"They look… complicated," Lilli says, picking up a card.
Instead of a simple suit, the card depicts a sack of grain. Another shows a ship. A third, a gold coin.
"This is not Iron and Embers," I explain to the gathered ladies. "This is a game I call Mercantile."
The room is filled with the women I have gathered: Duchess Ina, Queen Grethe (who snuck in via the servants' passage to avoid Oskar), Lilli, Maria, and a half-dozen others. They are lounging on the sofas, relieved of their corsets, sipping whiskey, and eating Rekke’s dumplings.
"How do we play?" Queen Grethe asks, eyeing the deck.
"The goal is not to have the highest hand," I say, dealing the cards. "The goal is to control the market. You see, ladies, men think money is gold. It is not. Money is flow. It is grain in the winter. It is ships in the harbor."
I hold up a card marked Interest.
"This card," I say, "is the most dangerous weapon in the deck. It allows you to lend cards to another player, but they must pay you back two cards for every one they borrow."
Ina’s eyes light up. "Like Basten did to Oskar."
"Precisely," I smile. "Tonight, we are not playing for copper pennies. We are playing for understanding. I want you to learn how a dowry works. I want you to understand compound interest. I want you to learn how to spot a bad contract."
"And the winner?" Lilli asks.
"The winner," I say, pouring more whiskey, "is the one who doesn't need a husband to sign for her dinner."
We begin. At first, they are hesitant. They play timidly, hoarding their cards. But as the whiskey flows and the mechanics of the game click into place, the atmosphere changes.
I watch as Lilli, the girl traded by her family like cattle, realizes she holds a monopoly on the Grain cards.
"I will trade you two ships for your grain," Maria offers.
Lilli looks at her cards. Then she looks at the snowy 'winter' card on the table. "No," she says, her voice gaining strength. "Winter is coming. Grain is scarce. You will give me two ships, and your Interest card. Or you will starve."
Duchess Ina gasps, delighted. "Oh, she is vicious! I love it."
Queen Grethe is equally engaged, aggressively buying up Land cards. "If I own the land," she mutters, "I can charge rent to the army."
I sit back, watching them. They are laughing, they are shouting, but they are learning. They are learning the language of power that has been denied to them for centuries.
"My Lady?" Melina whispers, refilling my glass. "You built a bank to hold their money. Now you are teaching them how to count it."
"A bank is useless if the depositors are ignorant," I reply. "If they know the value of gold, they will know their own value. And once a woman knows her value, Melina... she becomes very expensive to buy."
I look at the table, where Lilli is currently bankrupting a Countess with a ruthless application of compound interest.
"I think," I say, "the men of Centis are going to find their wives much less agreeable tomorrow."
I retire to my dressing room, dismissing the maids but keeping Melina close. I do not intend to sleep. I intend to gamble.
I sit in a comfortable chair by the fire and close my eyes. I reach out with my mind, feeling for the thread of magic I wove into the tourmaline brooch pinned to Kenric’s chest. It hums with a low, steady vibration, his heartbeat.
“Can you hear me?” I whisper, sending the thought down the wire.
Loud and clear, my love, Kenric’s voice comes back, tinny but distinct in my ear. Though I feel ridiculous talking to my own chest.
“Just don’t move your lips,” I advise. “Now, open the box.”
I shift my focus. I concentrate on the tiny, toy strongbox I gave him. It acts as an anchor, a magical nose sitting right in the center of the card table.
The sensory input hits me instantly.
Stale wine. Roasted garlic. Sweat. Fear. Greed.
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“I can smell them,” I murmur to Melina, who is watching me with fascination. “Oskar smells like sour grapes and anxiety. There are three others. One smells like… peppermint and desperation. Another smells like cheap perfume and arrogance.”
That would be Lord Visser and Earl Pasma, Kenric subvocalizes. And the King, of course.
“The game is Iron and Embers?” I ask.
Yes. High stakes.
“Good. Visser—the peppermint one—is terrified. He cannot afford to lose. He will play tight. You can bully him.”
