Page 74 of Immortal Game

“No draw.”

“Was this really your plan?” Her voice trembled. “All the oaths, all your help, all the things you said to me… Were all those just half-truths and misdirection?”

Shame flashed in Ciara’s eyes, but she did not reply.

“You knew it would come down to this. You were just manipulating me the whole time.”

“It’s your move, Shea.”

A hollow feeling opened within Shea, dragging her down and down, into turbulent seas. Sweat slid down her temple. She was teetering on the brink of collapse. Everything she’d worked for over the last six years had come to this moment. In a matter of moves, it would be checkmate.

All she had to do was claim it.

The air was thin. Ciara stared at her, her wide eyes shining with raw, terrible fear—and worst of all, resignation. Shea picked up her king by his crown. She could feel the heady power of it against her fingertips. Rather than push it forward, she let it go. It wobbled on its base, then toppled over with a clatter that resounded through Shea’s entire body.

“I resign.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Shea returned to the mortal realm the way she’d left it: staggering blind through the Féth Fíada. When the mist gave way to the clear half-light of dawn, she found herself in her own front yard. Dew soaked into the hem of her jeans, and damp grass clung to her ankles. Inexplicably, she was barefoot. Her heels stung with blisters. She had no idea how long she’d been walking, what day it was, or how long she’d been gone. It still felt like the deep cold of late autumn, the same as it’d been when she left, but who was to say a hundred years hadn’t passed?

For now, Shea decided it didn’t matter. She staggered to her porch and took the house key from her pocket. It slid into the lock and admitted her. She made it no farther than her couch before collapsing into a dead sleep.

Late-afternoon sun woke her, but Shea couldn’t move. Really, she had no desire to move, until hunger threatened to pickle her insides. She managed to plug in her phone and stand under the hot water of her shower. After forty-five minutes, the desolate numbness within her had not thawed. This was as good as it was going to get. In the steam-filled bathroom, shescrolled through the notification tiles, endlessly stacked one on top of the other. Missed calls, texts, and of course, social media notifications: clips from the commentary on her game posts speculating on why she’d resigned; comments calling her an idiot and a half-rate player and an embarrassment and emotional. She closed the app and ordered takeout, which she ate standing over her kitchen sink.

It gave her the fortitude to watch the entirety of the semifinal round’s official coverage. On her phone, Grandmaster Jorge Rodriguez’s and Grandmaster Divya D’Silva’s talking heads analyzed Shea’s game. The digital board updated as the moves were relayed to them, and while they waited, they explored alternative lines, ideas, and picked apart every decision.

Over and over, Shea replayed that one fateful moment: rook to f2. The evaluation bar tanking from equal to an overwhelming advantage for black. Divya’s gasp of shock and horror as she watched it happen. Jorge’s stunned silence. She stared at the screen until her eyes burned, as if it could unveil some truth to her, or the commentators could explain what the hell Ciara had been thinking.

But there was no answer.

What Shea had not expected was news of Daniil’s loss. The game he played was, frankly, disturbing. It looked nothing like his usual play style: shaky and uncertain, every move whittling down his clock. He fought hard, but in the end, he’d resigned. She listened to the commentators attempt to make sense of it.

“International Master Lily Keenan takes the second spot in the finals, triumphing over Daniil Tsoi,” Jorge said. “This is sensational. This is… I mean, frankly, Divya, it’s unheard of. I honestly can’t believe it.”

“Me neither, Jorge. It’s rare to see complete and total collapse from a player like Tsoi. But a tournament like this will fry your nervous system, and not even he has nerves of steel.”

Shea could hardly process it. He’d been so calm, so… cocky, really, but that was Daniil. It didn’t seem possible that someone like him would be taken down from pressure of all things. If anything, he’d be undone by tilt—but he hadn’t made any stupid mistakes. Maybe Fuamnach was the better player after all.

Fuamnach.Ciara had to defeat her, or else…

No, she couldn’t think about it. She refused to think about Ciara.

Shea frowned down at the video. She considered reaching out to Daniil somehow, but in truth, she didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to pick open her own wounds, and it wasn’t like she had anything comforting to tell him.

Looks like your best effort wasn’t enough.

It sucks that neither of us will ever see our sisters again.

Maybe you’ll live another hundred years and get another chance.

No, it was pointless. Everything felt pointless, when the world was a pale shadow of what it used to be. She’d lost everything that ever mattered to her—even Ciara. Shea told herself not to care. Ciara had betrayed her. Shea couldn’t bring herself to hate her.

That was the worst part.

There was nothing left to do but go through the motions. Sleep through the morning. Wake up to the afternoon light. Let everything accumulate: the takeout containers on the counter, the dishes in the sink, the dust on all her trophies, thetexts and missed calls. Daniil had been wrong, after all. One way or another, when mortals collided with the fae, they never came back whole.

Three days after her return to the mortal world, her phone alerted her of an incoming call from a number she did not recognize. Shea silenced the call. Immediately, her phone rang again. She repeated this process once more before—on the caller’s third attempt—she picked it up with an irritated “What?”