Page 21 of Immortal Game

Shea eyed her suspiciously. First, Ciara had warned her about the fae’s insistence on hospitality. Now, she was willingly providing Shea with information she could’ve easily withheld. “Okay. Why the sudden generosity?”

Ciara looked affronted. “As I said yesterday, sportsmanship is a value I now hold in the highest esteem. But if you don’t want to know…”

“I do,” Shea cut in.

Ciara smiled, benevolent and gratified. “The next round will take place in a few days. The format is partner chess.”

“Partner chess?” Shea couldn’t keep the disgust out of her voice. It was a gimmicky two-versus-two format. In the mortal world, the tournaments were usually live-streamed so that casual viewers could watch each duo bicker as they talked through their moves and strategy. Here, she couldn’t imagine the appeal, unless the arbiters were going to allow them to strangle one another for the crowd’s amusement. “Really?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Ciara paused. “Today is the Fraughan Festival. Are you familiar with it?”

“Why would I…” Learning about the Otherworld’s holidays hadn’t exactly been part of her training protocol. “No. Of course I’m not.”

“Of course you’re not,” Ciara echoed pityingly. “It is a summer harvest festival—and a celebration of love. We will all be attending this afternoon.”

Shea glared at her, mystified at the change in topic. “Wow. What a treat.”

“Your sarcasm is registered and unappreciated,” Ciara said primly. “I mention it only because that is where we will choose our partners. My brother has something of a sense of humor.”

Which meant they had to choose today. What a nightmare. Shea would have to be strategic about this decision. On such short notice, it was an impossible ask—made more impossible for the fact she hadn’t the foggiest idea who had even survived eliminations last night.

It occurred to Shea that Ciara was still standing there. The princess wore an expectant sort of look on her face, one thatbegan to fade the longer Shea stared incredulously back at her. An inchoate dread swirled within Shea. “What?”

“Very well, then. I suppose I must be the one to humble myself.” Ciara sighed heavily. As though speaking under duress, she said, “I am… amenable to some sort of arrangement between us.”

“Amenable?” Shea echoed. Her head spun as she turned over Ciara’s words.An arrangementmade it sound like something sordid—or some sort of marriage-of-convenience proposal, straight out of an old-timey romance novel. Ciara had found yet another way to mock her. It was almost impressive how enterprising she could be when it came to spite. Shea’s outrage returned with a vengeance. “Well,I’mnot.”

Ciara’s mouth fell open in astonishment. Soon, her expression clouded over with genuine hurt. It lasted only a moment, however, before fury swept it all away like a sudden tempest. Wind gusted through the open window, sending her curls flying about her like a flame. Her hair seemed to shake loose embers and sunlight. “May I askwhyI am thus rejected?”

“You can’t be serious!” Shea cried.

“Gravely! I should like to hear your reasons.”

Shea laughed, full-throated and disbelieving. Oh, where to begin? She’d disliked Ciara for so long, she could hardly believe she had the gift of telling her exactly why.

“Look at yourself.” Shea swept her hand out in front of her. “You’re a terrible loser. You’re entitled. You’re shallow. You behave badly, and you keep getting away with it because everyone is either afraid of you or worried that casual viewers will lose interest in chess without your star power. It’s unfair, sure, but ifthat was all I had against you, I could live with it. But no. It’s personal, because you made it personal.”

Neither of them had gotten over the first game they played together. They were both fourteen years old, and they’d been matched in the third round of a tournament in Prague. The first time Shea saw her, she remembered thinking Ciara bore no resemblance to her brother. That was until Shea sat at the board, and Ciara looked at her like she was an insect: beneath her notice, too insignificant to trifle with.

Then and there, Shea knew she had to win.

For her opening, she’d chosen an obscure sideline of the Ruy López, one designed to take Ciara out of her comfort zone as quickly as possible. Ciara had sat slumped in her chair, moving her pieces with a sort of flippant disinterest that made Shea’s temper flare even hotter. Ciara had either prepared something against this line, or she was too cocky to notice the blade hovering over her neck.

It made Shea angrier than she’d been in years. So angry, in fact, she forgot to think. For ten glorious moves, Shea played how she used to when she still loved the game: relentlessly, combatively, the equivalent of dragging someone into a fistfight by their hair. The sequence ended with a haymaker: a queen sacrifice. At that, Ciara’s façade cracked. She drew in a sharp breath, as though Shea had punched her. She stared down at the board for a long time, her clocktick, tick, ticking into the tense silence.

Shea saw the exact moment Ciara calculated what Shea already had: That the attack was devastating—and there was nothing she could do to stop it from crashing through. When she finished contemplating the hopelessness of her situation, Ciara finally looked up at Shea.

Shea had expected a resignation. Instead, Ciara’s stunned expression morphed into one of inarticulate fury. The box-dye black of her hair began flaking away and rose above her like a cloud of soot. As the natural red shot through root to end like a flashfire, she slammed her palm flat on the table. All the pieces rattled, quaking at her sudden outburst.

“Impossible,” she’d hissed.

It was the only victory Shea had relished in years. But Ciara had exacted punishment for being so thoroughly humiliated. Every time they’d played since, Ciara had lost on purpose. She didn’t even try to hide it, with her insistence on dubious lines and intentional blunders. To make matters worse, fans mistook their disastrous games for some kind of inside joke. They drew record numbers of spectators, and official chess social media accounts went viral every other week making content out of “chess’s most iconic frenemies.” Just thinking about it made Shea’s blood boil.

“Foryears, you have made it your mission in life to insult and embarrass me,” Shea went on. “So, yeah. My answer is no. Everything you do is for attention or your own selfish amusement. Why would this be any different?”

They were standing very near now, almost chest to chest—so close, Shea feared that Ciara would be able to feel the thundering of her heart. The very air between them seemed ready to spark and catch flame.

All at once, the wind died, and Ciara’s hair settled against her shoulders once more like the petals of a wilting flower. Her eyes went vacant, like chips of dull glass, and she smiled coldly. “Well, now. I see you have the right of me.”