Priscilla did not win a single game out of the five more matches they played and she felt like a kettle that was about to pop its fucking gasket. The only time where she didn't feel like she was about to burst a blood vessel was in between the third and fourth game where they agreed to leave tomorrow morning since everyone was healed up and they thought Tabitha had the situation well in hand.

Priscilla couldn't even put down a full suit of cards once, which was the most infuriating part of it all because it meant she was the ultimate loser each time. Sulaiman's smugness made her blood boil because she knew he had it out for her – every time he could, he challenged her to get the final cards he needed to put down his suit. It was like he had a sixth sense of knowing which cards to pick to make her defeat that much more humiliating.

And the only time she even got close to putting down a full suit, only needing one more gryphon, she was in a tough spot. Kavil had already finished, laying down a set of knights, and Illnyea a set of gryphons. There were no gryphons in the deck because the discard pile that recently got reshuffled had none, so Priscilla had to take a gamble.

Based on his discards, Priscilla thought Sulaiman was going for wizards or drakes, and she wondered where the stray gryphon was in his hand. Priscilla bet three cards to better her odds of finding it.

Her plan promptly backfired as the stupid fucking god of cowards refused to answer her humble pleas for luck to finally be on her side. The suit Sulaiman called was the one that flipped, so Priscilla unhappily shuffled her cards and placed her cards face down so Sulaiman couldn't use her expression to decide his victims. Sulaiman plucked the cards with careful slowness, like a cat playing with its prey.

Priscilla brought her cards up to see the damage and stared at them blankly. He hadn't even taken the one useless pixie she had, plucking her prized gryphons with precision. Then, on his turn, he challenged her and stole all but the one stupid pixie and placed down his suit – which was fucking gryphons, six of which he had stolen from her.

"You're all filthy cheaters," Priscilla grumbled, throwing down her single pixie with a huff. Sulaiman couldn't have been cheating, as Illnyea had done all the shuffling, but, gods, all Priscilla had wanted was one round where she could put down her hoard. One single round of happiness was all she asked for, but that was too fucking much apparently. She now understood why this card game inspired so much rage and her fingers twitched as she imagined dragging Sulaiman into a sparring ring so she could unleash her frustrations upon him.

"I've never seen someone so boldly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory," Kavil said, his lips doing a caterpillar-like dance as he tried and failed to keep from smiling. Since he was done first, he had peeked at her cards to see what Priscilla was going for, which she hadn't minded at the time but it meant he had a front row seat to her loss.

Priscilla glared at him but her sudden movement made one of her flower crowns fall into her lap and that pushed Kavil over the edge, peels of laughter escaping him.

"We can play again?" Illnyea offered, tentatively, giving Priscilla a wincing smile. But Illnyea could keep her smiles to herself, as she had won three out of the six games they played, and put down second for another two, and Priscilla wasn't feeling particularly charitable right now.

"If I play another round and lose," Priscilla said seriously, "I am going to jump out a window."

"Not allowed," Kavil wheezed. "Bad for your knees."

Priscilla glared at him again, and gave Sulaiman one more withering glance for good measure, and stood, stretching her sore leg muscles as she stuck her nose in the air.

"I am going to go frolic with the children," Priscilla said, "because I think you're all dirty, dirty cheaters who conspired against me because you're afraid of what I could do if I was at full power."

"Have fun hanging out with those with your own maturity level," Sulaiman said dryly.

"Eat shit, Sulaiman," Priscilla said and stalked from the room.

Was she being petty?

Probably.

But she didn't care that much.

Playing with the children was very calming, as they eagerly included her in their game of make believe when she walked into the afternoon sunlight. Priscilla saw that some of the adults gave her wary glances as she approached the children, but she easily ignored that because the children rushed towards her with wide smiles.

"Illnyea's sister, you'll be the big friendly newt!" Holly said firmly.

Priscilla chuckled. "And who will you all be?"

"I'll be the mighty knight Illnyea," Holly said with a smug smile, brandishing her stick with finesse.

Priscilla placed her flower crowns in a safe space and then eagerly accepted her role.

