Chapter Eleven
By the time Shea finished getting ready, Ciara still hadn’t woken up.
She lay in bed, her hair arranged across the pillow like veins of bright fire.
She looked so peaceful like this—almost innocent, with the long sweep of her lashes, her softly parted lips, the freckles across her faintly shimmering skin.
Shea considered leaving her to her dreams. But with four more days until the next round, they had no time to waste.
“Hey,” Shea said tentatively.
Ciara did not stir.
“Hey.” Shea ripped the duvet off the bed.
Ciara shot awake, her eyes wild and affronted. She seized a pillow and held it in front of herself like a shield. “What is the meaning of this?”
Shea dropped the duvet onto the floor. “Where’s your chess set?”
Ciara pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and groaned. “This is a nightmare, surely. It is too early for this.”
Judging by the position of the sun, it had to be at least ten o’clock. Shea refrained from comment. “There are only four days until the next round. At the very least, I want to narrow down our opening repertoire today.”
Ciara, evidently resigned to her fate, sighed. “That sounds reasonable.”
“If we prep for eight hours a day, we should be fine,” Shea continued. “Any objections?”
“Several, but none that would sway you,” Ciara muttered. “I will submit to your whims.”
“Good,” Shea replied. “Now, your chess set.”
Ciara led her onto the balcony, where a chessboard stood beneath a trellis of flowering jasmine.
All the pieces glittered with inlaid gemstones, and a pearl rested atop each king’s and queen’s crown like a fat raindrop on a leaf.
Absently, Shea picked up the white queen and turned it through her hands.
It comforted her: the perfect, balanced weight of it; the tiny, carved ridges pressing into the pads of her fingers; all that chambered power, like a loaded gun in her hands.
Beann trotted outside, then settled in a patch of sunlight.
He stretched out his long limbs with a soft grunt of contentment.
Ciara clapped her hands. “There. Make yourself comfortable. I will join you in a moment, after I make tea for us.”
“I’m good. I don’t really like tea.”
“I see,” Ciara replied, with clear disapproval in her tone. “Then what else can I bring you?”
“I don’t need anything.”
Ciara looked distressed now. “I’m afraid I must insist on offering you something. If word got out that I am a terrible host, the bards would have a field day. A well-crafted invective can be fatal, you know. Worse, it could leave a blemish on my face.”
“Right.” She’d nearly forgotten about the Irish fae’s obsession with hospitality. “Fine. I’ll have some tea.”
Ciara’s entire face brightened with relief. “You will not be disappointed. It is a divine substance, made all the better by its rarity. I have to smuggle it in.”
Shea suppressed a smile. “You’re a smuggler?”
Ciara winced, as though she hadn’t meant to reveal so much.
“Well, what is sharing another secret with you? Things from the mortal world are forbidden in Tír nAill. Some grandmasters supplement their income by selling mortal goods to other fae, who are willing to pay a high price for a taste of mortality. Little chocolate bars are fetching quite a premium right now.”
“Why?”
Ciara gawped at her as though she’d blasphemed. “Have you tried the little chocolates?”
Shea stared back flatly. “I mean, why are things from the mortal realm forbidden?”
“Ah. Midir considers them dangerous.” Ciara frowned.
“Many fae remember what it was like before the Iron Veil descended. But now, we are all kept in ignorance about the world beyond it. He believes it best that we do not fully understand what technology mortals have developed—and the threats it poses to us. He insists that limiting contact and limiting curiosity are the best ways to protect ourselves.”
It was obvious Ciara disagreed with him. “Why let you cross at all, then?”
“To maintain your interest in us. We cannot withdraw entirely, as our world is anchored to yours. If you destroyed the elfmounds from the other side, there is no telling what would happen.” Ciara’s expression grew more distant.
When she spoke again, it was as though she was reciting a memorized line.
“As a grandmaster, I am fortunate to have the privilege to travel. I must work hard to keep it. Ah, but I’ve forgotten your tea. ”
Ciara gave Shea no chance to reply before she withdrew.
Strange, Shea thought. But there was no use puzzling over Ciara’s behavior, and she might as well get a head start on prep.
She sat at the board and began playing through her own game from the first round.
The first ten moves trod well-known, by-the-book theory.
On move fifteen, as the pawn structure changed, the board opened up, and Shea’s awareness of the world fell away.
