In Which The Tea Night Be Poisoned, {Closed}

[Briarheart]

Eight of Diamonds, King of Spades, and the matching Jack.

...Fucking hell, can anything go right today?

All seven of these piles are low numbers. I can't move any of the stupid things over from one to another to free up a slot for the King that's underneath the Eight I can't put anywhere else anyway. I only have the Ace of Clubs right now, and the Two and Three are buried in my flip pile under other shit I can't shift around to begin with.

I flipped the stack of cards over for the tenth time, and desperately tried to find a way out of losing yet another round of Solitaire. My record for today was 1-13.

Maybe I should start using my trick deck.

The soft, hurried pattering of feet echoed down the hall. I looked up in time to see Hyperion lurking in the doorway, her briar-knit hands fidgeting with her facemask. She never wore it around our run-down little fort, only putting it on when she accompanied me on my weekly trips into Underwood or journeys elsewhere--where people could see her monstrous features.

"Did you hear that," she whispered, her four amber eyes flickering with alarm.

I gathered up the deck of cards and slid them back into their case. "Hear what?"

"The door! We have company!"

Company? I wasn't expecting any guests. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. We specifically picked this place because it was hours, even days off the beaten paths that spiderwebbed their way through the forest. It was near the western edge of Concordia, where most cartographers wrote "here be monsters".

I rose from my chair and tossed the deck onto the table. I hated uninvited guests. As far as I was aware, there were no price tags on my head. Eiskalt considered me dead and gone, the secretive factions that worked for and against the crown in Alerar had not made a move against me ever since I uncovered their little plots. The Coronian Rangers that also made the forest their home learned long ago to stay the hell off my lawn. So, who could it be?

Maybe it was an independent contractor. An assassin who has come to claim my head after months of following my trail to enact revenge for some long-forgotten-by-me grudge. Gods know I've racked up enough of them.

Or, perhaps it was just a lost soul who was caught by my briarbane in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"What should we do," Hype asked, her tone urgent. She had finally gotten her mask in place, and was now working on the vlince gloves that covered the vines of her hands.

I knelt down, running my forefinger against the dusty grain of the floorboards. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and dug in. A thousand tiny lights flashed into my mind, each of flickering orbs the life force of every being in a mile. I immediately picked up the glow of a frightened boy, definitely human, here in this house.

"There's just one," I muttered as I pulled myself back into reality. "Probably just got lost in the woods. Go put on a kettle for tea, and we'll see what he's doing here."

Hype nodded, and silently made her way to the kitchen. Cooking always took her mind off of literally everything else that was happening around her. I dug around in a closet for a hooded tunic--no need to put on the suit--and my own polished mythril mask. Covering my face and pulling the hood over my head, I swiftly navigated the halls of the fort towards the front door.

When I finally stepped into the foyer, I was greeted by a young man, barely an adult, with a tuft of messy red hair and a smattering of green and brown clothing. The look in his eye confirmed that he met one of my guards on the way here. It also told me he was going to be no threat whatsoever, as long as he stood inside these walls. Not while I had all this acid and plague and spores at my disposal.

"Hello," I said after a brief pause.