The conceit of the game was that there was a prince (Nicky) locked in the tower (the fountain), that was guarded by three dragons (Emory, Thomas, and Candace) commanded by an evil witch (Primrose) and the brave knight had to save the prince with the help of the helpful newt she summoned. They were a bundle of energy and were exactly what Priscilla needed to get over the sting of the losing so spectacularly. She tickled the dragons, chased the evil witch, and served as a mighty steed for a brave knight, doing her best impression of a hissing newt.

Sulaiman appeared just as the children took a break, going to fetch a few cups of water after the witch and dragons successfully brought the powerful newt to the ground after dogpiling on her so the magic of gravity would do its thing.

Priscilla glared as he gave the dirt stains on her trousers and shirt a judgemental look.

"What do you want?" Priscilla asked as she sat up and stood, trying not to feel self-conscious as she dusted off her back.

"Illnyea is inquiring with Tabitha about taking a bath," Sulaiman said, "and Kavil is speaking with the apothecary to see if he can get replacements for his herb pouch."

Priscilla raised an eyebrow, insinuating Sulaiman get to the point.

"When are we going to inform Kavil of the organization that was targeting him? We've ensured Illnyea's safety and she's been healed, so that concern is no longer necessary."

Her entire body stiffened, freezing mid-pat.

Priscilla had been so caught up in seeing Illnyea alive that she had been able to ignore that she had promised to tell Kavil and Illnyea both about the existence of the Church of the Violet moon. Her throat tightened at the thought of trying to walk the delicate tightrope of what she could and couldn't say – if she overestimated what she could say even once and coughed up blood, that would open up a barrel of monkeys Priscilla had no idea how to deal with. She didn't know how she'd even go about explaining how she got involved with the cult in the first place – that was all the original Priscilla, and her soul was long gone.

It seemed her silence upset Sulaiman as he stepped closer to her, his dark brows knitted together with irritation and whispered harshly, "They need to know. Especially since I suspect that the cannibal monster was part of it based on how you reacted to her name."

The Starving One hadn't actually said that she was a member of the church, but it had been heavily implied, so Priscilla had to take a chance.

Priscilla had to swallow twice before saying, "She said she was."

A beat passed and there was no repercussion, so Priscilla let out the breath she was holding as subtly as she could.

Sulaiman's face darkened, lips pressed together in a frustrated line.

"Then why hesitate any longer?"

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Priscilla's heart rate picked up as a spike of fear shot through her.

In the original story, it had taken a while for Illnyea's party to even hear about the existence of the cult due to the fact that cult members would rather die than speak about it to enemies and they often employed ignorant minions to avoid being tied to the crimes they were committing. It had taken three books before Illnyea had made herself a big enough nuisance for one of the cult leader's chosen to try and deal with her permanently. The party had survived the encounter, but they were still left with lasting scars.

But that version Illnyea had been several years into her adventures and was far stronger than this fresh-faced girl who hadn't even left home yet. Just knowing about the cult's existence would make life infinitely more dangerous and might draw in enemies that were way above their weight class before they were ready to deal with them.

The only reason they had defeated The Starving One was because they had gotten extremely lucky. There were so many moments during the battle that had been close calls, and if they had fucked up even once, they all would have died. If the newt hadn't come in when it had, the cult leader probably would have learned about the existence of pesky little heroes mucking up his plans and sicced his attack dog on them.

But she knew the true shameful reason for why she hesitated, and knew that it was selfishness that was stilling her tongue.

Deep down, Priscilla feared that Kavil and Illnyea would look at her differently after finding out that she had, even for a second, considered joining the Church of the Violet moon. Even though she hadn't even been in this body at the time, she would have to live with the original's sins. She didn't have the answers that would make them understand, only half-baked theories on why the original acted the way she did, and there was little she could say to justify what had happened.

Even the thought of Illnyea and Kavil rejecting her after Priscilla had finally gotten a taste of belonging with them made her jaw tighten.

Priscilla tried to clear her throat but failed.

"I…" Priscilla began, her voice raspy. "I'm not ready to talk about it tonight."

Sulaiman crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing with displeasure. "Are you going to be ready in the near future?"

When Priscilla didn't answer, Sulaiman let out an angry huff of air and snapped, "Don't be a coward."

