Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Shea.”
Somehow, Shea hadn’t heard Ciara approach.
When she turned to look at her, she saw Ciara standing there with her arms crossed, framed by the light pouring in through the open door of the tournament hall.
She wore a look of uncharacteristic uncertainty.
Ciara, chastised. Now, that was something Shea hadn’t expected to see in her lifetime.
But there was no vindication to be had here—only a deep, simmering resentment she hadn’t realized was still there.
It was like grabbing the handle of a pan you’d forgotten was still hot. It seared her right to the bone.
Here was Ciara, who had pulled her from a bog. Ciara, who had pierced through all her defenses. Ciara, who had kissed her. Ciara, who had given her hope and then smashed it to pieces again. Seeing her here was like plunging a burnt hand into cold water: a relief and agony both.
“You,” Shea said quietly, “have a lot of fucking nerve.”
Ciara winced. “I freely admit I owe you an apology—a groveling one, if you like. But is that really the conversation you want to have right now?”
The pity in her eyes was too much to bear. In the face of it, all of Shea’s anger evaporated. What lay hidden beneath it was despair that threatened to swallow up everything in its path. It would pull her under, and she would never resurface again.
Aideen didn’t want to be saved. Aideen didn’t need her, and maybe she never had.
Nothing was holding her up anymore. None of the laws of the universe that kept her world turning on its axis existed anymore.
Shea sank to her knees, and before she was even conscious of what was happening, she began to sob.
Tears slid down her face, hot and unrestrained.
There was no escaping what she’d done now.
She’d devoted her life to something Aideen did not even want.
She’d killed her own love of chess chasing this goal.
She’d wasted years and years, denying any sort of closure—any sort of life—for herself.
What was she even playing for now? What was the point of going through with it at all?
But refusing to play was as good as an official forfeit.
If she did that, she’d never play chess again.
Chess had done nothing but hurt her. Maybe it would be a blessing now, to have it taken from her.
It was so much a part of her, maybe it’d tear out her heart by the root along with it, so that she didn’t feel like this anymore.
She didn’t want to be herself anymore. She didn’t want to be anything at all.
Not if it meant she had to go back to her empty house.
Not if it meant she had to be alone again.
“I don’t know what to do,” Shea gasped out. She tasted salt on her lips. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on anymore. I have nothing. No one—”
The scent of hyacinth and honey enfolded her. As Ciara encircled her in her arms, the warmth of her cheek pressed between Shea’s shoulder blades. It stunned her. Slowly, slowly, the racking sobs subsided.
“Better?” Ciara asked softly.
“I don’t know.” Shea slumped against her. The steady beat of Ciara’s heart tapped out a soothing rhythm against her back. “You must feel so vindicated. Aideen never wanted me to come here.”
“I don’t.” Ciara pressed her lips to the top of Shea’s spine. “It brings me no joy to see you suffering.”
Shea closed her swollen eyes. “I’ve been an idiot.”
“You were a child. You were afraid, and you loved her. That is no crime, Shea.”
Shea scrubbed at the tears drying on her face. “She told me to leave. It’s like we’re bishops of opposite colors now.”
“Hardly. You are both a little hotheaded—and a little prone to martyrdom, in the unlikely event you have not realized that.” Ciara rested her chin on Shea’s shoulder.
“She will come around. You cannot punish yourself anymore. No one would ask you to, least of all your sister. Will you set this burden down?”
Shea let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t know what to do instead.”
“Anything.” Ciara pulled back enough so that Shea could see her face. “You are free to choose what you want, outside of desperate circumstances. If you really do choose to quit, it is your decision alone.”
“I…”
“But before you make that very ill-advised decision,” Ciara interjected, “you should know what a loss it would be. If you do not love chess anymore, that is one thing, but I believe you do, deep down. I have seen it, what happens when you let go of that fear that holds you back. When you set it aside, I do not know if there’s any limit to what you might achieve.
So if you decide to face my brother, you’ll have to decide what it is you truly want. ”
Shea’s throat burned. God, no. She could not cry again. “When did you get so wise?”