I listen as the cards are dealt. I can hear the snap of pasteboard, the clink of coins.
Oskar bets fifty, Kenric relays.
I sniff the air through the link. Oskar’s scent spikes with a sharp, metallic tang. “He is bluffing,” I tell Kenric. “He has nothing. But he is the King, so he expects everyone to fold.”
And Pasma?
I focus on the scent of cheap perfume. It is cloying, masking a scent of… smugness. Oily and slick. “Pasma has a strong hand. But he is too confident. He is going to try to trap the King.”
“Fold,” I instruct Kenric. “Let Pasma take Oskar’s gold. We want the King to be angry at him, not you.”
Folding, Kenric thinks.
I hear the play. Oskar bluffs. Pasma raises. Oskar, stubborn as a mule, raises back. Pasma reveals his hand. Oskar curses.
Pasma wins, Kenric reports. The King looks ready to flip the table.
“Perfect,” I say. “Now, watch Visser. He is sweating. I can smell the fear from here.”
The next hand is dealt.
“Visser is holding a face card,” I say, sensing the sudden spike in his pulse, the scent of adrenaline. “But his other cards are garbage. He is hoping for a match.”
Oskar is hesitating, Kenric notes.
“Oskar has a pair,” I sense. “Low ones. Threes or fours. He wants to stay in, but he is scared of Pasma.”
“Raise,” I tell Kenric. “Push Visser out. Isolate the King.”
Kenric bets. Visser folds immediately, the scent of his relief washing over the link.
“Now,” I say, focusing on Kenric’s own cards, which I cannot see but I can sense his calm confidence. “You have the King. Smile at him. Let him know you have him beaten, but you are enjoying the game.”
Kenric calls. He lays down his hand.
I win, Kenric says. Oskar is… laughing?
“He respects boldness,” I explain. “And he likes that you beat Pasma, who just took his money. You are avenging him, in a way.”
The night goes on. It is a dance of scents and whispers. I guide Kenric through bluffs and traps. I tell him when Pasma is cheating. He holds a card in his sleeve, smelling faintly of old leather and deceit and I tell Kenric exactly when to call him on it.
“My Lord,” I hear Kenric say through the link, his voice cool and dangerous. “I believe you have dropped something.”
There is a scuffle. A card hits the table.
“A King of Embers,” Oskar roars. “Pasma! You snake!”
I lean back in my chair, grinning. “Pasma is out,” I tell Melina. “Oskar just kicked him out of the room.”
“And Lord Kenric?” Melina asks.
“Lord Kenric,” I say, listening to the clinking of coins being raked across the table, “is currently the King’s favorite person. He just exposed a cheat and won back half the King’s losses.”
Oskar wants to go again, Kenric sighs. Double or nothing.
“Let him win this one,” I advise. “We don’t need the gold. We need the goodwill. Make it look like a lucky draw on the river.”
Kenric throws the hand. Oskar cheers.
He is happy, Kenric reports. He is calling for more wine. He says I am the only honest man in Dobile.
I look at Melina. “You can tell the ladies that the Bank of Centis just acquired a deeper reserve of political capital than any vault could hold. Tomorrow, Kenric will be able to ask for anything.”
The gambling ends not with a whimper, but with a roar of royal laughter. Oskar has won the last hand—a small pot, engineered by me to boost his ego without draining Kenric’s purse. He sweeps the coins into his pouch, his face flushed with wine and victory.
“You are a good luck charm, Kenric!” Oskar bellows, slapping my husband on the back so hard he stumbles. “I haven’t had a run like this since I was a prince.”
“He is happy,” Kenric reports silently. “Can I come home now?”
“Not yet,” I whisper back. “He is winding up, not down.”
“Come!” Oskar announces, standing up unsteadily. “The night is young, and my purse is heavy. It is time to spend it. To The Tart Cherry!”
The guards chuckle knowingly. Kenric stiffens.
