Wagering With Care

by Marcelle J.J. Padilla

written March 16, 2026

“Just one round. If you win, we won’t intervene in your life again. Until the day you die.”

“Are you mad?” Gwendolyn smacked her stack of chips down on the table, kicking up a cloud of dust that made her and Edwin cough profusely.

“It’s a good wager,” Malthis croaked from across the table, breathing in the dust as if it had lingering traces of his countless defeated opponents. The thin shaft of sunlight pouring in through the cellar’s tiny window highlighted a slight upturn of his mouth. “It expresses the message loud and clear. The boy knows how to speak my language.”

Gwendolyn scoffed at the notion of her full-bearded, full-armoured savage of a brother being referred to as a mere boy, yet Edwin nodded in the way a child might do so to an approving parent. Although Malthis’ proud figure had shrunk and wizened, his age having caught up to him and then some, Edwin could still hear that didactic but gentle tone that never wavered even on the battlefield.

“Now that the wager is settled,” said Edwin, “shall we begin?”

Instead of replying, Malthis conjured a deck of cards and began shuffling with the speed and dexterity of one who had played the game many decades longer than him.

“Wait! Malts!” Gwendolyn cursed herself for letting fly that nickname―a tarnished, love-turned-foul nickname―but she composed herself and glared at Edwin. “Surely there’s some other way of getting the message across that isn’t so bloody reckless?”

“Your concern is really quite daft, Gwena,” said Malthis, the nickname making Gwendolyn flinch. His straggly, face-obscuring hair made it difficult to tell if he revelled in the reaction. “Considering your penchant for taking chances.”

“He has a point,” said Edwin, running his gloved hands over the cracked wooden table. “This wager is no different from you betting the last dregs of your over-shared love life on him.”

“Don’t you dare speak as if you know anything about me. Do that, and I won’t speak as if I know about your desperate attempt to salvage your reputation after your beloved mentor defected and burned all your bridges in the military.”

“You witch,” Edwin hissed at her before looking at Malthis. “What she said has no bearing on our present relations. I hold no ill will toward you, Sir.”

Both siblings looked at Malthis expectantly, but the only sound Malthis returned was the near-inaudible fwips of cards sliding past one another.

“Come now,” said Gwendolyn. “You really have nothing to say?”

Malthis continued shuffling silently, the one eye peeking through his hair showing pin needle focus on the cards. Finally, he said: “The only thing that has any bearing on me is that wager. We can either commence the game at once, or terminate this session here. There are many more patrons lined up, so all this chatter has done is cut into my livelihood.”

Something about that word―livelihood—struck Gwendolyn in the heart, hearing it come from Malthis’ lips with utter solemnity in the Golden Dice Dragon’s cellar. As she gazed at her past lover, the iron bars on either side of the room suddenly became much more apparent, and she couldn’t shake the knowledge that this game room had once been part of a gaol. As her vision wandered, Edwin’s gaze came sharply into focus.

Come on, we need to take this chance, his nod said.

Fine, her nod said in turn. Not much of a chance if I have no choice in the matter.

The siblings confirmed their wager and thus the setup for the game began. Both of Malthis’ challengers were faintly familiar with the game, each having played it with him years prior on the West Barracks’ collapsing table or the Calis estate’s marble counter, but Malthis still explained the rules.

As Edwin perused his cards and listened, he couldn’t help but note the hard emphasis in Malthis’ voice whenever he said the game terms men-at-arms, company, and commander. Thinking on this and the rules, Edwin hesitated before asking: “These companies we form, do they need to be equal in number? Or can there be imbalances?”

“That…”

The abrupt silence caused both siblings to peer over their cards at Malthis, who cleared his throat. “That is up to your discretion, yes. However, be mindful that you do not know which of your opponents’ forces your companies will do battle with. Thus, a weak flank…could end up easily crushed.”

As the two men went back to looking through their cards, Gwendolyn continued gazing at Malthis. How could Edwin phrase his question like that, knowing full well that ex-Commander Malthis would connect the dots immediately? She yearned to say something in the midst of her brother’s thoughtless cruelty, but from Malthis’ words to her just a moment ago, not to mention the countless letters she had sent to the Golden Dice Dragon over the years that had received no response, she knew the only thing Malthis would listen to was defeat.

Malthis was the first to finish, setting his stacks of cards face-down without a hint of hesitation. Gwendolyn was next, trying to gauge her opponents as she set her cards down carefully, but soon she grew frustrated and divvied up her remaining cards at random. With an exasperated sigh, she looked at her brother.

“Well?” she said.

“Do not rush the boy,” said Malthis, laying his hands flat on the table where they looked sullenly empty. “Despite my backlog of patrons, I am infinitely patient in waiting for the game to run its course.”

“But don’t you…” Gwendolyn caught herself, for there was no way to end that outburst without sounding as insensitive as Edwin. With the iron bars in her peripheral, it was as though she had been brought before inquisitors, her every word a risk in having a sword pointed at her throat. Despite that, she wanted to say something, something that would wake Malthis up to how wrong it was to subject himself to this squalor, but such bluntness would be an even more heedless wager than the one Edwin had put forth. For that reason, she kept quiet, choosing instead to glare at her indecisive brother.