“Sometime over the last few days,” she replied unhappily. “I have done a lot of reflecting. I do not think I enjoy it.”
“Yeah. Me neither.” Shea studied her. How was it possible someone could show her so much tenderness and wound her so badly? “Still, I think we should talk about us.”
“Ah. I’d hoped the motivational speech might make you forget.” Ciara wrung her hands anxiously together. “Shall we go somewhere more private?”
A few servants still bustled about the hall, doing their best to look as though they hadn’t been listening in. Shea was too exhausted to be embarrassed about her outburst now. But perhaps this conversation was best had without an audience. She nodded.
Ciara helped her up and led her out of the tournament hall.
They walked through the knee-deep mist until they reached the lakes.
Boats rocked against their tethers, and surface waves lapped at the dark stones that made up the shoreline.
Here, she could hear nothing but the churn of the water and the splash of the ducks as they landed in it.
Ciara began unfastening the knot that anchored one of the little rowboats to the dock.
“Can you row?” she asked.
“In theory.”
With a put-out sigh, Ciara gestured for Shea to get in. Shea clambered in as the boat swayed violently beneath her. Ciara steadied her by the elbow until she settled onto the bench.
Ciara stepped in after her, as light and graceful as a leaf landing atop still water.
The boat did not shift at all beneath her weight.
A little mystified, Shea wondered if she could step out onto the surface like a pond skater.
She took one of the oars from beneath her seat.
When Ciara held out her hand expectantly, Shea passed it over.
Ciara pushed them out of the shallows, then let the paddle go.
Shea choked back a noise of protest. She’d expected it to sink and leave them stranded—or at least to float uselessly beside them.
It remained standing upright, held by an invisible hand, and paddled them out to the center of the lake.
Ciara did not so much as lift a finger, but surely, this kind of magic must’ve taken some effort on her part.
They didn’t speak, but the world came alive with sound as the sun sank toward the horizon.
Water trickled musically off the blade of the oar.
Insects droned, and frogs sang. The lake was a perfect mirror of the sky above; it reflected rosy light onto Ciara’s face.
The fading sun caught the golden sparkles dusted across her cheekbones and lengthened the feathered shadows of her eyelashes.
Ciara made the sunset look pale. It was a torment to be confronted with her like this, perfect and inescapable.
It made it impossible to speak—and impossible to forget just how badly it’d gone the last time she’d kissed her.
“Well?” Shea asked. “You’ve trapped yourself now.”
Ciara spoke in a rush. “I have. If I did not, I do not believe I’d have the courage to speak.
I told you once that I am not a selfless creature, and it is true.
It was a wretched trick I pulled. But I saw no other way out of this place, no other way to ensure my own survival.
And I do not think I understood, until just now, how much it would hurt you.
I was more honest with you than I have been with anyone else.
To hear you accuse me of manipulating you …
of it being made into something so cheap … I am sorry, Shea.”
“I get why you did it,” Shea said quietly. “It’s okay. I wish I’d realized sooner that…”
She didn’t know how to say it. She hardly knew what she wanted to say at all. That I was too stubborn and guilt ridden to see what was right in front of me. That maybe we could be happy together.
Ciara seemed to understand. “It isn’t too late.”
Yes, it was. Shea groaned. “God, Ciara. What were you thinking? You shouldn’t have given me your spot. You should—”
“Fine.” Ciara’s eyes glittered, depthless and mysterious. “Earn it back.”
“Be serious.”
“I am being serious.”
A quiet thrill went through Shea. “What, are you going to conjure a board?”
“Do you want me to keel over from exhaustion? No, we will play blindfold chess. Take white.”
“Fine. c4.”
“You never play the English,” Ciara said, almost accusatorily.
“Today, I do.” Shea rested her elbows on her knees and leaned toward her. “I’m experimenting.”
Ciara’s eyes lit up. “E5.”
They dragged each other through the middlegame.
They hadn’t played like this since that tournament five years ago.
It was artless, trading blows and pieces like kids brawling on the schoolyard.
Her heart soared with the thrill of it, the simple joy of pitting her mind against another.
