Six of Clubs (War and Suits Book 5) Read online

  Table of Contents

  War and Suits book 5

  The Clubs

  29th January

  30th January

  31st January

  1st February

  2nd February

  3rd February

  4th February

  Other books by J.A.Armitage

  A note from the author

  Six of Clubs

  War and Suits book 5

  J.A.Armitage

  Copyright 2016

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  War and Suits

  The Clubs

  Two of Clubs – Rose Persimmon Club

  Three of Clubs – Stargazer Lily Club

  Four of Clubs- Tarragon Brodie Club

  Five of Clubs – Ash Ever Club

  Six of Clubs – Iris Larkspur Club

  Seven of Clubs – Juniper Hawthorne Club

  Eight of Clubs – Fern Foxglove Club

  Nine of Clubs – Sorrell Snapdragon Club

  Ten of Clubs – Sequoia Hollis Club

  Jack of Clubs – Sage Salix Club

  Queen of Clubs – Heather Lotus Club

  King of Clubs – Reed Cardamom Club

  29th January

  “Opal has come to me,” a voice said, bringing me out of my meditative state. I opened my eyes to see a silhouette, black against the winter light flooding into the temple behind it. It was a silhouette I’d recognise anywhere. I’d dreamed about the person it belonged to often enough, and the shape of him was engrained on my mind, as familiar to me as my own skin. Mali moved away from the doorway enabling me to see him properly. His long white beard flowed behind him as he threw it over his shoulder; a habit of his, to keep it out of the way.

  “Ash is safe. He has Journey, and they are just passing through the Skylands. From there, they will be able to get transportation home.”

  I would usually not let anyone interrupt me in meditation, but this was big news. My younger brother had been on a rescue mission to find the Jack of Hearts who was being held by one of the most powerful sorcerers in Vanatus. We’d been waiting for news from Mali’s spirit guide, Opal, for the best part of twenty-four hours. If they had already got to the Skylands, they would be safe, as long as The Joker didn’t come after them.

  “And the Joker?” I asked.

  “Opal does not know. She followed Ash and Journey. I asked her to go back to the castle where The Joker had been keeping Journey, but when she got there, it was empty.”

  “But they are safe!”

  “They are safe,” he confirmed. I jumped up from the floor where I had been sitting in the lotus position and flung my arms around Mali, bending slightly, so we were at the same level. I kissed his cheek, keeping my lips to his skin for just a fraction of a beat longer than what would be considered friendly. I inhaled the scent of him, a woodsy smell that was much more natural and intoxicating than anything the Hearts produced, bottled, and labelled cologne.

  “I love you.” How many times had I uttered those words? A hundred? A thousand?

  “I know.” How many times had I heard those words spoken back to me?

  Not once, in the three years I’ve known him, has he ever told me he loves me. At first, I didn’t need him to. It was enough that I loved him. But one-sided love can be the loneliest place, and I’ve become more and more needy with each passing day. I’ve lost count of the things I’ve done to please him, waiting for a glimmer of anything other than the easy praise he gives to everyone.

  He backed off and made an excuse to leave.

  I sighed. There was no point doing my usual trick of trying to convince myself that he meant more than he said, reading into his words more meaning than he intended.

  Instead, I turned my thoughts back to the temple. These were my favourite times in the temple, early mornings before all the other inhabitants of Yelpish awoke and came to join me. The spirit of Yelpish was to meditate along with others in a communal way, but I enjoyed my solitude, the quietness, and the way I could enjoy the early morning light filtering through the temple windows in silence without a cacophony of ‘Ohms.’

  The Clubs are mostly Monsatsuians, by which I mean, they worship the Club God, Monsatsu. The people of Yelpish, however, have no religion as such. We worship ourselves and each other and nature and the magic it provides. We are not a magical species like The Diamonds, but in Yelpish, we study it in all its forms. So far, Mali is the only one who can really harness magical power, but even he has to buy it from the Diamonds. He cannot produce his own. There is very little that he doesn’t know about magic, though. I dare say he knows a lot more than the Diamonds themselves who use magic without really thinking about it. Mali is a student of sorcery, black and white magick, the spirits, witchcraft and wizardry, voodoo, ghosts, the occult, and anything else related to magic. He knows the words to any spell (although he cannot cast them without using purchased magic), can whip up most any potion, and can tell you the history of any incantation you wish to throw at him. In addition to that, he has numerous spirit guides, can talk to animals, and regularly teaches within Yelpish. The man is a genius. He is also the most reserved, backwards, unemotional idiot I’ve ever been hopelessly and completely in love with.

  Does he know? Undoubtedly.

  Does he care? I want to say yes. There have been times when I thought there may have been something between us, but with Mali, it’s hard to tell.

  I laid myself back on the temple floor and looked upwards, taking in the beautiful wooden carvings on the temple ceiling. They had been carved long before I was born by Mali himself (Did I mention he was a genius? Well, he’s an artistic genius also.) They depicted various scenes in the history of magic in Vanatus.

