The Salt Flats were a vast, calcified ocean of white silence. Under the twin moons—one pale silver, the other a bruised kidney-red—the ground glowed with a spectral luminescence.
Silas sat by a small fire made of dried sagebrush. The smoke was thin and acrid, vanishing instantly into the cold desert night.
He wasn't sleeping. He was counting.
[MANA REGENERATION: 0.5 PER MINUTE] [CURRENT RESERVES: 42/100]
It was slow. Agonizingly slow. The Jack of Diamonds and the 9 of Clubs hadn't just drained his mana; they had scraped his soul hollow. He felt like a husk, a vessel scooped clean, leaving only a rattling emptiness inside.
Inside the covered wagon behind him, Elara was humming. It was a melody from their past life—a funeral dirge she used to sing while watching cities burn.
Silas poked the fire, his hand trembling. I should have left her, he thought. I should have left her in the saloon and ridden West alone.
But he knew it was a lie. The System bound them. She was the Calamity to his Chance. Without her, the deck was incomplete.
"You're thinking too loud," Elara whispered.
Silas didn't turn. She had slipped out of the wagon, moving with the silent grace of a stalking cat. She wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and sat across the fire from him.
"The Mana sickness," she noted, watching the tremor in his fingers. "It hurts, doesn't it? Being mortal."
"It keeps me honest," Silas muttered.
"It makes you vulnerable," she corrected. She leaned forward, her violet eyes catching the firelight. "There's a rider, Silas. About two miles East. Following our tracks."
Silas stiffened. He strained his ears, but the wind sounded like static. His sensory perception was dulled by the fatigue, his radar broken.
"Sheriff Voss?"
"No," Elara licked her lips. "This one smells different. Professional. Cold steel and dried blood. A Bounty Hunter."
Silas sighed, dropping the stick. Of course. Cain would have radioed the Guild.
"I can't fight a prolonged battle, Elara," Silas admitted, his voice rough. "I don't have the reserves for a Face Card. I barely have enough for a pair."
"Then let's make a wager."
Elara smiled, and the temperature around the fire seemed to drop.
"A bet?" Silas looked at her warily.
"If you handle this hunter without killing him—without drawing a Spade—I will be... docile. For a week. No schemes. No provoking gangs. I will be the perfect, obedient barmaid."
Silas narrowed his eyes. A week of peace? That was worth more than gold. "And if I lose? If I have to kill him?"
"Then you owe me a favor," Elara said, her voice dropping to a husky purr. "A blank check. To be cashed in whenever I choose."
High stakes. If he killed, he unlocked the Witch. If he spared the hunter, he bought himself time.
"Deal," Silas said.
Elara's smile widened. "Then you better draw quickly, my King. He's here."
THWIP.
A crossbow bolt slammed into the sand inches from Silas's boot.
Silas rolled, kicking dirt over the fire. Darkness swallowed the camp.
"Come out, Warlock!" a gravelly voice echoed from the darkness. "I know you're drained! The Sheriff said you used a Jack. You're running on fumes!"
Silas crouched behind the wheel of the wagon. He controlled his breathing. The hunter was smart; he knew about Mana fatigue. He was banking on Silas being helpless.
[THE HOUSE IS OPEN]
Silas closed his eyes. He couldn't use Spades (The Bet). He couldn't use Clubs (Too loud, might kill by accident). He couldn't use Diamonds (Too expensive).
That left only one suit. The suit he hated most.
[DRAW: 6 OF HEARTS (EMPATHY OVERLOAD)] [ANTE COST: 30 MANA]
Thirty.
The cost hit him before he even played it. It felt like a siphon was attached to his spine, draining not just energy, but will.
Silas stood up, using the wagon wheel for support.
"I'm coming out!" Silas yelled. "Don't shoot!"
He stepped away from the wagon, silhouetted by the moonlight.
A figure emerged from the scrub brush about twenty yards away. The hunter was clad in leather armor, holding a repeating crossbow.
"Name's Kade," the hunter sneered, stepping closer. "Hands behind your head."
Silas didn't move his hands. He stared at Kade.
"Do you enjoy your work, Kade?" Silas asked softly.
"Shut up." Kade stepped closer. Fifteen yards.
"Do you remember the faces?" Silas continued, his voice taking on a strange, resonant quality that vibrated in his own skull. "Do you remember the sound their bones made when they broke?"
