“With bells on!”
Astra reached for her fourth glass of moonshine under the linen tent, staked into the soft sand of the Empyrean shore.
“Perhaps you should slow down,” Ameera whispered.
Astra’s eyes focused on the roses dripping from the center of the lavish tent. Well, they made an attempt to focus. Ameera may have had a point. She sighed and set the glass back down, gladly accepting the water her maiden offered instead.
Beyond the tent, courtiers played their hands at a spirited round of Star Cross. They gripped wooden mallets and batted glowing orbs down the beach toward silk nets, whooping and hollering as they went.
At the tables, older courtiers played dice games and cards. Astra plopped into an empty seat and Ameera sat across from her as she shuffled a deck of divination cards. Their slick, painted faces made a satisfying clicking sound as they slipped over one another.
“What will it be?”
Ameera sighed. “If it’s another bad omen, please don’t tell me. I’ve had enough.”
Astra smirked, flopping out three cards from the top of the deck and turning them over in quick succession.
“All coins,” she muttered. “You best go put some money down on Lunelle’s team,” she said as she waved her hand toward the Star Cross court. Ameera did not hesitate to take her advice.
For better or worse, Astra’s intuition was rarely wrong.
“How much for a reading?” A low voice hummed as Mirquios slipped into the seat across from her.
“First one’s free,” she chuckled, sliding Ameera’s cards back into the pile.
“I’ve never had my cards read before,” he confessed.
Astra shuffled the deck, letting her fingers move on their own accord, reluctant to twist Fate any more than she was already conspiring to. “They only mean what they mean,” she advised. “There is no magic within their colors or names. Whatever they stir within you is exactly what’s meant to be.”
Mirquios nodded, leaning back as he sipped his drink, watching her with heavy eyes.
He was handsome, she allowed herself to admit as she set the deck on the table.
She closed her eyes, waving her hands over the deck and listening to the whispers in the wind for numbers. They rushed forth all at once. Thirteen, forty-one, nine, twenty-six.
“Gods above,” she murmured, opening her eyes and counting through the stack as the numbers arrived. She laid each card out in a diamond configuration.
“The Lovers,” Mirquios said, grinning as he reached forward and ran his fingertips over the card closest to him. “Well, then.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Astra warned. “You have to consider it all within the context of each other. You don’t get to pick and choose.” She studied the cards, letting the story before her fall into place.
“The Lovers are reversed to you, signaling something may be out of balance, or blocking you from receiving the kind of wholeness you could have. And The Tether is also reversed.”
“That doesn’t bode well.”
“It doesn’t bode anything, Mirquios. Only what you want it to.” She pursed her lips, running her fingers over the brightly painted colors of the other two cards. The Nether Queen and The Rift stared back at her. “Fascinating,” she whispered. “There’s so much in transit here, a grand weaving together of threads?—”
“The Nether Queen is suspicious.”
Astra’s lips curled. “She’s not nearly as scary as one would think. We often associate her with Descending, with death, but she really represents change—acceptance of your flaws so you can be your most authentic self.”
“Huh.” Mirquios nodded, unsure what to make of that information.
“It only means what it means,” she repeated.
“I hate that,” Mirquios said, laughing as he drained his drink. His eyes flickered to the edge of the tent where a large group of Venusian and Earthen courtiers entered, the volume escalating rapidly. “Would you like to go for a walk?”
Astra nodded, stacking her cards neatly and placing them back in their wooden box as she rose. Her skirt dragged behind them as they carved a path down the beach, away from the raucous crowd. The stars glittered above, punctuating their comfortable silence as Astra tiptoed at the edge of the water.