"I'm not being a coward," Priscilla snapped, though she looked away from Sulaiman's gaze to glare at her boots, "it's called having basic self-preservation – we have several days travel ahead of us and I don't want us to spend the entire time in testy silence!"

The air between them grew heavy with judgement and Priscilla's skin prickled uncomfortably from the weight of Sulaiman's disapproval.

"Are you planning on just hiding the organization's existence until Illnyea and Kavil die fighting a battle you started without even knowing who killed them?"

Sulaiman's whisper was harsh and cutting, dripping with disdain that told her exactly how low his opinion of Priscilla would be if she did that.

Priscilla flinched, fist clenching and unclenching as she took a deep breath, trying to not respond with another snappy comment and pushing away the leftover irritation from the card game. Sulaiman knew how to make her feel like all her flaws were exposed for the world to see with the way he cut through her deflections and attempts to change the conversation with pointed questions that implied she was an idiot. His judgement was so stupidly irritating and it brought forth the feeling of inadequacy and self-loathing that lay just beneath the surface of her psyche.

But Sulaiman was right, like always, even if acknowledging that fact made her teeth grind, and she knew arguing anymore would just make her the coward he accused her of being.

"No," Priscilla said, feeling defeated. "I'll do it when we get back to Meadowyar."

That should give her enough time to come up with a script to follow, testing out phrases when she was alone on watch to make sure there would be no unfortunate bloody mishaps. Asha wouldn't like it, but Priscilla had to work what she had.

"And you won't come up with another excuse to put it off?"

She winced and shook her head.

"As soon as we put everything from this trip away," Priscilla said, "I'll sit them both down and explain the best I can. Happy?"

"Estatic," Sulaiman said, dead-pan. "And if you don't do it then…"

The unsaid threat hung in the air between them and Priscilla's jaw tightened.

"Yeah, yeah," Priscilla muttered, "I get it, you'll spill the beans no matter how much it'd fuck me over. Can I get back to being a sick ass newt now or do you have anything else to talk about?"

Sulaiman said nothing for a long moment and she took that as a no, turning away towards where the children were starting to return, pasting on her brightest smile.

Priscilla ignored Sulaiman as he lingered nearby, watching as she gave Holly a newtback ride to attack the dragons from above. By the time they had finished the battle, Sulaiman was gone.

…

The apothecary in Aidais' Lament didn't have everything Kavil needed to restock his supply of herbs, but he was able to find enough that it should last until they returned to Meadowyar even if the worst occurred. The apothecary didn't want to accept any money for the wares, nervously glancing about and saying she couldn't ask that of their savior, so Kavil sent a small prayer to Gaelea before he left, asking Her to let the apothecary's herb garden flourish. He hoped that would be enough repayment.

When Aidais' Lament wasn't being held hostage by a cannibal and a corrupt mayor, it was a nice town and almost reminded Kavil of his own village. Some people called out a greeting as he passed and he gave them a short wave while he ignored the furtive glances thrown his way by some of their neighbors.

He checked on Ulric and their horses, making sure that everything seemed to be in order for them to leave tomorrow. Tabitha was there as Kavil gave Ulric's wounds a brief check up, and he was glad to see they were healing nicely. Before Kavil left, Tabitha patted his cheek and called him a 'good lad,' which made Kavil feel like a child, but he knew better than to complain.

Though Kavil enjoyed the dinner that was served that evening at the inn, he couldn't help but notice a certain… tension that was in the air. And not the enjoyable sort of tension, it was uncomfortable, subtle, and insidious once you were aware of it.

Sulaiman had brought a book to dinner and was reading it as he ate. He barely looked up from it, his eyes locked onto the pages as if they were a holy text. When Kavil got a glance at the cover in one of the rare moments Sulaiman shifted his grip, he saw it was a biography of someone. It took Kavil a moment to recall it was the book that Priscilla had gotten for Sulaiman when they were in Grazda.

Priscilla had barely glanced in Sulaiman's direction during the dinner, lavishing Illnyea with her attention, asking about the two royal wizards she had encountered in great detail. When Priscilla laughed at a joke Illnyea made, Kavil saw that Sulaiman's jaw tightened for a moment before he flipped to the next page. Illnyea didn't seem to notice anything at the moment, her face lighting up as she eagerly regaled Priscilla with her tale.