"I said shut up!" Kade was ten yards away now. Finger on the trigger.
Silas flipped the card in his hand. It glowed with a sickly, pulsing red light—the color of an exposed organ.
[ACTIVATE: 6 OF HEARTS]
The connection snapped into place.
Silas gasped, his eyes rolling back for a second. This was why he hated Hearts. It wasn't a projectile; it was a bridge. To force an emotion onto another, the user had to open the door first.
"Feel it," Silas choked out.
The red light washed over Kade.
The hunter froze. His pupils constricted to pinpricks. The crossbow dropped.
"Argh..." Kade gasped, clutching his chest.
But Silas gasped too.
For a split second, the bridge flowed both ways. Silas tasted bile. He saw a flash of a woman screaming in a burning house. He felt the phantom sensation of knuckles shattering against a jaw. The sludge of Kade's violent life washed back into Silas, a tidal wave of borrowed filth.
It's sticky, Silas thought, gagging. The guilt is sticky.
Kade fell to his knees, screaming. "Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!"
He clawed at his own face, tears streaming down his cheeks. He wasn't being physically harmed, but his mind was drowning in the amplified echo of every pain he had ever inflicted.
Silas severed the connection, violently flicking his wrist to dissolve the card.
"Fold," Silas commanded.
The red light faded. Kade collapsed into the sand, sobbing uncontrollably, broken.
[WINNER] [OPPONENT STATUS: INCAPACITATED (TRAUMA)] [MANA RESERVES: 12/100 (CRITICAL)]
The victory notification flashed, but Silas didn't see it clearly.
Gravity reclaimed him.
His legs turned to water. The world tilted on its axis. He didn't just sit down; he collapsed. He hit the sand hard, his lungs seizing as if the air had been sucked out of the desert.
Twelve.
It wasn't enough to keep the engine running. Grey static ate the edges of his vision. He tried to push himself up, but his arms were lead. He was paralyzed, not by magic, but by the sheer biological failure of a body running on empty.
He lay there, cheek pressed against the cold salt, breathing in shallow, ragged gasps.
Then, he heard it.
It wasn't a sound. It was a pressure.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
A high-pitched, piercing whine resonated inside his inner ear. It felt like a tuning fork had been struck against the base of his skull.
Silas blinked, trying to clear his vision. He looked up at the sky.
The stars... rippled.
It wasn't heat haze. The constellation of the Weeping Mother actually shifted, the stars sliding out of alignment as if terrified of something looking back at them. The space between the stars grew darker, heavier.
Something is listening, Silas realized, a primal terror gripping his paralyzed chest. We rang the doorbell.
Boots crunched on the gravel.
Elara stood over him. From his position on the ground, she looked like a giantess, framed by the wrong-looking stars.
She looked down at his helpless form, at the hunter sobbing in the dirt, and then up at the rippling sky. She inhaled deeply, as if smelling a delicious perfume.
"You won," she purred. "You used the Hearts."
"The... stars..." Silas wheezed, unable to lift his head.
"Oh, Silas," Elara laughed, a soft, chilling sound. "You really don't remember, do you?"
She crouched down, bringing her face close to his. She stroked his hair, her touch patronizing.
"The Spades are quiet. The Clubs are loud but earthly. But the Hearts?" She pointed a finger at the zenith, where the psychic whine was loudest. "The Hearts scream across the psychic plane. It's a beacon, my love."
Silas wanted to scream. He wanted to tell her she was insane. But he couldn't move. He was trapped in his own body, forced to listen to the consequences of his mercy.
"You wanted me to use it," Silas realized, the words barely a whisper. "The bet... you cornered me."
"We need the attention," Elara said, standing up and brushing the dust from her coat. "The quiet life is over. If we're going to survive the Guild, we need the Old Gods to know the Dealer is back at the table."
She turned toward the wagon, looking back over her shoulder with a wink.
"I'll be good for a week, Silas. I promise. But after that?" She grinned, and in the moonlight, her shadow seemed to stretch out, clawed and monstrous. "The real fun begins."
Silas lay alone in the cold desert, unable to lift a finger, listening to the sobbing of a broken man and the hunger of the waking stars.
A/N: I hope you enjoy this novel. Support by adding to your library and giving a power stone or two. Thank you.