“Dorras.” The stocky minotaur across the table leaned forward. “What are you doing? Why did you show him your other cards?”
Dorras blinked. “I…I don’t know, Fenlas. I just felt like I had to.”
Alarm bells rang in Liora’s head. There was something familiar about the blank expression on the minotaur’s face when he handed Maldenis the cards.
Fenlas’s head snapped to Maldenis. “What did you do, basilisk? Did you poison him?”
“What?” Maldenis pushed himself forward, palms on the table to face Fenlas. “I didn’t do anything. I just asked, ‘Do you have any Fields or Forests?’”
This time, she definitely saw that flash in his eyes.
“That can’t be—” Fenlas’s jaw clamped shut and then his nostrils flared. Then he said, “I have three Fields and five Forests.”
Liora stared at Maldenis. “What did you do?”
“I really don’t know.”
He actually looked like he meant it.
“You tricked me!” Fenlas shoved back from the table. “I didn’t want to say that. You made me say it.”
“Is this true?” The female minotaur’s gaze fixed on Maldenis. “Did you use some kind of trick?”
“No. I swear I didn’t. I just asked.”
“Then he cheated somehow,” Fenlas said loudly. “The game is spoiled. We cannot continue with tainted cards and a liar of a basilisk.”
A murmur grew among the crowd. Someone booed, while others jeered.
“You must leave the game,” the female minotaur said. “And leave this establishment.”
“You can’t throw me out for asking a question?—”
“I can if I believe you are cheating.”
“I wasn’t cheating?—”
“Maldenis.” Liora put a hand on his arm. “Just calm down?—”
“I will not calm down.” He had risen from this chair, his tail flicking like a whip.
The crowd had gone tense and the air grew even thicker.
“What,” said a voice, “is going on here.”
It wasn’t a question.
He came through and the crowd parted without effort. The minotaur was not the largest in the room, but he carried himself like no one else towered over him. Slate-gray, like the very mountain rock surrounding the Ridge, with short sharp horns that curved slightly inward and jet-black eyes that absorbed all the light around them.
The female minotaur dipped her head immediately. “Apologies for the disturbance. It won’t happen again.”
The minotaur’s dark gaze moved slowly across the table, across the scattered cards, to all the players, and then settled on Liora and Maldenis with an expression that was unreadable.
“Clear the table,” he said.
The players stood at once.
“Except you two,” he said to Liora and Maldenis.
