Chapter 19
Ceri
The six of us stood in the castle gardens, tables covered in lace cloths were spread out, each one with two chairs. On top were tea, biscuits, small sandwiches, and tarts that made my mouth water. Our crowns once again hovered over our heads, gleaming under the harsh glare of the sun.
“Finally,” Marsten said from beside me. “Now this is a challenge I can get behind.”
“What is the challenge?” Lila asked, looking around in confusion. “We just sit and drink tea? I’m great at making tea.”
“Let me guess,” Marsten said. “For Grayson.”
“Yes,” she said. “He likes it a very specific way.”
“Sounds like a complete arse,” Meera mumbled.
I agreed. I was starting to dislike this Grayson. It seemed like all Lila lived for was to serve him.
“Of course it’s not just about tea and cake,” Morton said, and we all jumped. The little bookwyrm hung in the air, staring at us with his round black eyes. “That would be silly.”
“So what is the challenge?” Siobhan planted her hands on her hips.
“That is the perfect segue into my announcement. Welcome to your second trial, where you’ll be playing a game of Birendelle.”
I let out a laugh of disbelief. “First a puzzle, now a word game?” I played this game with my father often.
“Oh no,” Marsten said. “I hate word games. I’m terrible with them. Have you played this one?” he asked, flipping his long hair over his shoulder.
“Yes, actually. It was my sister’s favorite game. My father preferred cards, and I preferred puzzles, but Brea was the best with word games like Birendelle. Every week, we’d have a family game night, and we took turns choosing. Brea always chose this one.”
My heart clenched at the memories of her gap-toothed smile, her giggles when she inevitably won.
“That sounds lovely,” Marsten said, voice gentle. “I’m glad you have those memories of her.”
“Me too,” I said, not wanting to focus on the other memories, the ones where she got sick and we couldn’t save her.
“My hair is going to set these bloody pieces on fire,” Clio complained as orange and red sparks jumped off her head. “I stay away from wood for that reason.”
Morton tilted his head. “If any game pieces are set on fire, that calls for immediate elimination.”
“So how is this going to work?” I asked. “How is one champion chosen?”
“I’d rather disappear than go on a date with the prince again,” Meera mumbled.
“Simple. There will be three rounds in which you will each face different opponents. By the end, the person with the most points on their board wins.”
“And the one with the least amount of points?” Lila’s voice quivered.
“Eliminated,” Morton said.
And we all knew what he wasn’t saying—that another one of us would disappear.
A chill ran down my spine at the thought of it.
It seemed like forever ago that Liadan had disappeared, but in reality, it had just been yesterday.
If the trials were going to take place daily, I wasn’t sure I’d survive the next week, even if I was one of the ones who didn’t disappear.
“Now, if you’ll please find your name card and sit in your seat, I will explain the rules to anyone who hasn’t played Birendelle before.”
We all shot each other unsure looks before following Morton’s instructions. My name card sat on a table with a lacy pink cloth draped over it, and I sat down right as Clio sat across from me, her hair sparking and popping with the blowing wind.
“Have you ever played this game before?” I asked.
She bared her teeth, and it was the fiercest I’d ever seen her look. “Not until the godwitches were gone. The Fair Folk weren’t allowed to learn how to read. Fairwitch forbade it.”
I blinked, not sure how that kind of information wasn’t more widely known. It was awful.
“So when did you learn to play?” I asked.
Clio waved her hand. “My mam taught me how to read in secret. She learned centuries earlier when one of the demi godwitches taught her and a few other slaves.”
“Why would a demi godwitch do that if it wasn’t allowed?”
She grimaced. “Because he wanted us to educate ourselves and rise up against his arsehole father, the godwitch of storms. They weren’t a particularly pleasant godwitch and they were hard on their son because his powers were much, much weaker than their other children’s.”
I put a hand to my heart. We regularly made offerings to the godwitch of storms, hoping they would keep harsh weather from ruining our crops and gardens. Now I never wanted to make another offering to them again.
“Anyway.” Clio sighed. “That’s how my mam taught me to read: by playing games like this. She died years ago.”
The Fair Folk lived much longer lives than mortals, but they weren’t immortal like the godwitches and typically died around five thousand years old. And if Clio’s mother was a faerie, her father must’ve been mortal, which meant he’d have died long, long ago.