Eventually, Edwin laid down his first stack of cards. However, he paused for a time before setting his second stack, and then his third. Gwendolyn loudly breathed out her discontent; was now really the time to toy with her patience? And yet, as she watched him, she noticed something.

His hands were trembling.

Gwendolyn shifted in her stool, feeling strangely unsettled. Surely, this could be explained by nothing more than sheepishness at the thought of losing this gamble and his pride with it. And yet, there was something Gwendolyn couldn’t place in the way Edwin appeared to be holding his breath, his glance never wandering as he kept an archer’s focus on the cards he set down.

Once Edwin placed his final stack, Malthis instructed them to reveal all cards so that the battles could be assessed. Gwendolyn was surprised to have won some battles at all, but her point count was soon dwarfed by Edwin, who won eight out of his ten battles.

“Eight, yes, that’s eight points,” Malthis announced in a low voice while scratching his chin, as if speaking only to himself.

Gwendolyn was equally dumbfounded by Edwin’s one-sided victory and the muted reaction from Malthis the Undefeated. Looking at Edwin, she noted that same stiffness and hesitation in his movements again, the same bated breath. Gwendolyn’s hands, resting on the rough table surface, grew slick with sweat as a worrying and infuriating notion formed in her mind.

“Well now, would you look at that!” said Edwin, his demeanour changing completely. “I confess that I was prepared for the worst, but even skill and experience aren’t impervious to luck, it seems.”

“Edwin.” Gwendolyn’s voice was dire. “You didn’t…did you?”

Instead of Edwin’s response, there came a scraping sound from across the table, followed by quick footsteps and then a metallic clang as Edwin fell off his stool in a heap of armour with Malthis standing over him, gripping the younger man’s wrist.

“Thought I wouldn’t notice, did you?” Malthis said, ignoring Edwin’s pleas to be let go. He used his other hand to rip off Edwin’s glove, then raised the younger man’s bare hand up toward the ceiling so that the torchlights made what was embedded in the middle of his palm blindingly apparent.

An enchantment charm.

“Edwin!” Gwendolyn screamed. “You bloody, no-good idiot!”

“A cheat,” said Malthis before laughing and releasing his grip. He looked at Gwendolyn with shining eyes and said, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that this runs in the family, albeit in different ways.”

“I…” Edwin choked out a word as he righted himself on his seat, but then his face met Gwendolyn’s fist with a crunch and he was on the floor again, unconscious.

“Please, no violence,” said Malthis as he walked along the table and gathered all of the cards. Shuffling, his back to Gwendolyn, he said: “Despite his transgression, I will not harm you two. I merely ask you to leave immediately.”

“Don’t do this, Malts!” Gwendolyn no longer cared that her mind was defaulting to that nickname. “I had no knowledge that my barbarian of a brother was plotting any of this. I swear that on my birth star!”

Her voice rung loud and clear, yet Malthis continued shuffling with his back turned. In the weak torchlight with his crooked figure blending into the cobblestone and his uncut hair pointing down at the game table, he appeared as nothing more than an extension of this place. And yet, there was something in the way he stood apart from his seat, his back aligned with Gwendolyn’s figure, that made him appear as a wanderer caught between two worlds.

Seeing this, Gwendolyn knew this was her only chance to go all-in.

“You gambled on us, didn’t you?” she said. Malthis shuffled on silently, but she continued: “You wagered that playing a game with us wouldn’t get you to care again. But I know, Malts. I know you lost that one, and we didn’t need a cheat for that.”

He stopped shuffling and turned around to find Gwendolyn standing closer to him, her eyes looking deep into his own.

“My brother,” she said, “chose the worst way to do it, but I understand. He wanted to guarantee victory so that you would listen, so that he could convince you to return to your rightful place. All so he could repay you for the chance you took with him, all those years ago.”

“Gwena, please.” He grabbed her shoulder firmly. “I know better than to gamble on taking your word ever again.”

“I know that, all right?” She fought back tears. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But…even knowing that, I gambled on you. Over and over again, every time I sent letters to this place. Coming here with Edwin—that was the biggest gamble of them all.”

Malthis’ hand on her shoulder grew lighter. “What ever do you mean?”

“No matter how much it pained me, I wagered. I wagered my heartache becoming too much to bear at the sight of you, of you given over to this foul place, all for the chance to say to you—to prove to you—that this isn’t where you belong.”

She brushed a lock of hair away from his eye.

“It isn’t,” she whispered.

Malthis remained silent for a time before leaving Gwendolyn’s gaze. He stepped over to his seat, sat down, and resumed shuffling.

Gwendolyn felt deflated at first, then infuriated at seeing none of her words get through. But then she noted how, even in the dying torchlight, a new smile peeked through Malthis’ old face. Edwin, still unconscious, gave off snores that made the dim room feel strangely homely.

“I invite you to one more game,” Malthis called out. “State your wager, and I will match it.”