“Víl?,” Kenric’s voice is tight with panic. “The Tart Cherry is… a brothel. A notorious one.”
“I assumed it wasn’t a bakery,” I reply dryly.
“I cannot go,” Kenric thinks at me. “I cannot. If I go, and word gets back to the Dukes… or to you…”
“I am listening to you right now, husband,” I remind him. “I know you do not wish to go. But you cannot refuse a King who is in a celebrating mood. It would be an insult. Go. But touch nothing. And drink nothing that isn’t sealed.”
“And if he expects me to… participate?”
“Then you tell him you are saving your strength for your demanding Fey wife,” I say. “It has the benefit of being true. Now, go. I will be watching.”
The Tart Cherry is precisely as I imagined it. It is gaudy, loud, and reeks of an assortment of cheap perfumes trying to mask the scent of stale ale and desperation. Through the link, I can hear the raucous fiddle music and the women's shrill laughter.
Kenric enters, flanked by the King and his guards.
“It is… crowded,” Kenric reports. “And pink. Very pink.”
“Focus,” I command. “Where is the King?”
“He is securing a private room,” Kenric says. “He wants me to join him. He says he wants to ‘celebrate our alliance properly.’”
I feel a spike of cold anger. Oskar thinks he can drag my husband into his filth to cement their bond. It is a classic power play. If you make the other man complicit in your vices, and you own him.
“Go with him,” I say. “But leave the door open.”
“Víl?…”
“Do it.”
I sit up in my chair in the palace, closing my eyes. I need a connection. The toy chest is in Kenric’s pocket, giving me a strong anchor, but I need something to manipulate.
I reach out with my senses, past Kenric, into the walls of The Tart Cherry.
Every building in a city has residents who do not pay rent.
“Little ones,” I whisper, pushing my will through the link. “Squeakers. Scuttlers. Can you hear me?”
I feel them. Hundreds of them. Mice in the wainscoting. Rats in the cellar.
“There is a man in the big room upstairs,” I tell them, projecting the scent of Oskar, sour wine, and roasted garlic. “He has food. He has bread in his pockets. He has cheese. Go to him. He will feed you.”
In the brothel, Oskar has settled onto a velvet chaise, pulling a giggling woman onto his lap. “Kenric! Sit! Choose a flower!” he shouts. “They are all fresh!”
“He is disgusting,” Kenric thinks.
“Wait for it,” I murmur.
I push harder on the animals. “Hunger. Feast. Go!”
Suddenly, the music in the brothel is interrupted by a scream. Then another.
“What the…?” Kenric starts.
Oh. OH. What a chapter.
Let’s review the highlights while gently roasting Oskar like the overstuffed chestnut he is:
- Víl? casually invents Mercantile, a game that teaches economic strategy, market manipulation, and how not to be financially illiterate.
Oskar, meanwhile, thinks “interest” is what happens when someone looks at him without grimacing. - The ladies turn into financial apex predators within an hour. I have seen wolves show less efficiency.
Lilli single?handedly reenacts the economic downfall of three duchies and a tax code. - Meanwhile, Queen Grethe sneaks in like a teenager avoiding curfew—because the King she’s married to is, frankly, embarrassing in public.
- Víl? mentally piggybacks on Kenric’s jewelry like some sort of magical Bluetooth headset, then proceeds to coach him through a high?stakes card game against Oskar and his band of economically illiterate gremlins.
- Oskar displays all the tactical grace of a man attempting to juggle knives after drinking lamp oil.
Spoiler?safe version: he does not improve throughout the evening. - Kenric ends the night as Oskar’s new “favorite honest man,” which is not difficult, since the competition includes:
- A known cheat
- Another cheat
- And Oskar himself, who cheats at breathing by refusing to do it consistently.
- The Tart Cherry debacle? Chef’s kiss. Víl? weaponizing local vermin against Oskar’s dignity is the kind of political maneuvering that should be taught in universities.
Have you ever tried to make your own card game? What was it, if you did? Let me know in the comments...