Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

The five of them stared at the plate like it contained a bomb.

The last dumpling sat there, innocent and steaming, right in the middle. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Even the rain outside felt quieter, as if it waited to see who would blink first.

Kenzo's hand drifted forward an inch.

Saffi's chopsticks lifted at the same time.

Kenzo froze. "Don't."

Saffi didn't look at him. "Don't what?"

"Don't take it like you own it."

Saffi finally glanced up, calm and deadly. "Kenzo, you ate half the plate like you were trying to erase it."

"I call it efficiency."

Raizen watched the plate, then looked around the table. Kenzo's jaw stayed tight. Atman sat straighter than usual, hands folded as if he tried very hard to appear normal. Eiden's face remained neutral, which somehow made him the most suspicious person in the room.

Saffi set her chopsticks down slowly. "Okay. We're not fighting over it."

Kenzo scoffed. "Who's fighting? I'm being civilized."

"Your chopsticks are literally right over it" Saffi said.

Kenzo leaned back an inch, offended. "Fine."

Saffi's gaze slid to the deck of cards on the table, still sitting near Raizen's slate. Her eyes lit up with the kind of excitement she got when she saw a clean mechanism and a problem to solve.

"I have a better idea!" she finally said.

"Enlighten us" Eiden answered, smile forming at the edges of his mouth.

"What if… We play for it?" she proposed.

Raizen blinked. "Cards?"

Saffi nodded once, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Yes. Cards."

Kenzo's grin returned for the first time since he walked in. "Oh, finally! A competition I can win without breaking anything."

Eiden lifted one eyebrow, throwing a very doubting look. "That still remains to be seen."

Atman's eyes flicked to the dumpling, then to the cards. He didn't smile, but something in his expression loosened, like the idea of a game gave him permission to stop thinking about whatever he kept locked inside that notebook.

Eiden leaned back in his chair. "Alright, then what game are you proposing?"

Saffi pointed at the deck. "Cheat."

"Cheat?" Raizen asked, genuienly confused.

"Yeah! Never played it?"

"I never played with these playing cards" Raizen shrugged, trying to figure out what all the cards symbolized.

He stared intensely at all the different kinds of cards.

There was a red heard, a diamond, something that looked like a three-leafed clover and a… Black heart card? But wait! There were letters, too! A, J, K…

Then, there were multiple people drawn on some cards, red or black. A man with a crown, another one dressed really funny, with long shoes and funny hat, a woman with a scepter dressed nicely…

I never understood games like these. Back in the underworks, Obi showed me a game, where you rolled a piece of metal with different numbers, and there was a playing board. And every turn, you'd advance as many steps as the dice showed.

The first dice was like a small cube with dots on it, but then Obi decided to get creative, and created an abomination with 30 faces…

And somehow, Hikari ended up winning more than both of us. Nobody knows how. Obi accused her of being a witch, and I tried my best to roll the dice to land on the exact number I wanted. Still didn't figure that out…

Then, I've seen people in the Underworks play games. There was a game with a board made of black and white squares, and small dots people moved every round. Or in the Maw, there was a kind of wheel, and people would bet on where it would land. And almost every time, the wheel landed where nobody expected. I'm starting to think that the thing was rigged…

Most of the times, people would either bet their money on stuff like this, or on fights. Both are very common.

Now, looking at the weird paper cards on the table, Raizen was completely blown away. Yeah, he's seen playing cards in the Underworks, but they mostly only had simple shapes and colors. They used to play a game called "Unu", where you had to get rid of the cards in your hand by placing them down with the shape or olor. But these ones had numbers, symbols, colors, letters… And why did Eiden ask what game they were playing? Could you play more types of games with these cards?

Then, Raizen's thoughts were interrupted by Kenzo. His grin widened. "Oh, we're playing cheat? Perfect! I'm great at lying."

Saffi stared at him. "That's not something to really brag about."

Kenzo shrugged. "Well, technically, it is a skill, so I can brag about it all I want."

Eiden reached out calmly and pulled the deck closer, fingers precise. Raizen could see that he's worked with cards before, by the way he was moving. He didn't shuffle like he was showing off. He shuffled like a scientist calibrating a machine. The cards made soft, neat sounds as they slid into place.

