"What'll it be?" the dealer asked, his impatience obvious.
Brighty stared at the three kings in her hand, trying to remember tonight was not about making money. She'd snuck away from the rest of the crew for a far more nefarious purpose. Still, a winning hand was a winning hand.
Magic alive, this is painful.
"Fold," she muttered, letting the frustration ooze from her pores. The more she reeked of desperation, the more other players would want to cash in on one more sucker in the streets of Karthe trying to turn her luck around.
"You're out."
"Here's another twenty silver medallions. I've got to win eventually, right?"
The dealer offered her a sad smile but let her place the new stack of gleaming coins on the table. "Right."
As though drawn by the sight, four more patrons sat at the table, turning it half-full. Not quite enough for the fun to begin. Brighty kept her hood on and hunched over her cards, exchanging her usual mode of casual indifference for one of obvious discomfort. The more eyes she drew, the better. Despite the smoky haze infiltrating the gambling den, its regulars could spot an easy mark a mile away. A few more bad hands and another twenty silvers later, the table was full. Now she could start playing.
Brighty kept her ears perked, listening to the conversation taking place around her and biding her time. They spoke of the usual—trade, dragon hunting, the bloody fog, and those damned mages living in the wealthiest quarter of the city. A recent string of unexplained murders took up a decent part of the rumor mill, but eventually talk shifted to the topic she'd been anticipating.
"I heard he had dragon wings."
"I heard he breathed fire."
"I heard he scared the beast away with a single look."
As expected, Rafe's reputation preceded him. Actually, he's bloody clumsy at times and a downright grump, but he's all we've got.
Captain had expressly forbidden Brighty from revealing her suspicions to anyone—that Rafe, and not Malek, was somehow the King Born in Fire. Magic strike her if she knew how that was possible, but she knew what she'd seen on the outskirts of Da'Kin—Queen Lyana and Rafe standing face-to-face, framed by ashy snowfall and burning flame, like a portrait painted by fate’s own hands. If she was the Queen Bred of Snow, then he was the King Born in Fire. Brighty would bet her life on it, and despite the evidence presented this evening, she almost always won.
"Did he come from the rift?"
"They say he just appeared through the mist."
"An old friend of mine is on the crew, and he said the man spoke to the beast. He said the dragon bowed to him, like one of us would to a king."
There.
She bit back her grin. It was the perfect in.
"Well," Brighty drawled, as she tossed a handful of coins into the pot, drawing their gazes. Money spoke, and it was time to start winning. Maybe then, they'd believe her. "It does make you wonder."
Two more gamblers folded, leaving only Brighty and one man in the hand. He met her eyes across the table and matched her bid. "Wonder?"
She placed another stack of coins into the heap. So did he.
"The man has dragon wings. He can breathe fire. He can talk to them. They're afraid of him. We've been told again and again the time of prophecy is upon us, and, well, it makes you wonder…" She trailed off, letting the crumbs lead where they might, and raised the bid.
Her opponent glanced briefly at his cards, a tell if she'd ever seen one. Despite the confident way he dropped the coins into the center, one by one in a smug cascade, he was nervous. So was she—her hand was a total flop. But no one else needed to know it. And her conservative bids earlier in the night suggested that if she was going all in, it was because she had something great.
"What are you implying?" he asked, taking another second to look at his cards.
Brighty kept her eyes on him and raised again. "What do you think I'm implying?"
"You don’t really believe he might be the King Born in Fire?"
Behind her, someone gasped.
"You said it." She shrugged. "Not me."
"He could be working for them."
"What if he's working for us?" She sat back in her chair and laid her cards facedown on the table, then covered them protectively with her palms. "Your bid."
"He's been spotted!" someone shouted across the gambling hall. "Someone just saw a man with flaming wings through a break in the fog!"
Blasted idiot, Brighty cursed internally, careful not to move. What part of “stay on the ship and stay out of sight” did you not understand?
Half the people who'd been watching her game turned toward the door, and a swarm of patrons ran outside. If her opponent wanted to fold, it was now or never, with the room distracted and no one paying attention to his defeat.
Come on. Come on.
"Well?" she said and arched her brow.
The man sighed and tossed his cards onto the table. "I'm out."
"Excellent," Brighty chirped. With a swish of her arm, she brushed the pot into her coin purse and jumped to her feet. "It's been a pleasure."
One hand tipped her imaginary hat. The other deftly flipped her cards to reveal her bluff. The man shot to his feet.
"You son of a—"
His cry was lost in the din of the hall as she cut swiftly through the crowd. What she'd come to accomplish was done. By morning, Karthe would be alive with the question of who exactly this mysterious dragon man might be, and Karthe was only the beginning. Sailors were notorious gossips. Half the seas would be bubbling with the news within the week.
Would Captain Rokaro be happy? No. But technically—technically—Brighty hadn’t broken any of her rules. So, really, how could she complain?
She'll find a way.
With a sigh, Brighty slipped into the shadows of the city and crept along the edges of the dock, all the while keeping her gaze on the sky. There was nothing she wanted more than hot food and her bed. Instead, she needed to track down a runaway dragon man before anyone else found him.
All right, Rafe, she thought as she scaled the side of a building to crouch atop the nearest roof. Where the hell are you?