Solace Shattered by Anna Steffl

of the young noblemen approached, bowed, and said, “Don’t you remember me, Jesquin?”
    After a moment’s perplexed look, the princess clapped and cried, “Stevas!” She introduced him as Lord Ousterhall. Flushed, she fanned her face with one hand and took his with the other. “What are you doing here?”
    Looking to the king, who was on the far side of the field, Ousterhall said, “I’m hoping to honor my country by securing a position as aide-de-camp, or perhaps in a captaincy.”
    With a smart glance to Degarius, Miss Gallivere said, “We were just remarking how delightful it is to have you joining us.”
    “Regretfully, we are too many to play,” Ousterhall replied to Miss Gallivere, but his gaze never left the princess.
    “We have room for another pair at our circle. Gregory, go ask Auntie Martise to be your partner. Just for this game. She plays well.”
    Fassal scratched his neck. “It’s all the same to me,” he said in a tone Degarius knew meant the opposite.
    Lady Martise started the game with a run of luck, bowling down three ten-point pins. “Thirty,” she said and passed her ball to Miss Gallivere.
    Miss Gallivere, hand on her hip, walked the circle to study the remaining pins. With a graceful release, she expertly rolled the ball between a ten and two twenties, taking all three. “Thirty, Captain! Your turn, Prince Fassal.”
    Was there any game at which Miss Gallivere didn’t excel? Degarius removed his glasses and as he tried to wipe them on his sleeve, pins crashed, and then pain shot through his ankle. Fassal! What was that Zadoran whoreson doing hurling the ball like that? The object of the game was to keep the ball inside bounds. Degarius put back on his glasses, hobbled after the ball, and rolled it back. “Watch what you are about.”
    After scooping up the ball, Fassal joined Degarius and looked in the direction of the princess. His mouth twitched. She was standing close to Lord Ousterhall. “My mind is elsewhere, brother.”
    “Devote a portion of it to the game, I beg you,” Degarius said. “How lame do you wish to make me?”
    “What do you think of that man? Would you call him good-looking?” Fassal motioned to Ousterhall.
    That was a question worth averting. “It’s my turn.” Degarius spun the ball from his palm. He took two twenty pointers.
    Lady Martise would need an extraordinarily good throw after Fassal’s zero. She scored forty.
    “Miss Gallivere, can you get twenty?” Degarius asked.
    She took down two twenty-pointers, fairly clinching their victory. “Forty, Captain Degarius!”
    “Aim well, Fassal, or this is your last shot,” Degarius said.
    Fassal, like an irritated child, lobbed the ball out of bounds, again. The princess, her back to the circle, didn’t notice.
    Degarius only had to take a single pin. Nothing fancy, nothing risking an out of bounds shot. The ball left his hand, and as soon as it hit a twenty pointer, Miss Gallivere was leaping at him. He had to put his arms out to receive her.
    “We’re quite the team, aren’t we?” she said.
    Degarius removed her to arm’s length. She was strikingly beautiful, a clever card player, and a good shot with a widshins ball. This game, however, he’d been playing since she was born and he wasn’t about to be maneuvered into a corner by her.
    “I need a drink.” Fassal intruded on Degarius’s reflection.
    “Be so good as to get me something, Captain,” Miss Gallivere said. “You know what I like.”
    Degarius joined Fassal in heading to the servant with a tray of punch.
    Fassal downed a cup. “I’d like to challenge that Outhouse.”
    “Challenge him to what? And Ousterhall is his name, Fassal. If you wish to challenge a man, whose name you either cannot remember or pronounce, over a game of widshins, you are a greater blockhead than I thought.”
    Fassal’s malignant look cautioned Degarius he wasn’t going to be teased out of anxiety. Degarius adopted a mollifying tone. “You forget