Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(67)

The two dealers grabbed their decks and started sliding cards across the wooden surfaces, which featured squares embossed with gold crowns and silver swords. A hush fell over the ballroom as we all picked up our cards to see our first hand of the night.

Kronekling was played with a regular deck with four suits—crowns, coins, hearts, and swords—and cards ranging in value from two to ten, along with kings, queens, and jacks. But what made kronekling different from a more common game like rummy were the four extra cards in the deck. Two of them were jokers and utterly useless, but the other two cards—a gold crown and a silver sword—were the most important ones in the game. The gold crown, or geldkrone, could trump any other card, while the silver sword, or silberkling, was the second-most powerful and capable of trumping every card except the geldkrone.

Each one of the four players was dealt twelve cards, while the dealer put the last four cards from the deck in a stack called the armory. After each player looked at their cards, they could decide whether they wanted to bid for the right to look at the cards in the armory. Your bid was the number of points you thought you could make off your hand. The higher the number, the more difficult it was to achieve the point total.

Whoever bid the highest won the armory and got to add the cards they wanted from it to their hand while discarding the ones they didn’t want. Whoever won the last round of the hand won the armory and whatever points those four cards were worth.

The goal of kronekling was to accumulate as many or even more points than you had bid. If you succeeded, you got to keep all the points you had earned, as did all the other players. If you failed, the amount you originally bid was subtracted from your total.

The overall goal was to accumulate the most points in seven hands. Tonight, after the first seven hands, the people with the two highest point totals at my table would face off against the top two point-getters at the other table. Then those four people would play seven more hands to determine the final winner.

I had a decent hand to begin—two tens, a queen of swords, a queen of hearts, and a king of coins, along with a mix of lower, numbered cards.

Eon won the armory, announced that the trump, or leading suit, was crowns, and played the geldkrone. Then we went around the table, with everyone laying down their lowest crown card, not wanting to give him any more points than necessary. Eon swept those cards up, set them off to the side, and then played the silberkling. Once again, everyone gave him a crown card.

Next, Eon played a two of crowns, which Zariza trumped by playing her king on it. Then she changed suit, throwing down a king of hearts. Around and around the table we went, laying cards down one after another and trying to accumulate as many points as possible.

Eon won the first hand, since he accumulated more points than he had bid, and we started a new one. This time, I had the geldkrone, along with a couple of kings and queens, and I bid on the armory and easily won.

And on and on it went. Finally, after seven hands, the cards were set aside, and the points were totaled. Zariza had amassed the most points, while I had come in second, so the two of us moved on to play the winners at the other table—Maximus and Driscol.

The crowd applauded politely for both the winners and the losers, and all the players got to their feet. There would be a brief break for refreshments and to let the finalists gather their thoughts, as well as decide exactly what they wanted to risk losing during these last seven hands.

During the first part of the tournament, we had just played for points and the right to move on to the second round. But at the final table, each royal was expected to offer up a prize, creating a cache of treasures that would go to the overall tournament winner. According to Auster and Xenia, anything from gold and jewelry to fine wines to rare books could be used as prizes. The item—or items—didn’t necessarily have to be large or extravagant, although the objects had to have some special meaning to their royal.

Paloma handed me a small blue velvet bag. “Are you sure you want to bet these?”

I hefted the bag, listening to the faint clink-clink-clink of the items rattling around inside. “Yes. I might as well get some use out of them.”

“What do you think Maximus is going to bet?” Sullivan asked.

“I have no idea. It could be almost anything.”

The steady squeak-squeak-squeak of wheels caught my attention, and Mercer and Nox appeared, along with a young servant pushing a large silver cart in front of him. Maeven was trailing along behind them.

Two large coldiron cages were perched on the cart. At first I wasn’t sure what they were for, but then the cart rattled closer, and I spotted the gleam of purple feathers behind the metal bars. My breath caught in my throat.

Those cages contained strixes.

Was Maximus going to bet one or both of them during the final round of the tournament? Well, that would certainly be unique. Although I wondered why he would gamble with something so precious. Losing the strixes, the national symbols of Morta, would not set a good tone for Maximus and might dishearten his people for the rest of the Games.

Another series of bells chimed, indicating that it was time for the final round. I sat down at the single half-moon-shaped table in the center of the ballroom. Zariza sat down next to me, with Driscol on the other side of her, while Maximus took the seat across from mine. A dealer sat down at the table as well, facing the four of us.

People tiptoed forward and leaned over the second-floor balcony, eager to see the final seven hands, and an expectant hush fell over the ballroom.