Page 40 of Immortal Game

Very reluctantly, Shea emerged from her hiding spot. “It’s not even noon.”

“Well, suit yourself.” Ciara rummaged through her things. “I will have some.”

It took some effort, but at last, she produced a dusty flask from some forgotten drawer. She took a swig and grimaced. From the looks of it, it’d probably turned into vinegar by now. Never had Shea seen Ciara so rattled. She put on no affectation, no dramatics. Clearly, Midir’s threat had hit its mark. Fae or mortal, family always knew where to stick the knife.

Shea hesitated. It wasn’t any of her business, really. But she’d seen the aftermath of one too many blowout fights between her mother and Aideen. Cautiously, she asked, “You okay?”

“Oh, do not pretend to care.” Ciara smiled bitterly. “I know you are filing this all away in that little archive in your mind. Do not deny it. I can practically see you riffling through it now.”

Shea frowned when she noticed Ciara’s hand trembling. “I’m not pretending. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

“This was not your fault.” Ciara wilted. “You asked me if Midir and I were close. Well, here is your answer. In truth, we hardly know one another.”

Shea could hardly fathom not knowing your own sibling. As children, she and Aideen spent hours together every day: riding their bikes through the neighborhood, coloring in their trading cards with gel pens, digging up shards of broken glass in the yard and calling them precious gems. Shea had known Aideen’s favorite songs, the things that annoyed her most, her fears and wildest dreams. At least she used to, before Aideen shut her out at the end.

“Why is that?” Shea asked.

“He does not want anyone to know him,” she said crossly. “I do try my best to empathize with him, when he is not actively trying to quash any remaining charitable feelings I might have. He trusts no one these days, especially not strangers.”

“But you’re his sister.”

“Yes, but I did not grow up in this castle. Our political landscape can be quite tumultuous. Tír nAill is divided into thirteen territories, each of which is ruled by a king. But only one of them may claim the title of High King, who has dominion over all of them. For now, that is my brother.” She waved a hand. “As you can imagine, wars are common. So it is customary for faerie nobles to send their children to be fostered in thehousehold of another noble family. It solidifies alliances among territories—or, if nothing else, ensures peace between them for a decade.”

“Sounds like a hostage exchange,” said Shea.

Ciara grimaced. “More or less.”

It hardly seemed like a comfortable childhood, growing up behind enemy lines. “So, when did you leave home?”

“When I was seven. Although I would hardly call it home. I do not remember my mother or father. But I do remember Midir.” Her voice grew wistful. “He taught me to play chess. Our lessons were the best part of my day. There was nothing sweeter than his rare words of praise or the way his eyes lit up when I saw a tactic. I was devastated when he sent me away to Sid Ban Find. I harbored the secret hope that if I improved enough to defeat him, he would call me back sooner.”

Shea had only to look at her face to know he had not.

“So, there I stayed. There were no other children to play with, so I spent most of my free time reading chess books that my tutors brought me. Most of them were from the nineteenth century.”

Well, that explained her style, Shea thought. The nineteenth century was a romantic era of chess, where sacrificing all your pieces for a pretty checkmate was fashionable. The romantic players saw little point in winning if it was not elegantly done.

“My foster family wanted little to do with me. But still, I was well cared for. They provided me with the best tutors in languages, riding, poetry, dancing, singing, and swordplay. They even summoned a mortal chess tutor. Perhaps you know Lusine Vardanyan?”

“Of course I do,” Shea said, a little breathlessly. LusineVardanyan was a famous grandmaster who had disappeared one day and never returned. It was a loss that the chess world never recovered from. Her style was inimitable, improvisational,poetic. “You trained with her?”

“Ah, that caught your interest, did it?” Ciara smiled with exasperated fondness. “Yes, for a while. She saw promise in me. And when she spoke to me of the mortal world, it captivated me. Her stories were a window I could look through, out of that echoing castle and its heavy silence. Through it, I could see cities and lights, protests and wars, rock shows and films, cars and clubs andchess. Once, my kind walked in that world freely. It seemed unfair that I’d missed that window by two hundred years. Itisunfair.”

Ciara closed her eyes, as if lost in those memories. “I wrote to my brother and begged him to allow me to cross the Veil to compete. He agreed to arrange it.”

“And that’s when you started terrorizing us.”

Ciara glared at her without heat. “As you say.”

Shea saw it now: a complete picture of Ciara’s obnoxious behavior. She did not like the way it made her feel, knowing that Ciara had been nothing but a child so starved for attention she seized it the only way she could: being a menace at tournaments. But attention was fleeting, and it sure as hell wasn’t love.

“So what did Midir mean when he said he could’ve left you on the heath?”

“Ah.” Ciara leaned her weight on her desk and stared down at the flask in her hands. “A few months before I was meant to return to Bri Leith, my foster family was killed.”

“What?”

“It was a raid from a rival family. They were looking for me.They came in the middle of the night. But Beann heard them coming before the guards did.” Beann, who’d been lying in the corner, lifted his liquid black eyes to her. They shone with unwavering, companionate understanding. “He and I escaped. No one else did. It was because I had played in all the servants’ hallways and knew all the secret passageways. Because I ran away like a coward, without even stopping to think. We wandered the heath for nearly two days, searching for aid, before a rider from my brother’s house found us.”