For the first time in a long time, she did not think about losing or winning, but only playing.
Shea did not look at Ciara. She kept her gaze fixed on her own mental chessboard, shimmering like a mirage out in the fog.
The sun continued its slow descent, and all those soft pinks reflected on the water’s surface deepened to streaks of bloodred.
When Shea took Ciara’s queen, she let out a soft grunt as though she’d been struck. “Pawn to g5.”
Shea closed her eyes and focused, reconstructing and reconfiguring the position in her mind. When she saw it—a forced mate in three—she couldn’t help it. She grinned. “You’re in trouble.”
“Yes. I have been for a long time.”
Shea flushed at her reverent tone. “You’re not going to resign?”
Ciara smiled, almost indulgently. “It’s a very pretty checkmate. Play it out.”
And so they did. It was, as Ciara said, a beautiful mating pattern: a queen sacrifice, a rook sacrifice, before mating the king in the corner with her two bishops cutting down the diagonals of the board.
Neither of them moved. The wind stirred the water and sent the loose strands of Ciara’s hair fluttering.
“Well done,” said Ciara. “You’ve earned it.”
It was so … genuine. She sounded pleased, proud.
All these years, this was what Shea had wanted: to be recognized by Ciara.
There was no vicious glee, no surge of ego.
Just the quiet glow of mutual respect and a deep appreciation for a game well played.
The simple, brutal elegance of that checkmate was as awesome as the dying sunlight lighting up the mist with gold.
She felt like she was falling in love with chess all over again.
And Ciara, too.
“I think I know what I want.”
Surprise flickered across her face. “Is that so?”
“I want to keep playing,” Shea said, “if it can feel like that again. I want to keep playing with you.”
“I want that, too. It’s all I’ve wanted for a long time.”
The intensity in her face made Shea’s heart leap. “I’ll age, you know.”
“As will I, for a time.” Ciara leaned forward. “But it is the finiteness of mortal lives that make you so fascinating to me. I do not want unchanging beauty. I do not want immortal jadedness. I cannot become mortal, but I think you might make me human.”
Shea felt as though she were floating somewhere above herself. Never in her life had she imagined anyone saying such pretty words to her. “I’ll die.”
“Eventually, I’m sure.” Ciara’s eyes were aglow with amusement. “You are so concerned about the distant future. What exactly are you proposing, Shea Fury? I thought we were talking about chess.”
Shea felt oddly flustered. She didn’t know what to do with this mood Ciara was in. For once, she wasn’t being mocked but teased. She wasn’t sure she liked it. “We are. Partially.”
“You speak as though I will be free to go where I like.”
Shea could feel her pulse beating in her throat, her wrists, her temples. Somehow, they’d gotten closer. Their knees brushed together. “I don’t know. Maybe you will be. I haven’t made up my mind about my wish yet.”
Ciara’s lips curved into a smirk. Mischief danced in her eyes. “Shall I offer you a bargain, then?”
“Let’s hear it.”
Ciara underwent a transformation Shea could not describe.
Only that at one moment, she was looking at her longtime rival—and the next, a faerie princess straight out of a ballad: wild eyes, lips like honey, both promising danger and delight in equal measure.
“I make no vows of everlasting love or life. Only be with me right now, and for so long as we are happy.”
“All right,” Shea said, a little breathlessly. “And what do I get in return?”
Just like that, the illusion shattered. Ciara gave her a withering glare. “Must you always spoil my fun?”
Shea laughed, brighter and more truly than she had in years. She closed the gap between them and kissed her. The last time had been harsh, almost punishing. This time, Shea intended to savor her. With every brush of their lips, they poured forth all their feelings, their longing, their hopes.
For so long as we are happy. That could be a long, long time, or it could be nothing but a flash.
Either way, it would never be enough time.
Shea had to make it count. What she lacked in experience, she would make up for in dedication.
After all, she’d already spent so much of her life studying how to make Ciara of Bri Leith unravel over the board.
And as she drew a soft sigh of pleasure from Ciara’s lips, Shea thought that she could enjoy this sort of unraveling even more.