Chapter Sixteen #3
Kiaro stopped at the bench he’d been sitting at before, letting go of Ethyr with a gesture to sit.
Ethyr blinked at him. The gods usually pulled and pushed him to wherever they wanted him to be, they rarely invited him to take his own place.
The seat was big enough for three people, as all the seats were, but this one had the right-hand side taken up by a game board.
He sat uncertainly to the left. It was strange to face the gods from this angle, above them all.
He never stayed seated higher than them.
They all watched with a cautious curiosity, as though waiting for a contingency or motivation.
But all Kiaro did was place himself in the middle of the bench and return to the game as though Ethyr wasn’t even there.
Yet it could not have been a clearer claim of possession.
The gods, at least while Ethyr was around, would not fight over it. They returned to whatever they were doing before. Catocus stood the longest, staring at Kiaro with an intensity that was not quite anger, before following Langath’s beckon to sit with her.
Were they all working with the High Priest, or just Kiaro? None of the others had tried to overtly sway his opinion, but maybe they were tasked with other things. Like distracting him. They were certainly good at that.
Somehow, despite this knowledge, the presence of Kiaro beside him did not feel like a threat.
If anything, it was strangely comforting.
Kiaro, more than the other gods, even more than Catocus, had an aura of danger around him; not like a criminal, but like those moments before the worst storms, when the animals went quiet and even the land itself seemed to be waiting.
And yet feeling that force sitting unassumingly beside him was enthralling.
He remembered being face-to-face with him, cramped in a doorway, the way Kiaro’s eyes had studied his face, the absent way his fingers had brushed his earring.
Ethyr shook the thoughts off, putting his attention back on the room. Gnaeus braided Ithna’s hair while they talked to Varuut, Gallus was playing around in Ainder’s lap, and Catocus and Langath played on the same game board that Kiaro had.
He glanced over, watching as Kiaro moved an opaque piece to take a transparent one.
“Why don’t you play with someone else?” he found himself asking.
“No one will play with me,” came the ambivalent answer.
Ethyr frowned. “Why not?”
Kiaro turned to him and the dark, serious eyes laced heat down his spine. The game piece rolled and flipped between the god’s fingers as he considered an answer. “Because,” he said at last. “I always cheat.”
“Always?”
A corner of Kiaro’s mouth lifted. “Would you like to find out for yourself?” He placed the game between them and a sweep of his hand put all the pieces back in their places at the corners of the board.
“I don’t know how to play,” Ethyr admitted sheepishly.
“The first form is easy, I’ll teach you.”
He was a surprisingly patient and effective teacher.
Ethyr wished Dessin could be half as good at explaining without being condescending.
He had never heard Kiaro talk so much; his voice was lilting in a way the others’ weren’t.
It could almost be called lyrical, if rain pattering into a clear stream was a song.
Something about it sent pleasant shivers up Ethyr’s back and over his scalp.
Once he started playing, moving the pieces over the diamond cross-hatches of the board, the game was easy enough to grasp.
It was simply a matter of using one or two game pieces to overcome the opponent’s weaker ones.
The hardest part was keeping track of how many dots were on each piece.
Kiaro slid a four-dot piece to overtake the last of Ethyr’s threes, plucking it smoothly from the board and placing it in his much larger captured pile.
That was when Ethyr realized a two had been in that spot before.
He scoffed, picking up the two where the stolen three had once been. “You’re moving them, aren’t you?!”
“I told you,” Kiaro replied glibly. “I always cheat.”
“But I’ve only just learned how to play—!” Glancing up was a mistake. The coy smile on Kiaro’s lips stopped Ethyr’s voice in his throat. The rush of heat to his face was so acute it was painful and he had to look away—but he couldn’t. The intensity of Kiaro’s dark eyes kept Ethyr’s locked on them.
“Would you like to start over?” Kiaro asked.
Ethyr swallowed and found his voice, though it came out pathetically weak. “Are you going to cheat again?”
Kiaro leaned closer and Ethyr thought his heart would burst from his chest. “It would benefit you to learn a bit of duplicity,” he said softly.
“Honesty is a virtue,” Ethyr said back, with far too much indignant confidence that he certainly didn’t feel under that stare.
Kiaro’s smile crinkled his eyes. For a second, Ethyr was sure he would laugh. He longed to hear that sound. Instead, the god smothered his smile, looking down at the board. “Honesty doesn’t get you far in the palace.”
“What would you know about that?”
“You can still turn things around,” he said, not looking up.
Before Ethyr’s confusion got too far, Kiaro pointed to Ethyr’s remaining four- and five-pieces.
“You are being too timid with your strongest pieces.” Oh.
He was talking about the game. Ethyr returned his attention seriously to it, examining the board.
“You could use your fours to take my five, if only you were bold enough to move them.”
“But then my five would be exposed for the taking,” Ethyr lamented. He liked keeping it protected in the corner, even if it was the strongest piece. It seemed the most precious, because of that.
“It doesn’t matter. I will soon take the whole corner anyway if you don’t act decisively.”
Ethyr tried to see what ruse Kiaro was luring him into.
Truth be told, it could be any number of ruses, because he had plenty of options.
Ethyr moved the four closer to Kiaro’s five, taking one of his threes in the meantime.
Two turns later, and Kiaro had captured Ethyr’s five.
It didn’t end the game, but he knew it was lost regardless. It had been lost from the first move.
He sighed, leaning back against the wall. “I give up. You’ve won anyway.”
Kiaro hummed, straightening as well. “A pity to give up so easily.”
“You’re cheating!” Ethyr accused. “What am I supposed to do?”