Jimeneus stared at the embers flickering from the flame in front of him. His eyes reflected the fire, and the fire reflected him.
Danisque and Vesper exchanged glances.
The cohort leader had not spoken once since Vesper hypnotized him to forget the entire ordeal of ever meeting Luscaine... or the temple... or the statue at the entrance.
Danisque prodded with concern, roasting his marshmallow in the flames.
"Are you feeling alright?"
Jimeneus did not reply. He kept staring into the fire... as if desperately looking for a source of warmth... or an answer to everything that had transpired.
He glanced away from the flames, his empty eyes meeting Vesper's instead.
"Thank you for carrying me."
Vesper nodded. He did not feel guilty in the slightest for using his powers as a vampyre to compel Jimeneus.
After drinking blood, it seemed as if he had finally completed some kind of bodily ritual to become a vampyre in the purest sense.
Many of his powers came to him as pure instinct, and it was slightly unnerving the number of abilities he held as a pureblood.
'I will have to document them using rocky water when I get back...'
His face grimaced slightly.
'I hope I pass that final assessment.'
The young vampyre sighed softly, staring into the fire, then lifting his head enough to look at the cohort leader.
"Jim, you should get yourself together. You're next to go into the tent."
Danisque glanced at the tent in the distance. The final assessment was different than any of them had imagined. The term "survive me" was ambiguous.
It was not a physical battle this time, but rather a psychological battle of wits, memory and luck.
A card game called Cabo.
A one-on-one with one of the greatest scions of humanity.
Draw or win.
If you lose, you die.
The saving grace was that if a cadet withdrew before the game began, they could go home… not as a cadet, but as a soldier enlisted into the army.
Withdrawing rather than taking a gamble was something Oleufa said was a smart choice.
...but to become a student of Troy.
...to be accepted.
...was a gamble.
...and only the lucky could become stars.
Jimeneus slowly rose. He did not look at the fire anymore, nor did he look at his friends. He looked at the stars in the distance… particularly the star called Hermis Palend. A faint emotion flickered in his eye.
Danisque and Vesper stared at Jimeneus's back as he walked toward the tent… deathly silent… something akin to a husk of a living corpse.
Danisque sighed. "He's not going to make it."
Vesper said nothing. He simply stared at Jim's back.
"Maybe. Maybe not."
Danisque considered his words, then suddenly shook his head with a smile.
"Wanna gamble on it?"
Vesper crooked a grin. "Heh. Sure."
The two looked into the distance. The tent flap closed as Jimeneus entered inside.
Danisque's marshmallow burned slightly.
"I've got ten credits on him."
Vesper raised an eyebrow. "That confident?"
"No. That broke."
Vesper chuckled.
"Well, I'm something of a brokie too, but you know this won't work…"
Leaning against the rock on which he sat, Vesper stared up at the sky. A small shooting star paved its way across the black, and the young vampire spoke, almost startled.
"Because I'm kind of betting on him too."
~
The table was small and terribly brown. Scars ran down it, scars of age and scars of victims pressed against it, executed... likely.
Oleufa sat on one side of the table on a fine pillow, and Jimeneus sat on the other side upon rock and rubble.
A deck of cards sprawled across the wood, and two tall bottles of celestial spirit rested comfortably nearby.
"Hello, Cadet Jimeneus Impala."
Oleufa smiled. She held one of the bottles and passed it to the former cohort leader.
"Here. It's been hell, hasn't it?"
Jimeneus frowned, visibly confused. He glanced at Oleufa's face, then at the bottle, then back at her face.
"Alcohol?"
Oleufa did not reply. She forcibly pressed it into his hand and popped open her own, sipping lightly.
Jimeneus looked at the bottle. Black Saint XX. A classic military special. The liquid inside was almost perfectly clear, with a faint silver sheen that swirled like captured starlight.
His fingers trembled. No one in two worlds knew this spirit better. While this brand wasn't popular among nobles, celestial spirit was.
Refined for decades… directly beneath a dying star. Made from pure alcohol floating in space, lunar sap, celestial herbs, and powdered meteor glass.
One sip could overwhelm anyone.
His father had been a victim to it. A great man. The count of House Impala. Reduced to a trembling shell by this silver poison.
Jimeneus still remembered the way his mother would weep. The way his father abused her under its influence. One of his most embarrassing memories… his father slapping his younger sister at a noble ball in a drunken stupor.
He remembered the looks all the nobles threw at him. The laughter. The mockery. He carried that shame in every inch of his bones.
The Impala name. Once respected… now reduced to smithereens… whispered with pity.
It was why he decided to come to Troy.
To escape his father. To escape the influence of the celestial spirit. To escape his mother's cries… to escape his siblings' quiet despair.
And one day come back… to right all the wrongs.
…but here he was. Sitting across from the Lady of Merciful Moonlight. Having lost all of his cohort. Drinking the same poison that destroyed his father.
'How ironic.'
A self-deprecating smile crept onto his face. He stared at the liquid, then clutched the bottle and drank it all in a single gulp.
His eyes watered. His throat burned. But he could not stop.
Oleufa poured another. He drank. She poured another. He drank. Until he was shaking. Until he was sweating. Until he was holding himself together by will alone.
Until he felt like he might puke, even with his superhuman body.
She stopped, observing the boy in front of her. A smirk crept onto her face.
She expertly placed the deck between them.
"The game is called Cabo. Have you heard of it?"
Jimeneus shook his head, unable to understand what she was saying. His tongue felt thick. His thoughts were extremely slow, all consumed with one and that was the urge to puke.
The celestial spirit was doing its work.
Oleufa smiled knowingly.
"Heh. Good. Then you will learn now. Heir to the Impala."