Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Aideen. If the sight of Ciara was a blow, this was a knife to the heart. After all this time, they were finally in the same room. The rush of mingled terror and elation nearly bowled Shea over.
Aideen stood with one hand clamped to her mouth, the other curled around the balcony’s railing. Her face was drawn with horror, but she wasn’t looking at Fuamnach. She was looking right at Shea.
“One way or another,” Fuamnach said lowly, “I will keep the oath I gave you, Midir. Wheresoever she might be, in whatsoever shape she takes, I will do nothing but harm to Aideen Echraide so long as she lives.”
As she spoke, shadows danced around her and the smell of sorcery suffused the air.
Little by little, her face changed. Her eyes turned a bright, wolfish yellow.
The scars crept across her face like the bloom of frost over a windowpane.
The sudden reappearance of Fuamnach’s otherworldly beauty nearly blinded Shea.
She pulled the rowan switch from the pocket of her cardigan.
With cold, brutal authority, Midir said, “Seize the sorceress.”
Everything happened at once. Guards emerged from the wings.
Fuamnach threw out her hand toward Aideen.
The spectators screamed as they bolted for the doors.
Her spell arced through the air like a bolt of black lightning.
Aideen threw herself out of its path, just as a phalanx of guards descended on Fuamnach.
Although Fuamnach was outnumbered, she fought.
She fought like she couldn’t afford to lose, and Shea felt that she couldn’t breathe, watching her.
Fuamnach bared her teeth, her magic crackling through the air.
Bursts of it struck the guards. Some staggered back, with singe marks smoking on their armor.
One turned to a toad and croaked indignantly, another to a puddle of water.
But she could not protect herself from all sides.
One lunged at her from behind and struck her across the temple with the butt of his sword with a resounding crack.
She swayed, disoriented, and two of them wrenched her arms behind her back.
Even still, she thrashed in their grip and screamed—not in terror but in rage. A thousand years of it, bottled up and unleashed. Her eyes were locked on Midir, flashing with a mixture of hatred and panic and grim, proud resignation. She’d been here before, after all.
“A fine charade you keep up here, Midir.” Her voice was raw and desperate—as wild as a dying animal lashing out. “Would that I could pluck that eye from your skull!”
Midir looked unfazed, save for the thinning of his lips, as Fuamnach was dragged away. He stood amid the wreckage of the tournament hall: the seats overturned in the spectators’ haste to escape, the smoking remnants of Fuamnach’s spells, the chess pieces scattered on the floor.
Shea wanted to rejoice in Fuamnach’s defeat, but there was no satisfaction to be found in such an unfair matchup.
The sorceress never stood a chance against Midir.
At least Aideen would be safe from her. This was everything Shea had set out to do.
So why did she feel like she was about to cry?
Why did it feel like it wasn’t enough—not even close?
When she searched for her sister in the balcony, she could no longer find her.
The arbiter resurfaced from behind a beheaded statue. “Under these exceptional circumstances, I believe we may declare Ciara of Bri Leith the winner by default.”
Ciara, the winner. Shea hardly knew what to feel, buffeted as she was by the storm of her own emotions.
There was bitterness, yes—and a hot core of anger.
Somewhere underneath it all, she was glad.
Shea might be shattered and discarded, but maybe she could find a reason to keep going. Without this chance, Ciara had nothing.
I hope it was worth it, she thought.
Ciara did not seem happy at all. Her voice remote, she asked Midir, “Was that a satisfactory performance?”
Midir begrudgingly turned to his sister. “You have improved much more than I expected you to.”
His words did not move her—or maybe didn’t reach her at all. “But was it enough?”
“It remains to be seen.”
A chilly silence followed his words. He’d drawn the line clearly: Defeat me or face punishment. Shea’s temper flared in response. How could Ciara be expected to play under that kind of pressure?
Ciara’s expression grew desolate. She stared at the sand in the hourglass, slipping away, and at the drawn position she’d failed to convert into a winning advantage. Her frown was one of pure dissatisfaction, almost disgust. She shook her head. “I am sorry. I cannot face you.”
Surprise skittered across his face. “Why not?”
She smiled ruefully. “I do not deserve to. Obviously, had you not interrupted, I would have won this game in short order. But I should not have had the opportunity to play it in the first place. We all know who should have won between me and Shea.”
Ciara glanced at Shea. She looked more apologetic than Shea had ever seen her.
Shea’s face warmed, humiliated and grateful and outraged all at once.
This couldn’t be happening. Ciara couldn’t be throwing away her only chance to escape the Otherworld for Shea’s sake.
Not after everything she’d put them both through.
“Be that as it may, Shea Fury resigned,” Midir replied impatiently. “You are the only competitor who remains. Perhaps you would prefer to play against Daniil Tsoi first. It is clear he should have been your opponent today.”
Daniil looked astonished. This was an outcome Shea could accept. Midir was right, after all. Daniil deserved to be here.
Daniil only smiled resignedly. “Who’s to say, really? I know Fuamnach cheated against me, but what about her other opponents? Unless you plan to reinstate every single player she defeated during this tournament, I hardly see how that’s fair.”
The arbiter put his face in his hands and groaned.
“What are you doing?” Shea whispered, grabbing hold of Daniil’s sleeve. “Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?”
He shook her off, then primly dusted off his arm. “I only want the record to state that I didn’t lose. If Midir insists on running back this round, then you should be the one to play against Ciara.”
“What?” Shea cried.
Daniil’s glare said, You owe me.
“She resigned,” Midir repeated, his tone caught somewhere between outrage and desperation. “There will be no rematch.”
“Then I am afraid I will have to resign as well.” Ciara sounded bored, almost flippant. She inspected the rings shining on her fingers. “It seems it will be a very uneventful end to what has traditionally been the chess event of the century. What a shame.”
What was she doing? To drop out of a tournament like this …
It was beyond insulting. It would tarnish the tournament’s reputation going forward.
With no winner, what mortal would ever take the risk of coming here again?
Who would speak of it beyond the way it’d so disappointingly fizzled out? Midir knew that as well as Ciara did.
His pale complexion reddened. Very quietly, he said, “Have it your way.”
He turned to Shea then. When he tipped his head to the side, his hair slid back to reveal his silver prosthetic.
It gleamed in the shift of the light, with the same uncanny, hostile awareness she’d detected on the night she had first arrived.
It rooted her in place, as though she’d stepped into the loop of a snare.
“Tomorrow, you will face me again.”