“Did you ever know your father?” I asked.
Clio shook her head. “Most faeries didn’t know their mortal parents unless you were very lucky and your parents had escaped slavery and were granted sanctuary by one of the godwitches who disapproved of having slaves. My mam and I weren’t so lucky. We were enslaved by the godwitch of storms.”
Now it made sense how their son had taught Clio’s mother to read. Because they lived in his father’s estate. It was all so very tragic.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “For all of it.”
Clio gave a small shrug. “It’s made us more resilient, stronger.
It was a blessing the godwitches left us behind.
Fairwitch might have thought they were punishing us, but eventually we found you, and now one of us might actually be queen of Fairwitch Isle.
” She snorted. “If Fairwitch knew one of their slaves would be ruling over a city named in their honor, they’d probably claw their way out of the Otherworld to stop us. ”
“All right, all right, that’s enough chitter chatter.” Morton sat on top of a table near the front of the gardens. “We have a trial to begin.”
I swallowed thickly, gut churning as a board filled with empty squares appeared between Clio and me.
Square pieces materialized, making a pop sound and clinking on the table in front of each of us. I gathered my pieces and set them on a little stand, each one a letter that I’d be using in the game.
Clio reached for a small sandwich that sat on the tiered stand next to the board and started munching on it while she studied her letters.
I wasn’t sure how she could eat right now.
I felt sick to my stomach over this whole thing, wondering if I would be the one to lose, wondering who would.
I looked around the little garden, not wanting any of these people to disappear.
“All of you have been given ten random tiles, which you are probably studying right now. Each tile represents how much gold you can potentially earn. The player who is the oldest gets to go first, and you will choose one of your tiles and place it face up on the table.”
Well, that was definitely Clio. She had a millennium or so on me.
“On the board, certain squares will transform from blanks to letters. Some blanks will be left between the letters, and it is your job to guess the correct letter to fill the blanks and complete the phrase or sentence.”
My knee bounced under the table, and I decided maybe I couldn’t eat, but a cup of hot tea probably wouldn’t hurt. I grabbed the cup and poured the steaming liquid in, the scent of ginger rising in the air.
“Does anyone have any questions before we begin?”
Marsten raised his hand. “What happens if we don’t pick the right letters to complete this phrase or sentence during our turn?”
“Then the tile you chose gets taken away, and therefore, that is gold you won’t earn.”
Meera blinked from where she perched on the table. “Are we actually keeping the gold if we win?”
Morton nodded. “Yes, it will be yours as well as the title of champion. Whoever earns the most gold between all the rounds will win. So fear not if you have one bad round—that doesn’t mean you can’t still win the other rounds and potentially win the entire trial.”
Lila called out, “Will we be timed during our turn?”
As if to answer her question, miniature hourglasses dropped from the sky and landed on our tables.
“Will that suffice?” Morton asked, and Lila nodded.
I took a sip of tea, staring at the board, wanting these questions to be over and the game to officially begin.
“Any other questions?” Morton asked with a patience that I did not currently have.
Thankfully no one raised their hand.
“Then, let the games begin!”
Clio took a deep breath and chose one of her gold pieces, placing it face up, the number 200 etched into it.
The board before us transformed, a small click sounding as different squares flipped over, revealing letters. My gaze scanned them. Three words total. But there wasn’t enough information for me to guess what this might be.
The hourglass turned.
“Player one,” Morton said, “your time has begun.”
Clio’s fiery brows furrowed, her gaze flicking to the sand falling in the hourglass. “A,” she said before it almost ran out.
Two A’s flipped over, and Clio’s two hundred gold piece flew up and landed in a velvet bag. I bit the inside of my cheek, studying the board and trying to make sense of this phrase.
It was my turn now, and the hourglass flipped over after I’d chosen my tile. I decided to choose conservatively, picking the smallest amount, a twenty-five gold piece. There weren’t many letters left.
L_A_ _H_ _AY
I was fairly certain I knew the middle word. “T,” I said, voice confident. The letter flipped over, and I breathed a sigh of relief as my twenty-five gold piece dropped into my velvet bag.
L_A_ TH_ _AY
Clio’s face broke out into a smile, and my stomach dropped. Not only had I chosen a much smaller amount than her, but if I was reading her triumphant smile correctly, I’d also just given her the clue she needed to win.