The Anomaly's Path

The village was bigger than I expected.

Not big, obviously — nothing compared to the Celestial estate or even Frosthollow. But after five days of mostly seeing the orphanage and the immediate area, actually walking through Wayford felt like exploring a new world.

Small houses made of wood and stone lined the dirt path.

People milled about — trading at small stalls, chatting in doorways, chasing after runaway children. A blacksmith’s hammer rang out in rhythmic beats from somewhere to my left. The smell of fresh bread mixed with something less pleasant from what I assumed was a tannery.

It was... peaceful. The kind of place that made you forget there was a war going on.

I had three things to do: find the Rusty Mug, find the swordsman, and get some answers.

Simple, right?

Wrong.

I stopped a woman carrying a basket of vegetables and gave her my most charming smile — the one that usually worked on the servants back home when I needed extra food from the kitchen.

”Excuse me, lovely lady. Could you point me toward the Rusty Mug?”

She gave me the kind of look that said she’d already mentally classified me as a problem and moved on. ”Straight down this path, take a left at the well, then right at the big oak tree. You can’t miss it.”

”Thank you kindly!”

She walked away muttering something about ”strange outsiders” and ”why do they always ask me.”

I marched forward with confidence. Found the well, took a left, and immediately ended up in someone’s backyard, staring at a pig that looked deeply unimpressed with my life choices.

”Wrong way,” I muttered, backing away slowly.

The pig snorted. Fair enough.

I backtracked and tried again. Found the oak tree — massive thing, impossible to miss — took a right, and walked straight into someone’s front yard where a dog started barking at me like I’d personally insulted its ancestors.

”Sorry,” I told it. It kept barking. Rude.

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in front of a chicken coop, completely lost. I’d somehow managed to miss the tavern, miss the road, and find the one corner of the village where chickens outnumbered people.

”...How?!” I asked the universe. ”Left at the well. Right at the oak tree. What part of that is hard?”

A chicken tilted its head at me.

”Don’t. You live in a box. You don’t get to judge.”

It clucked. I’m pretty sure it was laughing at me.

I tried again.

By the time I actually found the Rusty Mug — after asking four more people, accidentally walking into a blacksmith’s forge, and nearly falling into a ditch — I was ready to declare war on village planning everywhere.

The building looked exactly like what you’d expect from a place called the Rusty Mug.

Old wooden walls that had seen better decades, a crooked sign swinging precariously in the breeze, windows so grimy you couldn’t see inside. The sounds of raucous laughter and shouted bets spilled out through the cracks.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The noise hit me like a physical wall. Men and women crowded around tables, slamming down cards and coins, shouting at each other with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for life-or-death situations.

Smoke from cheap pipes hung in the air like fog. A barmaid wove through the chaos with practiced ease, carrying what looked like a dozen drinks on a single tray without spilling a drop.

No one noticed me.

All eyes were fixed on one table in the corner.

I pushed through the crowd, curiosity getting the better of me. And there, at the center of attention, sat a man who looked like he’d been through a war and lost... several times.

He was maybe in his mid-thirties, with messy brown hair that hadn’t seen a comb in weeks, stubble that was trying very hard to become a beard, and clothes that looked like he’d slept in them for a month.

His eyes were half-lidded, his posture slumped, and across from him, a smug-looking merchant was raking in a pile of coins with obvious satisfaction.

”Another round!” the merchant crowed. ”This is too easy! I’ve never had such an easy mark!”

The man stared at his cards with the expression of someone who had just discovered that mathematics was a lie constructed by mathematicians to confuse ordinary people.

”I don’t get it,” he said slowly. ”I had good cards. Really good cards. Numerically speaking, they should have been winning cards.”

”You had garbage, friend.”

”But the numbers were higher than yours. I counted.”

”The numbers don’t mean anything if you don’t understand the game.”

The crowd erupted in laughter. The man shrugged and leaned back, apparently unbothered by his latest defeat. He even smiled a little.

I tapped the shoulder of a grizzled old fellow standing next to me. He had one eye, the other covered by a patch — and the kind of face that had seen too many fights and lost most of them.

”...Who’s that?” I asked, nodding toward the losing man.

He glanced at me with his good eye, then grinned, revealing several missing teeth. ”That’s Roran. Our village protector.”

I blinked. ”That’s the swordsman everyone talks about? The one who’s supposed to be strong?”