  “Urgh!” my thoughts had gone straight back to Mali. No matter what I did to think about something else, he was always in my mind. It didn’t help that he was always there, even when he wasn’t. He was in the carvings, the temple, all over Yelpish. I would never escape him because everywhere I looked, there he was, whether in something he made or in something he designed. Yelpish was Mali. Not that I had any intention of escaping. Yelpish wasn’t a jail, but if it were, there wasn’t any door or lock that would keep me here.

  “Urgh!” I repeated to myself again. The sound reverberated around the cavernous room.

  I tried to think of Ash and Journey. In all honesty, despite my vow of being nice to everyone (one of the gazillion vows I made when entering the Yelpish community), I didn’t care for Journey one jot. She was cheap, vulgar, and a completely vain airhead, much like the rest of the Hearts. However, I did care very deeply about my brother, Ash. I can’t say we were very close. He, like all my family, thinks I’m slightly unhinged for believing in the things I do. But I still love him, and since he came to me for help with The Joker, hopefully, he’ll believe in the things I do a little more now.

  “Iris.”

  I sat up quickly. Mali poked his head back through the door that he’d left by at the back of the temple..

  “Yes?” I said quickly, mentally kicking myself for sounding so damn eager every time he spoke to me.

  “I think you are ready. I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few days, and it’s your time. The spirits agree.” He walked towards me until he was almost touching me. Seated as I was, my head came up to his waist. I tried very hard not to think about what was under his ceremonial robes, robes that he had changed into since he’d left just moments before.

  “Ready for what?” I asked the question, but I knew. It was the one thing I’d been both hoping for and dreading at the same
time since coming to Yelpish three years earlier. I held my breath waiting for him to answer.

  “You have been here three years,” he placed his hand on my head. It was a fatherly gesture, but that didn’t stop the tingles of electricity that ran through me, every time he touched me.”

  “It is time for you to be bonded. I’ll have the ladies come to your house later. You can have today to get used to the idea, and the elders and I will consider the options for you. After that, you will be confined to the house for the rest of the week.”

  “Do the spirits say who I should be bonded with?” There was only one person I could imagine, and he was standing right in front of me. Had he finally decided to settle down? Maybe all those times I’d mistakenly thought there was something between us were not mistakes at all. Did I dare hope?

  “You know I can’t tell you, even if they did.” He turned and left as though nothing had just happened, as though we had just been talking about the best flavour of tea and not my whole future.

  Yelpish was a strange place. Things worked differently here than the rest of The Club Kingdom. It was one of the reasons I liked it and, for the most part, felt as though I fitted in. We didn’t marry here in the sense that other people did. We were bonded. Like marriage, it was the coming together of two people although not in the eyes of Clubian law. Long ago, the founders of our society decided that marriage was too much of a risky business. Divorce rates were high, people cheated on one another, there was heartbreak, children were hurt, and blended families were common with children having, sometimes multiple step-parents. The founders of Yelpish decided there was another way. They picked mates for the villagers and bonded them with magic. Once the ceremony had occurred, the words ‘til death do us part’ were set in magic. Divorce was magically impossible, and if either of the couple so much as thought about acting on impure thoughts about another person, they would immediately drop dead. Strangely enough, it worked. The people who were bonded seemed to be happy. Without the worry of their partner cheating, they were much more relaxed. It also helped that the magic used to bond them also gave them affection for each other. It couldn’t make them love each other; that was impossible. But it helped them to understand each other, and in the majority of cases, love came along with both parties working at it. The only problem was that you didn’t get to pick who you were bonded with. The spirits and the elders picked for you. Most of the time, they were good at matching, but I’d heard stories of bitter enemies being matched up and ending up killing each other or themselves by the end of the first week of bonding.

  I’d been looking forward to this for so long. It was a rite of passage in Yelpish and always the biggest event of the year. Only one couple was selected to be bonded every year. It was unusual to do it so early. The earliest I’d ever heard of a bonding ceremony taking place was in April, but mostly they were performed in the summer months when it was hot.

  I wondered why Mali had picked me and why now? There were older girls than me in the village, ones that had been praying to be picked since the day I’d met them. I was about to get a lot of jealous attention over the next few days, but as I was to be confined to my house, I’d not see any of it.

  The pettiness of the other girls in my village wasn’t what bothered me, though. It was the fact that I was already in love with Mali, completely, totally, and hopelessly. How was I supposed to be bonded with someone and not have impure thoughts about someone else when I pretty much had nothing but impure thoughts about Mali. Would I be struck dead on my own bonding night?

  Probably.

  Of course, there was the tiniest hope that the spirits would decide on Mali being my mate, after all, he was unbonded. He was unbonded because he wanted to be that way. As the leader of the village, he was the only one that could opt out of the tradition. And he had, no doubt, done so for many years. The elders also had a say, but he was the head of the elders. He was the one that interpreted the words of the spirits. Was this his way of picking me finally?

  I needed to speak with him. My heart boomed with trepidation and more than a little hope as I stood and marched to the little room at the back of the temple, the room he used as his office and own private thinking space.

  I found him hiding behind a pile of books.

