Page 46 of Bull Moon Rising

“Take a moment to discuss strategy and then select the order your team will go in,” Tiercel continues.

We huddle, our heads together, with Kipp in the center of our small group.

“We’re fucked,” Lark whispers. “Two of Crow’s men are repeaters.”

“That means they suck, right?” Gwenna asks.

Lark makes a sound of distress. “You’d think that, but they have an advantage. They’ll be familiar with the training artifacts already. They’ve probably done this several times before.”

Mereden looks crushed. “I don’t think I can do the obstacle course again today.”

Gwenna shoots me a warning look, and I know what she’s thinking. She wants me to stay quiet, to hide the fact that I know how to read Old Prellian glyphs. But I’m with Mereden—if I have to hear Master Crow scream for me to “tunnel” one more time, I might lose my mind. “I should go first,” I tell them. “Each round, let me go first.”

“No—” Gwenna begins.

“Yes.” My expression is firm. “I can see if there’s a legitimate artifact and try to get it before they do.”

“How do you know if it’s legit? What, are you some kind of artifact expert?” Lark scoffs.

“No, but I can read Old Prellian,” I say, and before I can add onto that, Master Tiercel rings a bell. I straighten and move to the front of the line of our group, ignoring the curious looks that Lark is shooting in my direction.

When he nods, I step forward for our team, and so does someone for Master Crow’s team.

“Each of you select one artifact and set it on the table in front of your team, and then someone else in your team will take their turn and select.”

I stride forward to the shelves with crisp, authoritative steps, and then move my face a mere handspan away, squinting and examining each thing as best I can. There’s a music box. A spoon. A plate. A tool of some kind. A wand. A goblet. A lamp. An ewer. The scatter of objects ranges from the mundane to the fantastical, and all of them are highly ornate in the style of Old Prell. My vision is terrible without my spectacles, so I pick up one object and hold it practically to my nose, trying to read the writing painted on the underside of a vase.

“Is there a problem, fledgling?” Master Tiercel calls out.

“No, I’m just making sure I don’t miss anything,” I tell him, and set the vase back down on the shelf. It looked authentic and appropriately old enough, the porcelain surface cracked and crazed, but the tidy writing on the underside was absolute gibberish, mimicking Old Prellian glyphs without knowledge of what they mean. It’s obviously a fake.

I squint my way down the rest of the shelf, looking for obvious issues. Several of the “artifacts” have a bold yellow paint on them that makes me pause. Prellians crafted their dyes from minerals and foodstuffs and most of their yellows were murky at best. Blues and reds and earth tones are the colors prominent in Old Prellian artifacts, and I pick up a yellow cup and eye the glyphs crawling along the edge.

Cup of Neverturnal Milks from a Great Pigeon

Yeah, it’s a fake. I suspect all of the yellows are fakes, and that helps me rule things out. My opponent picks up an artifact with confidence and returns to his table, and then all eyes are on me, waiting.

“Do we need to set a timer, fledgling?”

“No, I’ll pick something.” I just don’t know what. I eye the next shelf, worried, and then spot what looks like an ugly, stone-encrusted egg behind a comb and mirror set. I pick the egg up and look for glyphs, as Prellians labeled everything that had a function.

Weight of Crushing. Charges Left: Zero.

Prellian artifacts with a specific set of charges always have a countdown glyph engraved on them, magically updated as each charge is used. Pursing my lips, I turn the egg over in my hands and then set it back down on the shelf as if it’s a fake. I walk toward a series of glassware and pick up an ewer, then say, “Does the artifact need to have charges?”

“What?” Master Tiercel demands, clearly annoyed at the time I’m taking.

I turn, facing him with the useless ewer in my grasp. “Does the artifact have to have usable charges or does it just need to be a legitimate artifact?”

He tilts his head and gives me an annoyed look. “Do you think we would put working artifacts in here?”

I want to sayI don’t know, would you?Because some artifacts are absolutely useless other than being amusing at parties. Like the only artifact we have at home that still works—an ewer of delicate water. It makes any water it pours have a light floral taste to it, a nod to some spoiled noble’s taste preference. But I’m probably not supposed to know that and everyone’s staring at me with resentment. I put the pitcher back, intending to head back for the egg when I see the perfect solution.

It’s a small bowl with a glyph on the metal lip, and a pretty red enamel on the edges and the two fluted handles. I recognize that bowl, because my mother gave one to my grandmother long ago. It’s a bowl of infinite olives, another kitchenware nod to some Old Prellian nobility who couldn’t be bothered to make their own snacks. I snatch it up, glance at the bottom to confirm that it is, indeed, a bowl of infinite olives, and then return to my table proudly.

“Finally,” Master Tiercel says. “Next up, choose your artifact.”

Lark heads out for our team, and as she does, I cough and cover mymouth, bending over. As I do, I whisper, “Don’t pick anything with yellow on it. They’re fakes.”

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