Page 2 of Immortal Game

A diadem of silver branches rested on his brow, and his flaxen hair fell across his face, obscuring his left eye. In onehand, he held his horse’s reins; in the other, a five-pointed spear. His cloak was fastened at his throat with a brooch of pure gold, a sliver of his brocade doublet visible just beneath. Delicate golden blossoms unfurled from the trees around him. He stared at Aideen in the same way most boys in town did, which made protectiveness surge up within Shea. Only, this was no boy. There was no mistaking his regal bearing, or the way the very air seemed to bend around him.

This was a faerie lord.

“It is true what they say,” he said. “Lovely anyone, until Aideen. Beautiful anyone, until Aideen.”

Shea opened her mouth to speak, but Aideen shoved Shea behind her. “Who are you?”

“I am your husband.” Fae couldn’t lie. If nothing else, he believed it to be true.

There was no protocol for this. By mutual agreement of the mortal and faerie realms, crossing the Veil was highly regulated. Even so, Aideen would know better than to offend him by denying it outright. At last, she said, “Aideen is my name, but I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. We’ve never met before.”

“There is no mistaking you, Aideen Echraide, daughter of Ailill,” the faerie lord replied, with a reverence that made Shea’s skin crawl. “It was long ago, in another life, when last we saw one another. Your bride price, your weight in gold and in silver, was paid. For you, all the rivers in Ireland were carved, all its plains raised. But you were unjustly taken from me.”

Aideen laughed breathlessly, as if in utter disbelief. Shea could see now that her hands were trembling. “Tell me. What is your name?”

“No hard matter. Midir of Bri Leith.”

Midir of Bri Leith.Even Shea knew that name. He was the High King of the Irish Otherworld—but more importantly, one of the best chess players in history.

Shea couldn’t square what he was saying with her reality. Aideen couldn’t be the Queen of the Otherworld. Even if she wasn’t exactlynormal, she wasn’t fae, either. She could lie. She could touch iron. She had rounded ears, the same as any other mortal. But doubt crept in.

Their mother always insisted that Aideen had been miraculously conceived. Nobody had believed her at first, because there wasn’t any mystery in a girl like Kara Fury getting pregnant at sixteen. At least that’s what Shea heard the ladies at church say. But once Aideen was born, nobody called Kara a liar anymore. Just looking at Aideen, you could tell she was fae-touched. A faint radiance emanated from her skin, like the blushing light of the moon. Her eyes, a hyacinth blue, were as depthless as the sea. When she spoke with a certain tone, you couldn’t help doing exactly what she commanded. And sometimes, when men looked at her, they went a little mad.

“Tell me,” Aideen said dreamily, as though the words were not her own, “what was it that parted us?”

“No hard matter. The sorcery of Fuamnach and the spells of Bressel Etarlam.” He extended a gauntleted hand to her, the jewels embedded in each knuckle glinting in the dying sunlight. “Will you come away with me to a land where old age, sickness, decay, and falsehood are unknown?”

Aideen was staring at Midir with a glassy, wondering look—as though he held the answer to every question she’d ever had. But something was wrong. If Aideen could put people under a spell, then Midir could, too.

Shea couldn’t let him manipulate her. She imagined how it felt to sit in front of a chessboard. That power, that certainty, coated her all over like armor. “The answer is no. Leave her alone.”

Midir’s one visible eye bored into Shea. Clearly, he’d just registered her existence and was irritated by it. Beneath that stare, she was little more than an insect—something hardly worth killing, let alone noticing. Shea glared back at him, furious and defiant and utterly petrified.

“Shea.” Aideen seized hold of Shea’s hand. Her wild, panicked expression said,Are you crazy?Maybe she was. Shea couldn’t bring herself to regret it. She’d broken the spell.

“Such a small body to harbor a warrior’s spirit,” Midir remarked mildly. “Does this child speak for you, Be Find?”

“I speak for myself,” Aideen replied, her voice trembling, but firm. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go with you. I don’t know who you are.”

“I see.” With a flourish of his gold-trimmed cloak, he bowed to Aideen. “What is a short while longer, when I have already waited a thousand lifetimes? I shall come to woo you again.”

Just like that, he was gone, vanished in a swirl of delicate apple blossoms.

Aideen grabbed Shea by both shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Don’t ever do something that reckless again! Do you have any idea what could have happened if—”

“Sorry.” She tried her best to sound contrite. “I won’t.”

The entire walk home, her mind turned and turned. Midir had said he would come back. And when he did, Shea would be ready for him.

CHAPTER ONE

EIGHT YEARS LATER

Maybe Shea should’ve suspected that something was amiss sooner. In retrospect, there were some obvious signs. Like the moment she’d pulled onto the bike path and the clear, mid-autumn morning had turned suddenly and inexplicably gray. Or when the fog thickened around her, so dense that she could see little but the shape of dark, skeletal trees leering out of the gloom. Now, she was certain something had gone wrong. Although she hadn’t taken a single turn, she’d passed this tree—one with a broken branch—at least twice before.

Shea slowed her bike to a stop and turned the collar of her bomber jacket up against the rain. It fell steadily now, staining the asphalt a glossy black, and plastered her hair to the nape of her neck and forehead. She scraped it out of her face and slicked it back as best she could.

It was too quiet.