Page 32 of Enchanted Kingdom
I gave my head a little shake. I supposed in Savaryn, their duty to be soldiers and wield magic must have overshadowed the good clean fun of a card game.
“Can you teach us how?” Gwen asked, sounding intrigued.
“Sure,” I nodded.
An hour later and three bingle hands in, the three of them had gotten the hang of it.
“You wretched girl!” Renna exclaimed as she threw her cards down. “How do you do it?”
“A little strategy and a whole lot of luck,” I admitted.
Renna laughed, and I was stunned for a second how much of a lovely person she was. Inside and out. Enchanted and all.
“Can you teach us too?”
A group of four women had stood watching us, approaching when the other three had gotten more animated after they had the basics down.
I looked at Renna and back to the person who had asked, one of Prince Keiran’s women named Scarlett. Nara was beside her, and two other women I didn’t know from Prince Krewan’s Assemblage.
“Sure,” I said. “You all truly don’t know how to play a basic game of bingle?”
Granted, I had grown up playing a lot of games thanks to my father. I remembered one particularly cold winter where I often played Draw with my father and his friends. They were unsuspecting of a child playing with them, up until the moment I cleaned house on those fools. Father taught me well.
Renna shook her head.
I moved over to another open table and taught the four other women. The time passed quickly, though I was thoroughly confused as to why none of these women knew how to play any card games. It wasn’t as if I was teaching them higher level mathematics, just a basic card game.
Later, after we were dismissed for the afternoon, I caught up to Renna in the hallway. “Why do none of you know how to play cards?” I whispered.
Renna snorted. “A woman knowing how to play cards? Heavens forbid a woman in Wylan would know how to do something other than look pretty and smile. Being able to strategize is not in the list of things we are to master by adulthood.”
I was worried for her after that response. “Prince Krewan—”
She shook her head, cutting me off. “It is neither of the princes I am referring to.”
I wasn’t sure if I should ask, but I was tired of stepping around things and having to rely on my assumptions of her true meaning. “Ourbelovedking?” I was pretty sure I couldn’t have doused more sarcasm on the word ‘beloved’ if I had tried.
Renna gave me a nod. “Precisely.”
Thinking of Prince Krewan telling me to know whose roof I slept under and then the whole run-in with Owen last night, I asked, “So I should not have taught you all how to play today?”
Renna smiled. “No. You absolutely should have. It was a blast. I am now bound and determined to beat you some day.”
I laughed. “Okay then.”
“Okay then,” she said with a wink before turning to go with her guard down a different hallway.
I continued up to my room with a guard I had never seen before. Wallace had been absent all morning. This guard had shown up this morning, said his name was Easton Grant, and escorted me to the common rooms.
I opened the door to my room to find Silvia smiling and laughing with none other than Owen.
“Uh, hello,” I began.
“Hello!” Owen said with a smile as he walked toward me. “I am Owen Raikes.” He reached out to shake my hand.
I squinted slightly, knowing that both of us definitely remembered his name. “Jorah Demir.”
“Nice to meet you,” Owen said with a nod as he shook my hand. “Your previous guard was injured today during a training exercise. I am your replacement.”