  “Why?” Because you love me? Please!!!

  “Why what?” he appeared out from behind the giant pile.

  “You know. Why me, and why now?” Was he being deliberately obtuse? Any hope I had about us began to fade. He did not act like a man who was about to be bonded with the secret love of his life.

  “It is your time. The spirits say so. It is written in the stars.”

  “Don’t give me that ‘written in the stars’ bullshit. Yesterday you told me that the stars were telling you that there is a big war coming. In fact, that’s all you’ve been talking about for weeks. You did this, not the stars or the spirits. This was your idea. It’s because I told you I loved you isn’t it?”

  “Iris. You are a young woman, one that I’m very fond of. I am an old man. You don’t want me; you want someone closer to your own age.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want. I already know what I want.”

  “Ok, what you need then.”

  “It’s not what I need,” I yelled. “I need you. I’ve only ever wanted or needed you.”

  Mali sighed and rubbed his temples behind his glasses. This was not going the way I had hoped. In fact, it was going about as wrong as it could possibly go.

  “Bond with me.” I was sounding desperate, and I knew it, but the thought of being bonded to anyone but Mali was so utterly beyond anything I could imagine, that desperation was all I had left.

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Why can’t you do that? You are unbonded. No sacred rule will be broken. I know you don’t love me, but those who are bonded usually fall in love with each other eventually.”

  “Iris, there are young men in the village that have been waiting a long time to be chosen. It would not be fair to them to pick myself.”

  He was referring to the rule that we must all remain virgins until we are bonded, both the boys and the girls.

  “Surely, you’ve had to wait the longest of all. Maybe they will think that it’s about time you were bonded. You’ve waited long enough, and quite frankly, so have I!”

  “Iris!” he slammed his fist on his table, making me jump. Some of his books fell to the floor. “You don’t get to decide who you are bonded with any more than anyone else in Yelpish does.”

  “No!” I yelled back equally as forcefully. “You get to decide!” and with that, I left his office, banging his door on the way out. I stormed out of the temple, past the rest of the community, who were beginning to congregate outside the temple doors for early morning meditation, and into the woods that surrounded the village. I was going to miss group meditation for the first time since coming to Yelpish three years previously, and I didn’t care. Once a girl was picked, it would be announced in temple, and I couldn’t bear the thought of all the villagers coming up to me, congratulating me.

  I walked for a good mile before I found a tree with a nice big branch and climbed it. It was unlikely that anyone would come looking for me quite so soon, but eventually, they would, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be found. Tears streamed down my face as I thought of Mali announcing my bonding to everyone in the village. The village boys would be getting excited at the prospect of being chosen. Not that I thought I was the prettiest in the village; I didn’t, not by a long shot. But I was attractive enough, and because of my position as second to Mali, I’d make quite a catch. Even though my royal status in The Club Kingdom meant nothing in Yelpish, I was sure that it wouldn’t hurt either. The boys could volunteer themselves or ask to be left out of the choosing, but the truth was, they had no real choice in the matter. Mali had the final say, whether people liked it or not. Of course, he told people it was the spirits, stars, or whatever, but really, it was he. He watched people and
knew what made good matches. I supposed it would be interesting to see whom he picked for me. I don’t think he’d really ever seen me speak to a boy other than himself, not that you could call him a boy. He was a man, an old man at that. He was twice my age.

  I thought of all the boys who would be eligible to be picked. We were a small community, and I could only think of five. Mali would get his wish for me of a young man. They were all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. The most likely was Yew, as he was the oldest. He was nice enough although I didn’t really know him. Then there was Aspen whom I knew to be already in love with a girl called Bryony. The others were Hawthorne, Birch, and finally, Basil. Of the five, I knew Hawthorne the best, and I supposed if I had to choose, I’d pick him. He wasn’t a friend of mine as such, but he’d always been nice to me on the odd occasions I’d spoken to him. I think I’d have to leave Yelpish if they picked Basil. He was the stupidest person I’d ever had the misfortune to meet. Unfortunately, he had a huge crush on me and spent a lot of time trying to find ways to be in my presence, much the same as I did with Mali. For a brief second, I wondered if Mali had the same disdain for me that I did for Basil. Maybe he did. Maybe he’d bond me with Basil to teach me a lesson. A fresh round of tears fell, trailing their way down the already wet tracks on my cheeks. I stayed up there, crying for an hour before I heard my name being called. I stayed as silent as I could. A girl from the village came through the trees. She walked until she was right underneath me and called my name again. I heard someone else shouting for me in the distance. The whole village must be out looking for me.

  The girl below me was called Lilac. She was older than I by a couple of years, and I knew her greatest wish was to be picked for bonding. By rights, she should have been picked this year. What was Mali playing at? She leaned back on the tree whilst I held my breath, not wanting to be discovered. I stayed as still as I could, so I didn’t accidentally knock a twig down, alerting her to where I was. I watched as she sat and put her head in her hands, and it was only when I heard the sound of quiet sobbing, that I realised she wasn’t really out looking for me. It was just pretence, so she could hide in the woods to cry, just as I had.