”The very same.”

”And he’s losing at cards.”

”Always.” The old man chuckled, a wheezy sound. ”You know what they call him around here?”

”What?”

”The God of Gambling.”

I raised an eyebrow. ”He’s that good?”

The old man laughed so hard he started coughing. He had to pound his chest a few times before he could speak. ”Good? No, son. They call him that because he’s so bad, it’s practically divine. The man has never won a single game in his entire life. Not one. And he’s been playing here for years.”

I stared at the so-called protector. The legendary swordsman. The strongest fighter in the village. Getting absolutely destroyed by a merchant who looked like he sold overpriced vegetables for a living.

Maybe I shouldn’t judge too quickly, I thought. Everyone has bad days. Probably.

_

I watched Roran lose three more hands in the next ten minutes. Each time, he’d look at his cards with genuine confusion, as if the universe had personally conspired against him. Each time, the crowd would laugh louder. And each time, he’d just shrug, flash that easy smile, and ask for another round.

The man had absolutely no shame. I had to respect that. Or pity him. Maybe both.

After the third loss, I’d seen enough.

I pushed through the crowd and slapped a handful of coins on the table. The money Mia had lent me after giving me a death glare that could have melted steel, with strict instructions to ”pay back every copper with interest or I’ll use your organs for practice.”

The table went quiet.

Roran looked up at me with bleary but curious eyes. A slow grin spread across his face.

”Well, well. Who’s this pretty boy? Come to watch the master at work?”

”The name’s Leo.” I sat down across from the merchant, ignoring the stunned expressions around me. ”And I believe my friend here was just getting warmed up.”

The merchant, a fleshy man with beady eyes and a greedy smile leaned forward. ”Friend? You sure you want to waste your money on this loser? He’s never won a single hand. Ever. I’m starting to feel bad taking his coins.”

Roran shrugged cheerfully. ”He’s not wrong, pretty boy. I’m really, really bad at this.”

”I know.”

”I mean really bad. Like, historically bad. They might write songs about how bad I am. Ballads, even.”

”I’m sure they will.”

”So why —”

”Just trust me.”

He studied me for a long moment, those half-lidded eyes suddenly sharp. Then the grin returned, wider this time. ”You know what? I like you. Let’s lose together in style.”

”That’s the spirit.”

The game was called High-Low.

Each player got three cards, and the only thing that mattered was whether your total was higher or lower than the person sitting across from you. On the surface, it seemed simple enough—anyone could learn the rules in a minute.

But the real game wasn’t in the cards.

It was in the way your opponent blinked when they thought they had you, the way their fingers drummed against the table when they were bluffing, the slight twitch at the corner of their mouth when they were holding something good.

Anyone could play. The people who won were the ones who learned to read the person sitting across from them before they ever laid a card down.

The merchant slid three cards across the table with the kind of practiced flair that came from years of doing this.

I picked them up slowly, keeping my face blank, and let my eyes drift over the numbers. A six, a seven, and a nine. Twenty-two total. Not bad. Not great either.

Roran leaned in close enough that I caught the stale smell of ale clinging to his clothes. ”What do we got, pretty boy?”

I kept my eyes fixed on the merchant across from me, whose fingers were already drumming against the table in that nervous rhythm I’d noticed earlier. ”Watch and learn.”

I pushed a small pile of coins into the center of the table, keeping my face calm even as my heart started beating a little faster. The merchant matched my bet without hesitation, his greedy eyes fixed on me like he already knew how this was going to end. I laid my cards down face up.

”Higher.”

The merchant’s left eye twitched—just a flicker, but I caught it. He revealed his hand slowly, like he was hoping the cards might change if he gave them enough time. A four, a five, and a six. Fifteen total.

I’d won.

A murmur ran through the crowd, low and surprised. Roran’s eyes went wide, his mouth falling open like he’d just watched someone perform a miracle. The merchant muttered something about beginner’s luck under his breath as he gathered the cards to deal again.

I just smiled. ”Sure.”

We won the next hand.

Then the next.

Then the one after that.

I kept my bets small, my plays careful, my attention fixed entirely on the man across from me.

Every twitch, every breath, every nervous tap of his fingers against the table told me something. His left eye gave away when he thought he was winning.

