A Game of Cards

Chapter XVIII: Onyx Ying

For two days after the incident, I was miserable and bedridden. When I had arrived back onto the ship, I was half-dying of hypothermia and blood loss, or so according to Dane and Cozbi. I myself had no knowledge of my state then, already completely delirious and on the verge of fainting. Finally, on the third day, I dragged myself out of bed to get some work after two days dying of boredom. The moment I opened my eyes, the sunlight of the early morning, spilling through the open windows, seared my eyes, blinding me. I stumbled around, visionless, before hitting my shoulder on a shelf and sending a wave of pain through my upper back. I screamed a curse, using words that a proper general would never.

Quite literally, my wound was killing me. I had been stabbed almost anywhere, stomach, back (literally and figuratively), leg, and even once in the chest during a failed assassination attempt. Shoulder was by far the most painful. Perhaps it was because this wound let out too little blood for me to pass out, yet it went deep enough to create excruciating pain. Either way, it was not an experience I would want to repeat.

Peeling back the bloody bandages binding my shoulder, I grimaced. The wound was numb now, the nurse had applied some sort of herb on it, yet it still looked at deep and fresh as when I first got it. It went so deep I was afraid my arm might fall off if I moved it too often. It would take months to heal at this point. Lucky it was on my left side. Even if I if I could use my left hand to fight, it would have been torturous to write with my non-dominant hand, had the wound been on my right. Despite this, I got myself cleaned up and donned on my commanding general's uniform.

Just as I was dressing, Dane and Cozbi barged into the room, only reflecting mild surprise that I was up and alive.

"You're awake," noted Dane, plopping himself onto my sofa with no respect towards my furniture whatsoever. "Congrats."

"No shit," Cozbi returned, prodding him with her elbow.

"What are you two morons doing here?" I scowled, "I'm dressing."

"Yes,"—she rolled her eyes— "we can see that."

"Hey, you were out cold for two full days, and the moment you wake up you're in this mood?" Dane grumbled. "To think we didn't even get a 'hello' or 'how do you do?'"

"I wasn't 'out cold,' I heard you two arguing over who would inherit my couch after I died and—"

"DANE WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE COUCH?" Cozbi shrieked, as our brother smooshed his cheek onto the silky fabric of the sofa.

"Can't help it," Dane moaned, his voice muffled into the cushions. "Onyx, your couch is just so soft. Damn, why do you get all the good stuff?"

I bound my robe with a strip of silver silk. It was stiffer than the usual Spadian robes, all black except for a silver spade symbol stitched onto the front. The Ying family crest shone on my chest. I admired my outfit in front of the mirror, tying my dark hair into a bun, not a strand out of place, so tight that I could feel the pull on my face.

"Real fancy," Cozbi said, giving me a thumbs up.

I fastened my cloak on my shoulders, running my hand across it once, feeling the velvety fabric beneath my fingers. This whole outfit was made from the hide of dead hellhounds, one of the most common yet expensive materials for fabric-armor. It was usually hard enough getting my hands on a cloak of this material, yet to have a whole robe of it had taken me months of bargaining to collect. Don't even get me started on collecting the material for the needle. The only thing that could penetrate hellhound hide would be the animal's own teeth. Unfortunately, as if the animal itself wasn't rare enough, no paid fool would be willing to stick their teeth into the mouth of what could potentially be the most toxic creature on the planet and pull out a tooth, and no seamstress or tailor just happened to have a hellhound tooth needle lying around, so I had to hire a team of specialized hunters to find some carcass of the animal lying around and collect its teeth. I say carcass, as there are very strict laws on the hunting and trade of hellhound hide and teeth that even I, as the grand commanding general, must abide by. Needless to say, I was very proud of this outfit, uncomfortable it may be.