11. Liora #2
Your turn. Good luck.
He shot back a grin that said he didn’t think he’d need it. “Easy-peasy.” He turned to the minotaur on his right—broad-shouldered, dark-furred, with a ring through one horn—and said in a pleasant tone, “Yield the Tundra.”
The minotaur blinked. Then reached into his hand and held out a card.
“Thanks.” Maldenis took it without hesitation. He glanced over at the rest of the minotaur’s hand casually. “What else you got in there? Do you have any Fields or Forests?”
“Why would I—” The minotaur stopped mid-sentence. Something shifted in his face, like he was blanking out. “As a matter of fact, I do.” He reached in and pulled out three cards, fanning them toward Maldenis. “Here.”
“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.
The crowd quickly cleared, leaving only the minotaur, Liora, Maldenis, and Zara and Elian, who remained standing behind them.
Liora observed the gray minotaur. There was something about him that was different from all the others in the room. And considering the fact that he commanded everyone with a few words, it could only mean one thing. “You’re Brontaios, aren’t you?”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “My security staff alerted me that you were searching for me. Why? And how is it that three humans, a Drakkon, and a Basilisk know my name?”
“Drakkon?” Zara said, her body tensing up. “How did you—”
“You think you haven’t been on my clan’s radar since you arrived?” He let out a huff. “Now.” Placing hands together on top of the table, he leaned forward. “Who told you my name?”
“A friend of a friend of friend,” Elian said.
“Of a friend,” Zara added. “You forgot to count Perseus.”
“What? No, you don’t count him, because he asked—”
“Silence,” Brontaios interjected. “Very few people know me. And even less from the Upperworld.”
“We got your name from Lord Eros, the God of Love and Desire himself,” Liora said.
A wrinkle appeared between his brows. “God of Love and De–ah.” His mouth twisted in amusement. “I think I may have an idea who told you about me. In that case…I suppose I could let you live.”
“Yeah, but can you help us?” Maldenis said.
“Help you?” He laughed aloud. “You are serious?”
“Yes,” he said. “We need your help.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. “Alright, I’ve been pretty bored lately. What do you need my help with?”
The triplets looked at each other before Liora spoke. “We need your help to find some very special individuals—minotaurs, actually. Demigod minotaurs.”
And so, she told him of their mission, laying out the facts for Brontaios, who listened, remaining still without making a sound nor his face revealing his thoughts.
When she finished, the only thing he said was, “Well, that’s an interesting tale.”
“Will you help us?” Liora asked.
“Let me think about it.” The minotaur let out a huff. “Alright, I have thought about it. I will help you.”
“Y-you will?” Zara gasped. “Just like that?”
“Your sister is very convincing. And besides I think I already know whom you speak of.” His slate gray brows drew together. “And I do not want them harmed.”
“We want to protect them too,” Liora said.
“Come back here in the morning, and I will escort you myself. You can even bring the Drakkon with you, no harm will come to him as long as I am with you.”
Liora blew out a breath. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
He gave them a nod. “Thank you for coming to me and bringing this to my attention.” Pushing back from his chair, he stood up and gestured around him. “And please stay and enjoy yourselves.” He pointed at Maldenis. “But no more gambling for you, okay? You can’t use magic to cheat.”
With that, he left.
“Magic?” Maldenis’s head cocked to the side. “What does he—”
“I can’t believe it was that easy,” Zara said. “We just told him and he agreed.”
“If minotaurs are close-knit, then he probably didn’t want any of his kind hurt,” Elian said. “Anyway, good job team, I guess? Perseus and Medusa will be thrilled.”
Zara yawned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted and there’s a fireplace in my room calling my name. That fireplace’s name is Hektor,” she added with a grin.
“Same,” Elian said. “But not the fireplace named Hektor part.” He paused, looking at Liora. “You coming?”
“I think I’ll stay a bit.” She glanced around the den, still buzzing with activity. “We should probably enjoy the hospitality while he’s offering it.”
Elian shrugged. “Don’t stay up too late.” He waved at them, then followed Zara toward the stairs.
Maldenis watched them go. “Drink?”
“Drink,” she agreed.
The bar ran along the back wall of the den carved from the same dark wood as everything else.
They found two seats at the far end and the bartender—a young minotaur with a silver ring through her nose—set two heavy glasses in front of them without being asked, filled with something amber that smelled like peat and honey.
Liora took a sip. It reminded her of whiskey, but stronger. She took another sip, hoping it would give her the courage to bring up what she wanted to say.
For a while they just sat with the noise of the den around them, the fire crackling at their backs.
“So,” she said, finally feeling the effects of the drink. “Magic.”
Maldenis put down his glass on the bar top. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. And Brontaios said it by the way. He seems like the kind who never misses a thing.”
“I wasn’t using magic. I was just talking to them,” he said, defensive.
“You asked a minotaur what else he was hiding in his hand and he showed you.” She raised an eyebrow. “And then that Fenlas guy announced his entire hand to the table. Then there was the waiter earlier.”
“Pressure can make you do strange things.”
“Maldenis.”
“Liora.”
She swung around on her stool to face him. “You’re the son of Zeus.”
“So?”
“That’s not a small thing.”
“Maybe everyone here is just really nice and friendly, have you thought of that?”
“Nobody here is just friendly. That waitress told us that the Reaping ruined lives. You think those players would just hand the game to you on a platter?”
He didn’t answer that.
“I think when you ask something directly—really directly, looking them in the eye—they can’t not answer you.” She paused. “Or at least that’s my theory.”
“How come I’ve never done it before? Don’t you think I’d have used this ‘magic’ by now? Think of all the fun I could have had when I was a punk kid.”
She tapped a finger on her chin. “Maybe basilisks are immune to it.” She ruminated on it some more. “Didn’t your ancestors, back when they lived in the Upperworld, have the power of mind control over humans and other races?”
“The original creature we descended from did, supposedly,” he said.
“Have you spent a lot of time around other monsters or humans?”
“No.”
“Then you couldn’t have known until now if you did have magic, if you spent most of your time around your kind.”
Maldenis stared at his drink. She could see him turning it over, not quite ready to accept it but not dismissing it the way he had a moment ago.
“So what do you want to do?” he said. “Go ask someone something embarrassing and see what happens?”
“Yes, actually.”
He frowned at her.
“Pick someone,” she said.
He was quiet for another beat, then slowly swiveled his stool to survey the bar. A few seats down from Liora’s, a heavyset minotaur sat alone, nursing a drink and staring at nothing in particular.
“Him,” Maldenis said.
“Go ahead then.”
He looked sideways at her. “What do I ask?”