His right hand drummed against the wood when he was bluffing. When he was really nervous, his breathing got shallow and quick, like a rabbit waiting for the fox to make its move.

By the fifth win, the crowd had gone from curious to fully invested.

People pressed in around our table, placing side bets with each other, whispering excitedly to anyone who would listen. A woman in the corner was keeping a tally on a scrap of parchment, her face lit up with the kind of joy that only came from watching someone else’s money change hands.

An old man with a cane was taking bets on how much longer the merchant would last.

Roran was practically bouncing in his seat beside me, his earlier lethargy completely gone. He looked like a kid who’d just discovered candy existed and was trying to figure out how to get more.

”How are you doing this?!” he demanded, his voice somewhere between wonder and disbelief.

I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the merchant. ”He’s predictable. Good players don’t just play their cards—they play the person sitting across from them. Watch his left eye when he thinks he’s winning. The twitch gives him away.”

Roran squinted at the merchant, who was doing his best to look like he wasn’t sweating through his shirt. ”His eye twitches?”

”Only when he has a good hand. And when he’s bluffing, he taps his fingers. See?”

The merchant’s fingers were drumming a steady, nervous rhythm against the edge of the table, his eyes darting between his cards and the pile of coins that had grown dangerously thin on his side of the table.

Roran’s grin returned, wider than before. ”You’re a menace, you know that?”

”I’ve been told.”

”I’ve never seen anyone beat Garrick before!” He was practically vibrating now, his voice rising with excitement. ”He’s won the village tournament three years running! They call him the Card Shark!”

I took a moment to really look at the man across from me. Garrick was sweating now, the earlier confidence that had dripped from every word completely gone. His hands shook slightly as he dealt the next hand, and his left eye had settled into a constant, nervous twitch that didn’t seem to stop.

”Best player in the village?” I said mildly. ”Really?”

Roran nodded so hard I was worried his head might come loose. ”Undefeated for three years!”

I looked back at Garrick, then at the cards in my hand, then at the pile of coins that had grown so large it was starting to spill off the edge of the table.

”Huh.”

We won two more hands after that, and the crowd lost its collective mind.

People were shouting, cheering, slapping each other on the back like they’d just won the money themselves. A man near the bar had started doing something that might have been a victory dance or might have been a seizure—it was hard to tell.

Someone threw a drink in the air in celebration, and for a moment the whole tavern sparkled in the lamplight.

Roran was on his feet now, both fists raised like he’d just conquered a kingdom. ”This is the best night of my life!” he shouted over the noise. ”I’ve never been associated with winning before! This feeling is incredible!”

But Garrick wasn’t done.

He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief that was already soaked through, his face pale beneath the sweat. His eyes darted toward the back of the tavern, and for a moment I saw something in them that hadn’t been there before—not desperation, exactly, but something close to it.

He gave a small, almost invisible nod toward someone I couldn’t see.

”Get him.”

The words were quiet, barely audible over the noise of the crowd, but they landed like stones dropped into still water. The cheering died. The dancing stopped. Even the barmaid froze mid-step, a tray of drinks balanced on her shoulder, and didn’t spill a single one.

Roran’s grin slid off his face like it had been wiped away with a wet cloth. ”Uh oh.”

I turned to him, suddenly very aware that every eye in the room was now fixed on our table. ”What? What is it?”

Before he could answer, the crowd parted like a curtain being drawn back, and a man walked through.

He was tall—taller than anyone in the room, with shoulders so broad they barely fit through the gap the crowd had made for him.

His arms were thick as tree trunks, straining against the fabric of his simple tunic, and his face had the weathered, sun-beaten look of someone who’d spent more time outdoors than indoors.

But it was his eyes that caught my attention—sharp, knowing, the kind of eyes that had seen enough to know when they were being lied to and didn’t care much for it.

He carried himself with the easy confidence of someone who had nothing to prove and less to lose. He pulled out a chair, sat down across from us, and steepled his fingers on the table like he was settling in for a long conversation.

”Gentlemen.” His voice was calm, unhurried. ”I hear there’s some excitement tonight.”

No one spoke. Even the crowd seemed to be holding its breath.

Roran leaned toward me, his voice barely a whisper that I almost didn’t catch. ”That’s Drakus.”

I kept my eyes on the newcomer, keeping my face as blank as I could manage. ”...Who?”

”The Gambling King.”