She recognized all the faces there, none under fourteen or over eighteen, and all excited to start the game. They whistled and applauded when Disaris joined the circle with Nazlen, happy to have another potential victim included in the game of risk and drinking.
Beside her, Nazlen sat tense and waiting. Disaris leaned to whisper in her ear. “Are you sure you wanted to ask that question?” Nazlen was a pretty girl, inside and out, but there were prettier ones in Panrin, and the eye of an adolescent boy rarely gazed deep.
Zumien’s prolonged pause finally ended when he proclaimed “Kushiki is the prettiest girl in the village.”
Disaris and Nazlen both burst out laughing. His answer elicited a chorus of surprised “What?!” along with a few clods of dirt tossed his way as others protested that wasn’t a real answer.
“You can’t pick your dog!” one girl shouted.
Zumien held his ground. “Yes I can. She’s pretty; she’s a girl, and she lives in the village. Nazlen never said it had to be a human girl.”
Disaris clapped. “Well done! He’s telling the truth. I vote he wins the challenge.”
The rest of the group casts their votes, with nearly all agreeing with Disaris. The first wine jar was cracked open and passed around before the challenge question was given to Zumien.
Disaris was careful to only sip from the jar. She’d played this game before. With every round, tongues got loser, bravery got dumber, and the more enthusiastic imbibers ended up sicker by the time the game was done. The first time she played, she was thirteen. She ended up vomiting in Bron’s lap before the game was finished and apologizing to the tailor’s angry daughter for saying she had feet like a duck. In a game like Honesty and Bravery, discretion and dignity were always at risk.
The played several more rounds, with some players choosing Honesty and others Bravery. In some cases those who chose the first were called out for lying and had to drink a double round. For those who chose Bravery but then refused to follow through with the challenge, they had to do the same, and the pile of empty wine jars soon outgrew that of the full ones.
Disaris had accepted a challenge twice in the game so far—one of each category. Her challengers had mostly been merciful. Bravery had been nothing more than making a fool of herself by attempting to dance the steps of the most complicated traditional dances popular at engagements and weddings while tipsy on wine. The Honesty challenge was much tricker, and silently applauded herself for her answer.
“Do you want to marry Bron, Disa?”
Her challenger, one of the butcher’s seven daughters, tossed the question into the ring, her expression avid with curiosity.
The circle of players hushed for a moment, waiting for Disaris’s answer. If they only knew how the question startledher. It was one she’d never asked herself until she’d kissed Bron on the hillside under a spring moon.
“Tell us, Disa!” Someone called from the crowd. The rest echoed his words.
“Tell us, Disa! Tell us!”
A quick glance at Ceybold revealed he hadn’t joined the chant, but his stare had grown even more intense as they waited for her answer. She shrugged. “Who wouldn’t want to marry Bron?” she said, as if exasperated by the silly inquiry. “He’s a battle mage for gods’ sake!”
The players greeted her answer with whoops and cheers, and Disaris won her second round of the game.
She’d known in her gut it was the right answer, the acceptable answer that was true in its way but didn’t really answer the question. Bron’s status had flipped from village outcast to village icon when his magic manifested in spectacular fashion, and the Daesin army came calling. He’d been sent off, with great fanfare, to Burnpool for training, and his one visit home had been a cause for celebration among many besides his mother and Disaris. It was no wonder her answer had evoked such enthusiastic agreement from the all the girls in the group and shouts of drunken approval from the boys. Save one.
Ceybold hadn’t joined in the admiration, his expression bitter as he rolled his eyes at the others’ reactions. Too many swallows of wine, no matter how small, might have made her imagine the anger that flashed across his features, but her instincts and a history of observing Ceybold after he and Bron became friends warned her otherwise.
Once the army wooed Bron to its ranks with promises of generous pay and future glory, Ceybold’s attitude toward him began to sour. Subtle at first, but still obvious to her. Envy was a treacherous blade, and she’d warned Bron more than once before he left for Burnpool to watch out for Ceybold. “I don’tthink he’s the friend to you that you are to him, Bron,” she said one day while they sat on the shore of their favorite creek and fished.
Bron had made a tutting noise and tugged on a lock of her hair with his free hand. “Don’t be jealous, Disa. You’re still my best friend. Ceybold will never change that.”
She’d scowled at him, frustrated by his inability or unwillingness to see what she did. She was jealous—a little—of the camaraderie the two shared, but Ceybold’s questionable hand of friendship had opened doors for Bron with his peers that hers never could, and she gave credit where it was due, even if she didn’t like it or Ceybold.
Oddly enough, even with Bron gone from Panrin and no longer competition for the admiration of others, Ceybold’s resentment only seemed to grow, as did his attention toward Disaris. He wasn’t any warmer toward her, and his interest felt more calculating than genuine. Even now, as he sat across the circle from her, she felt his gaze on her and squirmed under its weight.
When another person took their turn as challenger, they picked Ceybold as the challenged one. He surprised everyone when asked which of the two—Honesty or Bravery—he’d choose. “Both,” he said.
“Can he do that?” Nazlen sent Disaris a puzzled look. “Why would anyone do that?”
Disaris shrugged. She didn’t much care what motivated Ceybold, nor was she caught off guard by his choice. It was just another ploy to draw attention to himself, in her opinion.
The girl who challenged asked the Honesty question first. “Is there anyone here you want to kiss that you haven’t yet?”
A collective gasp went up among the crowd, and several of the village girls straightened, faces alight with hope in the golden glow of lantern light. A sly grin crawled across Ceybold’s mouth.“Yes,” he said. The succinct reply that didn’t single out a name only raised the anticipation.
Disaris tapped Nazlen’s arm. “Care to wager? I’d say it’s Curinet. She’s been batting her eyelashes and cooing at Ceybold for the past year.”
