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He rested his head in his hand to focus as we spoke. “She forced me to give her the position.”
“Forced you? She’s tiny. You could resist her.”
He eyed me. “She brought three knives to make her demand. I let her have it.”
I grinned. Troi might not be someone I’d bond with on my own, but I’d never be ungrateful that we were on the same side. I could use some with her fighting spirit.
There was a pause before Bash asked, “How have the past six weeks been?”
“Lonely,” I admitted. He moved his knight forward from behind two pawns, and I matched the move. “How are things with the lords?”
He frowned. “Frustrating. My father was many things, but devoted to Mother was among his most admirable, and the lords related to him in that way. I need you to be free so I can prove I’m capable of maintaining a close bond as well.”
I almost laughed. “The two years I’m here wouldn’t prove anything against a lifetime. You chose the easy path by asking me to play the role with you instead of a girl who would be here forever.”
His hand faltered over a pawn and a splinter of pain crossed his eyes before he blinked it away. “It was a logical move, as is my next one. Since I cannot show you off to the lords, I would like to hire you to paint a portrait of me for my home. If your presence can’t be obtained, the painting will show the lords of your affection.”
I pressed my lips together. A painting of Bash would do nothing in sending out messages, but I couldn’t turn away my ally, especially when I’d already let him down. I nodded.
“Good. Your move.”
My focus went to the board. I’d only beaten Troi once, but perhaps the same move could overtake Bash. If only I could remember how I’d set that up.
I hesitantly brought forth my bishop, hoping it had played a part in my earlier victory. I glanced up to find Bash wasn’t looking at the board. He was looking at me. Or rather, at my shoulder.
The place where Vern healed me from his own arrow bore a twisted scar much like a coil of hair, pale and warped, reaching for my neck. It bubbled slightly but appeared like any other scar would from years past.
Vern healed it well. Still, I’d wear the mark forever.
Before I could pull my sleeve to cover it, Bash lifted his hand and ran a thumb across the scar with a thoughtful expression.
I held my breath. His touch was all I felt, not the bed beneath me or the corner of the chessboard pressing against my knee.
“I have lived,” he said in a hollow voice as gentle as waves kissing the shore, “a short life by fae standards, and yet have met more souls than you would in three of your lifetimes. I’ve met those strong enough to tear down mountains, to tremble the seas, or to shake the skies—and yet, none of them would have the strength to stand in front of an arrow to save a stranger. Only you, my Queen. Only you.”
“My Queen” rolled from his tongue differently than it did off Talen’s—which was obedient and polite. From Bash it was endearing, bridging on intimate, and I longed to hear it once more.
His thumb stopped tracing the scar, but he didn’t remove it. “Where does such a strength come from? If I peeled back the layers of you, what would I find? What other courage lies there, and what beauty rests behind that mask?” The inflection of his tone was less questioning and more pondering. But I wanted to answer the question. And I wanted to remove my mask and let him see me. I wanted to remove his mask and see him.
His fingers moved again, tracing a slow line down my arm. The silence hung between us as the distance shrank. I wanted more than the look of him. The sensation gripped me with an unrelenting desire. I wanted the taste of him too.
When I thought he might cross the board for me, his face changed. His hand yanked back and he jumped to his feet.
“I must go.”
Those three words were all I got. Then he was out the balcony window as if he couldn’t flee fast enough and disappeared into the night sky, leaving me with a racing pulse, an unfinished chess match, and the sinking feeling that I’d just lost whatever game we played.
A week before my three-month punishment was up, when I’d played enough chess and painted enough pieces that now I dreamed about nothing but artwork of chess, and finally Talen brought back a painting. “I’d sent this to Thorn’s sector,” he said, setting it down on an empty easel. My childhood home was the focus with the open windows letting in the yellow sun and fig trees bending under the weight of the heat. “But it reappeared at the door this morning.”
I practically flew to the painting then tried to control my excitement. The difference this time wasn’t hard to spot. Whoever altered this painting made it nighttime to fit the fae realm. Hundreds of stars speckled the dark sky, cloaking the center island in shadows and starlight.
My fingers twitched to touch it, but I wasn’t ready to share this secret with Talen yet, and he’d plopped onto one of the chairs. Would the painting show him the same vision if he touched it? He had to have touched it, to bring the canvas up, yet he didn’t appear to have seen something. “Thought I’d come keep you company for a while,” he said. “Odette is on her way too.”
“Very kind.” I strained a smile.
“I thought so. We’ve got to make you ready for your reentrance into the realm.”
“And what a grand entrance that will be,” Odette’s chipper voice declared. She stood in the doorway looking like perfection with a silky emerald dress seeping to her ankles and hair set in loose waves. She laid a long covering over a chair and opened it.