"The rules are pretty simple, if you ask me" Eiden said. "We all play in order. Aces, twos, threes, and so on. On your turn, you put down one to three cards face-down and announce what they are. Of course, you can lie. That's the whole point of the game. And at that point, anyone can call "Cheat." If you lied, you take the whole pile. But if you told the truth, the one who accused you takes it. Ultimately, the goal is to get rid of all the cards in your hand."

Kenzo cracked his knuckles, grin widening even more. "Oh, I love it already!"

Raizen looked at the dumpling again. "And the winner gets it."

Eiden nodded. "Yes. The winner gets the dumpling. Everyone alright with it?"

Atman finally spoke, voice quiet. "Alright..."

Saffi's eyes sharpened. "Bet."

Kenzo leaned forward. "Deal."

Raizen hesitated for a breath, then nodded too.

Eiden dealt the cards out quickly. He didn't even look at his own hand for long. He just placed the remaining deck aside, folded his hands, and waited like the outcome was already written.

They explained to Raizen what every card was (a few times, actually), but seeing that he just couldn't get a hang of it, Saffi said that she'd help him mid-game, if he had trouble.

The first round started with aces.

Kenzo went first.

He slapped two cards down and announced loudly, and proudly. "Two aces."

Saffi didn't even blink. "Cheat."

Kenzo's jaw dropped. "Already?"

Saffi held her gaze, calm and cold. "Show."

Kenzo flipped the cards.

They were a five and a two.

Raizen let out a quiet breath through his nose. Atman's lips twitched slightly.

Kenzo stared at Saffi like she betrayed him personally. "How did you know?"

Saffi shrugged. "You said it too confidently."

Kenzo's face twisted. "That's not a real reason."

"You're sometimes the most readable person…" Saffi sighed. "I mean, after all, it worked, didn't it?"

Kenzo grumbled and collected the pile with dramatic suffering. "Fine."

Atman's turn came. He placed one card down, smooth and slow.

"One queen" Atman said, with slightly more interest for life.

Kenzo narrowed his eyes. "Cheat."

Atman didn't react. He simply flipped the card.

Queen.

Kenzo froze, then stared at him. "How are you so calm!?"

Atman arranged the small pile of cards with a polite nod. "You call things too early."

Kenzo looked offended. "Um, excuse me! I'm just being proactive, that's all! You can't judge me for trying to move this game forward!"

"No, you're just being predictable" Saffi murmured.

Raizen stayed quiet. He watched hands. Voices. Timing. The way people breathed before they lied. The way Kenzo leaned in when he tried to intimidate. The way Atman barely moved, even when he lied - or didn't.

Eiden still looked like he didn't care. His face was completely expressionless.

That annoyed Raizen the most.

Raizen played his two kings next. He put down two cards. "Two kings."

Saffi's eyes flicked to his face, searching. Atman's gaze sharpened too. Kenzo hovered his hand like he wanted revenge.

But nobody called.

Raizen flipped them himself.

Two kings.

Kenzo groaned. "Are you kidding me?"

Raizen shrugged lightly. "I don't lie too often."

Kenzo stared. "Then why are you even playing Cheat?"

Raizen kept his voice calm. "You don't really have to lie to win."

Eiden finally smiled a little, like he enjoyed that answer.

The rounds moved on. Two. Three. Four.

Kenzo lied often and loudly, but he did it with such dramatic confidence that he sometimes got away with it because nobody wanted to take the risk of being wrong. But when they did catch him, he took the pile like it was a personal insult.

Saffi lied rarely. When she lied, she lied cleanly. Raizen observed her the whole time, being closest to him. Her voice barely changed. Her posture stayed exactly the same. She watched the others more than she watched her own cards.

Atman… Atman played like someone who knew the whole table was a puzzle… Or he was just very lazy. Raizen still didn't know which. Atman lied in a way that felt almost polite. He told the truth in a way that sounded like a lie. He let accusations bounce off him like rain off his umbrella.

Raizen played risky, exactly like he promised himself. He put down two or three cards often, pushing fast, but his claims stayed true every time. He didn't lie, not once. He played like honesty was a weapon and he wanted to prove it.

And Eiden?

Eiden did almost nothing… Which was the worst part.