She envisioned herself in a dark wood, surrounded on all sides by forks in the trail.
All of them led to another clearing with another hundred paths, each of them branching infinitely.
It’d been a while since she analyzed a game without an engine.
It took all of her focus as she played through the most promising options at every juncture.
Looking at her position and all its imperfections made her feel queasy with stress and self-loathing. Where, exactly, had she gone so wrong?
“Did you hear me?”
Shea jolted with surprise at the sound of Ciara’s voice. The interruption made her blood boil, and she had half a mind to throw one of the diamond-encrusted pawns in her direction. “No.”
Ciara leaned in the doorway, carrying an electric kettle in one hand and two delicate cups in the other. Three cheap tea bags floated in the water, slowly staining it a rich heartwood red. “I said I brought tea.”
Shea’s confusion chased away her irritation. “You have electricity?”
“Of course not.” Ciara tapped on the glass face of the kettle, and the water within began to boil. “It is called fashion.”
“My mistake,” Shea replied dryly.
Ciara poured them each a cup. When she finished, she came to stand over the board at Shea’s shoulder, surveying the state of the battlefield.
Her heavy, gold-painted eyelids flickered as she scanned the position of the pieces.
“Well, let us do this boring, serious stuff you like so much. This is your game from the other night, is it not? You shouldn’t have moved that pawn. ”
“Which pawn?”
“You could’ve retreated your bishop instead. That would have maintained equality in the position.”
Shea stared up at her, half furious, half uncomprehending. Was she trying to humiliate her?
“I got the move list from the arbiter,” Ciara said by way of explanation.
She leaned over Shea. Her damp hair tumbled over one shoulder, and the fragrance of the oils she’d used to twist her curls into perfect ringlets suffused the air.
For a few moments, Shea watched in silence as Ciara’s fingers moved the pieces with practiced grace.
At the critical juncture, she said, “This was your mistake. Do you see it?”
She did now. But she hadn’t when it mattered.
She’d turned over this game in her mind countless times already, but Ciara had plucked this moment out in an instant.
It filled her with a sick, roiling mixture of rage and shame.
How had she not seen it? She’d been too confident going into the game, and it had made her careless.
It terrified her that no matter what she did, no matter how high up the ranking ladder she climbed, no matter how much she prepared, she could always topple over the edge.
Shea glared down at the board, where the pieces spelled out her own powerlessness and ineptitude.
Ciara was watching her with a very peculiar expression. “I confess, it’s a little nice to see you like this.”
“Oh, yeah?” Shea bit out.
Ciara placed a hand on her hip. “You are brilliant, Shea, but you’re not infallible. No one is.”
“I should be.” It occurred to her then that Ciara had complimented her. Flustered, she added, “And thanks?”
“You read so deeply into every little thing I say. It’s simply a neutral observation of fact.
Anyone would want to open that thick skull and see what is going on in that brain of yours, at least when it comes to chess.
Do not mistake that for liking you.” An edge of mischief cut into her voice.
“Certainly not after you accused me of—what was it again?—entitlement, shallowness, and bad behavior? I freely admit I am a sore loser. But you hate it more than I do.”
No one liked losing. There was something ineffable about chess that dug its fingers into your every inadequacy and seeped into your soul. Your performance always felt personal. Every player coped with it differently.
Thanks to Midir, Shea couldn’t cope with it at all. She skirted her gaze away from Ciara’s. “I just like winning.”
Ciara folded herself into the chair across from Shea. “Do you?”
“Of course I do. Nothing matters more than winning.”
Ciara rested her chin in her hands. “But that’s not the same thing as enjoying it, is it?”
No, it wasn’t. These days, winning meant simply the aversion of something awful. A relief—maybe even a necessity. Shea did not like or trust this line of questioning. “What’s your point?”
“You’re not playing to win. You’re playing not to lose. There is a difference.”
“Is that what you think?” Shea scoffed. Her stomach twisted into painful knots. “I didn’t realize you paid so much attention to me.”
“It is hard not to.” Ciara scowled. “You are one of the best players in the world. Your face is everywhere. Everyone watches footage of your games. Everyone notices when you do not attend awards ceremonies and when you look dead-eyed in press conferences. That is why I know you are not being forthcoming with me. It is so obvious that you take no pleasure in any of it.”