Kavil didn't want to pry in front of everyone while they were at dinner, and he didn't say anything when their goodnights were brief as Sulaiman and Priscilla headed straight for their room. Illnyea glanced at Kavil in confusion, but he only shrugged, so Illnyea followed Priscilla and started talking about a tub Tabitha found for them.

Kavil frowned in the empty hallway, glancing between the two rooms with a frown. Something had happened between them. He knew that Priscilla had been upset by losing Drake's Hoard and that Sulaiman had gone out of his way to antagonize her, but Kavil didn't think that was what happened. She'd have snapped at Sulaiman, needling him as a way to get back at him instead of studiously ignoring Sulaiman's existence. They were supposed to be leaving tomorrow and Kavil didn't think it'd help anyone if half their party weren't speaking with one another.

Kavil followed Sulaiman and closed the door quietly behind him.

Sulaiman was sitting with his back against the headboard, his shoes off and sleeping clothes on, his blanket covering him up to his hips. His eyes were stuck on the biography in his lap once more and his body language was closed off. Sulaiman had defaulted to an inscrutable expression, his eyes shadowed in the low light of the single lamp in the room.

Kavil opened his mouth but decided to get ready for bed before approaching what may be a difficult conversation. He changed into his own sleeping clothes and wiped down his face before wrapping his hair in a silk cloth.

Sulaiman had barely moved as Kavil crawled into his own bed, and didn't twitch as Kavil blatantly studied his profile. Kavil didn't want to upset Sulaiman, but he couldn't leave this tension unaddressed.

"Did you and Priscilla have a real fight?" Kavil asked, wrapping his arms around his knees. They bickered constantly, and were both stubborn and didn't like backing down, so Kavil could imagine how a jab had gotten under the skin and the other snapping back something harsher, things went out of control from there and resulted in hurt feelings.

Sulaiman paused in the middle of turning the page.

"No," Sulaiman said flatly and finished the turn without looking up.

Kavil gave Sulaiman an incredulous look.

"You didn't say a single word during dinner," Kavil pointed out, "and Priscilla barely looked in your direction even though you were sitting across from her. Something must have happened."

Sulaiman's finger went tight on the book and his lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line as he glared at Kavil.

"I have done nothing wrong," Sulaiman said, each word clipped and harsh, like an arrow shot from a bow.

Hesitantly, unsure if he should even push more, Kavil asked, "Has Priscilla done something that upset you?"

Sulaiman stared hard at Kavil, the muscle in his jaw flexing as his teeth ground together. His black eyes flitted over Kavil's face, making Kavil feel self-conscious, and Sulaiman opened his mouth, as if about to say something.

But Sulaiman sighed angrily, frowning as he looked away and brought his book up to cover his face.

"She's being her usual moronic self," Sulaiman muttered, words semi-muffled by the pages. "Stupid and stubborn and utterly irrational."

Kavil sensed he wasn't going to get any more out of Sulaiman without risking pushing too far, but he didn't want to just go to sleep like this. He rolled to his feet and crossed the few feet between them, perching on the end of Sulaiman's bed. Sulaiman twitched but didn't look up.

"What's your book about?" Kavil asked, leaning back on his hands and making himself comfortable as he leaned against Sulaiman's legs.

Sulaiman brought his book down just enough to stare over the cover, his eyes unreadable.

Kavil responded with an encouraging smile as he said, "You haven't put it down once, so I figured it has to be a little interesting. You can tell me about it now or I can keep pestering you tomorrow too."

Sulaiman looked at Kavil like Allasan looked at a rascally cat who had nearly tripped her by twisting around her legs, irritated and fond in equal measures.

"It's about one of the greatest swordsmen to have ever walked this earth," Sulaiman said, conceding defeat. "Her name was Adita Comollo."

Sulaiman's voice was low and soothing to listen to and Kavil made himself comfortable.

Tomorrow, Kavil would ask Priscilla about their fight, but for now, Kavil was content learning about this mythical hero that made Sulaiman's eyes sparkle.

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