Luca said échecs in Shālan, and Touraine repeated it. The word tingled in her mouth. Like an intimate whisper. Their Shālan lessons had been on hiatus since the attack, and she found that she missed them.
Slowly, Luca’s face softened as she surfaced from the dark mood, and the tension left Touraine’s shoulders.
Maybe it was Touraine’s own loneliness that let her see the mirror across from her, but suddenly, it was clearer than it had been, even after the ball when they’d talked together for hours—Luca needed a friend. Not an assistant, not guards. Ever since the latest broadside had come out, the cool scholar had bounced between frantic and bitter. It had only gotten worse after Bastien’s discovery. Her eyes were bruised with the exhaustion of combing through governor business and history books. If she ever rested, she had no one but Gil. She certainly hadn’t come looking for Touraine again.
“And how do you play?” Touraine picked up a square-topped bone tower. It was a near-perfect rendition of the clay-brick houses in the city, down to the tiny ladder running up the side.
Luca pointed to one of her carved black pieces, a tall, singular man. Touraine picked up the corresponding piece on her own side. Instead of a crown, layers of cloth dripped from his head. “Yes. This is the king. Your goal is to capture or kill your enemy’s king without any harm coming to your own.” Luca stared her down. Her blue-green eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot, a deep line between her dark brows. “He doesn’t move well, but you must protect him at all costs. Do you think you can manage that?”
Touraine stared back. Her heartbeat ticked hard in her throat. “I do.”
They played—rather, Luca played and Touraine floundered—until the sun set. When Adile brought food, they ate it and wiped their hands on linen napkins before making their next moves. Adile lit the lanterns and closed the deep-red curtains over the windows. No one else disturbed them all day.
Touraine had never been so soundly beaten at anything since her first years in the Balladairan training yard. She learned after the first several games that charging forward with the most powerful pieces wouldn’t win shit, so she saw to her defensive tactics. Her greatest success was the last game. Instead of sending all her armies to attack, she barricaded her king in a defensive square of players. It became impractical soon, as Luca slowly winnowed away the makeshift fortress with precision. Somehow, Luca predicted Touraine’s moves before she made them, and had traps already in wait.
She gave Touraine no quarter. Not even a little mercy for a beginner. She was hard, harder even than Cantic, who had at least pretended regret when she punished the young Sands for their mistakes. There was nothing like that in Luca.
“You should move your pawns more,” Luca said, pointing to Touraine’s pale foot soldiers. “Let them guard your king and make trouble so you don’t have to spend the more useful pieces.”
She threw the comment away as she studied the board, but it made Touraine stutter to a halt. In her mind, émeline straddled Tibeau’s lap, making fun of him while Touraine and Pruett laughed and a cook fire danced happily between them. A brief moment of happiness before the company of pawns went to fight and die for the king in his city. Now émeline was gone.
“You would make a brilliant general,” Touraine said quietly.
Luca startled as she moved her queen several diagonal spaces from Touraine’s king. Her cheeks tinged pink, but her look at Touraine was quizzical. “Checkmate.”
Touraine swore. “Wait. That last move. What did you do? What did I miss?”
Luca smiled with such pure, wicked, girlish glee that it was Touraine’s turn to be startled.
“You should be asking what I did at the beginning. Now. I think I’ve had enough. Have you?” Luca winced as she pushed herself away from the board. “I feel a little better.”
“Better?”
“Better. Now I would like to get up, undress, and lie down.”
“All right.” Touraine still looked at the end of the game, trying to remember Luca’s last moves. It was easier than thinking about pawns.
Luca smiled. “We can have tea again, if you’d like?”
Touraine hesitated, eyes still on the board, her robed king surrounded by two tiny foot soldiers and a watchtower with its ladder. She picked him up and ran her calloused thumb along the smooth, dark wood of his turban.
“The bookseller sent a message. They want to know where you stand. I think they heard about our trip.”