped onto his chair, launching himself into the air high enough that his fingers scraped the stone. Sweet had also jumped out of his chair, but rolled his eyes and slumped back down when Teddy beat him to it. Quick hadn’t even budged, and was already taking a wincing swig of his drink, gold rings twinkling in the lamp light.

“Teddy always wins with that rule,” he said, before turning to Teddy, and pointing, “but you didn’t get the winning card, so you still have to drink.”

Sweet took a drink, scowling, and then they all seemed to turn to me, waiting. I looked down, found myself laughing, and then raised the glass to my lips and took a horrible gulp. When I smacked the glass back onto the table, my new friends had broken into three identical grins. Their height, weight, jewelry and the slight variations in their colouring failed to distinguish them in that instant. Their nature combined them, and it called to something similar in me.

“Are you all related?” I found myself asking as Sweet turned over the next card.
A Two
.

“Quick is my brother, Teddy is our cousin,” he answered me, and then, “What’s the rule going to be for this round, Teddy?”

“First to pitch…” He leaned back in his chair, craning his neck to look around, and then disappeared beneath the table for a moment, before popping back up with a stone in his hand, setting it onto the center of the table. “…this over the edge of the parapet.”

“Ready?” asked Sweet. “One, two… three!”

I flipped my card, took one look at the nine and grabbed the stone, vaulting out of my seat and slipping out to the wall again, vaulting the stone into the air. They all still sat at the table when I returned, mouths hanging open.

“Man she’s fast,” muttered Sweet.

“She just hasn’t had as much to drink as we have,” remarked Quick dryly.

Three rounds later, I assumed that to be no longer the case. I was standing on the table, my finger to my nose—Quick’s last rule—when Harbringer burst into the room. We all seemed too shocked to move, and Harbringer was no better off. His eyes widened, travelling from me to each man in turn and then back to me, before finally noticing the cards and the glasses. He moved all the way into the room and kicked the door shut, folding his arms over his chest.

“Well,” he said calmly, “this should be interesting.”

I found myself smiling, which seemed to put the others at ease, and then everything else slid from my mind, because I had just won. I slid off the table, and back into my seat, taking my time to consider the next rule, as Sweet and Teddy cast furtive glances toward Harbringer, and Quick watched me with amusement.

“The first to convince the infamous Joseph Harbringer to play cards,” I finally decided with a nod.

Teddy revealed the middle card, another two, and Sweet counted us down again. I revealed a five, and had to cast a glance to the other cards. Quick had the closest with a four, and we all seemed to realise it at the same time. Four bodies, four sets of hands suddenly dove for the card with such ferocity that Quick was actually knocked off his chair, and Teddy tumbled the table over again. I found myself sprawled on top of Quick, who was laughing, with Sweet’s elbow wedged into my chest and Teddy’s foot digging into my stomach. I tried to control my own laughter as I rubbed at my chest and let Teddy help me back into my chair. The card appeared in Quick’s hands, and we all turned to Harbringer, who sat with his eyebrows arched.

“You know…” There was a smile in Quick’s voice, a playfulness that reminded me of Cale and Nareon in parts; too wicked to belong to Cale, yet too harmless to belong to Nareon. “The Lady Queen felt pretty nice, pressed up against me just th—”

“I’ll play,” Harbringer snapped, grabbing an extra chair from where it leant against the wall and setting it heavily between Quick’s and my own.

I flushed, but the others just laughed as Teddy poured a glass for Harbringer, and each of us—barring Harbringer and Quick—drank down a horrible portion. Harbringer watched me as I struggled to succeed in the act of swallowing, and then he turned back to the table as Teddy started explaining the rules.

“I’ve got it.” Harbringer saved him the trouble.

“Well then what’s the rule, Quick?” Teddy asked.

“First to coax a kiss from the fair Queen of our kingdom,” Quick declared, his eyes glimmering with mischief.

I rolled my eyes, realising that I would have to introduce this one to Cale. It seemed that synfees had a penchant for kissing games. I didn’t chance a look at Harbringer’s expression, but realised a little too late, as Teddy turned over the middle card, that there was a reason Harbringer hadn’t objected. With his mental ability, there was no possible way that he could lose.

Beside me, he laughed, as though he had heard the thought, and I shot him a glare.

“One, two… three!” Sweet said, and Harbringer turned over his card, blinked and then plucked Teddy’s card right from his fingers, before he had even set it down.

I jumped out of my seat and ran, putting the table and all three men between us, coaxing another laugh from Harbringer, though it had a tinge of danger to it this time. I didn’t, however, account for the man I had placed myself directly behind. Sweet swept up, grabbed my face between his two hands and planted a smacking kiss on my lips.

I found myself laughing along with the rest of them, and moved back to my seat, no longer in danger of Harbringer embarrassing me.

“Harbringer’s disqualified,” I said, snatching his cards off him and casting them back into the middle of the table.

“I’ll be on your team then,” he said, dropping an arm over the back of my chair.

I thought about this, chewing my lip, and then decided that it would be advantageous.

“Deal.”

“Hey!” protested Sweet. “Can we allow that?”

“I don’t see why not,” Quick intoned, “as long as he doesn’t make a grab for the cards, there isn’t too much of a disadvantage. And we can even it out with the rules, I’m sure.”

“Then the next rule will be the first person to finish their drink, I’m sure the Lady Queen will not manage that.”

He was wrong
.

When it was my turn to decide the rule again, I found myself distracted by the heat of Harbringer’s body so close to mine, as he leaned over my chair. He had whispered the name of the cardholder to me on the last round, his lips brushing my ear, and I couldn’t quite shake the tingly feeling that had remained even when his lips had disappeared. I shrugged out of my coat, feeling the heat from the alcohol and Harbringer to be too much combined.

“The next rule,” I decided, “is to shout the first word that comes to mind.”

When the cards were dealt, I found myself woefully bereft of the right card, and the shouted, “Winner!” that came from Teddy had everyone groaning.

“What word would you have shouted, Lady Queen?” Teddy asked me, refilling his glass.

“Hot,” I decided, as I felt rather than saw Harbringer shift to my right.

Three sets of eyes swung to me, and Teddy muttered, “Interesting,” with a chuckle.

“Very interesting,” added Sweet, a spark in his eye that hadn’t been there before.

“Mine would have also been hot.” Quick smiled, and when his eyes flicked to me, I followed his gaze downward, only now remembering my shift.

“And mine is bedtime,” Harbringer grumbled. “Now.” He pulled me from my seat, draping the coat over me amid the sudden laughter of the other three, as if they had expected such a response.

“Goodnight, Lady Queen.” Quick rose—true to his name—and caught my hand, pressing a kiss to my fingers before Harbringer drew me away. “Sleep tonight bereft of the wild dogs that chase you along these walls.”

I smiled at them all lopsidedly, embarrassed at my slip, but unable to really feel it as Harbringer drew me back out into the cold. It was harder to get down the ladder in my inebriated state, and he had to sling me over his shoulder, but he set me back onto my feet once we reached the bottom, and started to pull my coat closed. I brushed his fingers away, liking the cool air on my skin, and he sighed, taking my arm and marching me back to the castle. Our progress to my chambers was blessedly unheeded, and once there, Harbringer looked at me skeptically, as if trying to understand what to do with me.

“I warned you not to ever run off without me again,” he said, as I shrugged out of the coat and moved to the dresser, sitting on the stool to confront the mess my hair had become.

“I wish I were still afraid of you enough to obey,” I said, almost cheerfully, as I began to untangle the braid.