Shadow Born (The Shadow Accords Book 3) Read online

  Ras’s eyes gleamed. “A piece that must be pushed by the others. It is called the Stone, and it cannot move on its own. One of your pieces must push it, but you must be careful as you do, because playing the Stone can put you in danger, expose you.”

  Carth watched as he continued to set the pieces in front of him, but then she turned away. She wouldn’t be drawn into his games. What would it do for her, other than force her to sit with Ras longer? And she was tired of him, tired of everything he’d put her through.

  Could she use his distraction and attack him now?

  She watched him, wondering whether he would see her if she began inching toward him. She could pretend to play, could even listen to him ramble, but all the while she would be trying to get close enough that she could strike.

  He didn’t seem to be paying enough attention to her to notice. Carth pretended to watch him and feigned listening as he explained the way the pieces could move. Each piece had its own set of rules. If she ignored the rules, they were removed from the board, leaving the other side with the majority of the pieces. The player who pushed the Stone to the other side of their opponent’s board won.

  Ras began playing, and Carth let him play by himself. He’d move a piece, and then rotate the board, studying his options before spinning it back and playing the other side. As he played, each move took a little longer, until he sat, pondering what he would do next. The pieces piled up next to him, and Ras continued.

  Carth lost herself to watching. She intended to attack him, but the longer she watched the game, the more intrigued she became. There was one point where one side seemed like Ras would be able to move the Stone, but the other team managed to push back, delaying the end.

  “Why do you play by yourself?”

  Ras studied the board, his eyes locked on the Stone near the center of the playing space. “Because you would not. It doesn’t matter. I don’t play with many anymore. Most don’t want to play against me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I win.”

  Carth turned away and looked over her shoulder, catching enough of the remaining game to see how he intended to use the pieces. As she watched, the pattern to the board became clearer. She could see the way one side moved against the other, and then he would turn the board and begin playing the other side. When he moved, he made it harder and harder on himself.

  Pushing the Stone to the other end of the board was difficult when the opponent had enough pieces, but it became easier when there were none. As he lost more of his game pieces, he became more creative with the way he placed the remaining ones, apparently not wanting to sacrifice too many.

  He turned the board and started to move. Carth could see what he would do on the other side, and then how he would react, and then the next move, but if he did something different…

  She took the piece from his hand, barely noticing that it was one of the horses. They were unique in this game in that they could move in any direction, including forward and back. Most could move in a single direction only, and all were limited in how many moves the player would be allowed to make in a turn. That limited the gameplay somewhat and added to the challenge, especially when it came to keeping track of what would move next, and how all the different pieces moved.

  Ras watched as she placed the piece. Where he had intended to put it would create a trap for the Stone and would force the other side to resist. They would counter, and then this side would counter, but neither would commit to what was needed to see that the game finished.

  Ras turned the board and played the other side. This time, he didn’t spin it, leaving it for Carth to play.

  Now that she’d deviated from what he’d been doing, the board shifted, and the style he used, one of attack and counters, changed. No longer did Ras try to keep the Stone in the middle of the board. Now he tried to push it against her end of the board. She studied the pieces, trying to think through the consequences of each move, and decided that she would have to sacrifice her remaining pyramids—pieces that were meant as defenses once the Stone started getting pushed to the other side of the board. If she didn’t push them and risk losing them, they would be lost anyway and she wouldn’t be able to finish.

  Ras took one of them. Carth studied what he had done and countered, choosing a gentle attack as she did, nothing more than a feint. He seemed to expect her move and played one of the pieces from his back line, one of the pieces Carth was willing to lose.

  Now he mirrored the way she played.

  Ras had seen what she intended and began to move to oppose it. In some ways, it was the same as how he had fought her, managing to anticipate so that he could attack.

  Then she only had a few pieces remaining. Ras pushed on the Stone. For a moment, Carth thought she might be able to use the temporary exposure that piece had when moving the Stone, but he was too well defended and her position wasn’t nearly as strong as it had been. Had she used a different technique… but a different technique would likely have been discovered just as well as what she had done.

  The Stone reached her side of the board, and Ras gently tipped the piece over as a sign that the game had concluded.

  Carth leaned back, staring at the board, wondering if there might have been a different way she could have played the remaining characters so that she could have won, but didn’t see anything. There might be something, she decided, but doing so would have risked everything she had on her side of the board. Was that risk really worth it when she could have tried a dozen different techniques?

  Ras began picking the pieces up and placed them into his carefully wrapped bag. “You show promise. You were too eager to attack, which does nothing but place your hand in danger.”

  She didn’t say anything. The only reason she’d been willing to play the game was because she had thought she might be able to lull him into a position for her to attack, but after playing with him, she wondered if that would even have been possible. More likely, Ras would have expected her attempt, she thought, especially after she’d seen the way he played against her.

  Would she ever get free of him or would she be confined here, waiting for him to torment her more?

  Ras started away from her.

  “Can you leave it?” she asked.

  He placed the bag and the board on the ground without turning back to her. Carth waited for him to leave before hurrying over and picking them up off the ground. Any distraction would help, and at least with this one, she could play a game. It was something her father would have appreciated.

  7

  Days passed.

  In that time, she managed to keep her mind clear by playing Tsatsun with herself. The game had a certain flow to it, one she began to pick up on as she played. In some ways, it was not so different than any of the battles she’d been in while working with the A’ras, only this one she managed to coordinate with herself. She played much the same way as Ras had played when he’d first sat down with the board, turning it around between turns. Carth played both sides, trying to think through how to win for each side, not caring which of the sides ended up victorious.

  The first few games she played this way went quickly. She didn’t have much skill with the game, so her moves didn’t carry much forethought. The more she played, the easier it became for her to think through the consequences of each move. Some that seemed like the right attack at the time led to quick defeat, and others that seems like weaker moves ultimately led to a stronger position.

  “You have learned much on your own.”

  She hadn’t noticed Ras appear. The bright white light made it difficult for her to see anything, and the cold—the steady, throbbing cold that she still hadn’t completely adjusted to—prevented her from feeling anything.

  “There’s nothing else for me to do here,” she said.

  “I see you’ve discovered that you must sometimes sacrifice apparent strength for a more effective play later on.”

  Carth glanced to the board. One side appeared t
o be weakened, with most of the pieces having been taken from the board—a series of moves that she’d allowed on that side, playing stronger on the other side—but she had only to shift the focus of the play and the weakened side would turn the tide of the game fairly quickly.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Ras’s mouth curled in a slight smile. “I doubt that.”

  He sat across from her and started setting up the board, replacing pieces she’d moved out of position as she’d played. Lastly, he replaced the Stone in the center of the board. He crossed his hands on his lap and tipped his head to her, as if waiting for her to make the first move.

  Carth surveyed the board, thinking through what she had discovered while playing with Ras the only time they had actually played. He anticipated moves well, and he had shifted his style of play to suit the way she had played, which meant that he could see moves far in advance of what she had planned. To beat him, she would have to find a way to do something similar.

  But she couldn’t be predictable, either. Not when playing a game like this with Ras. In some ways, it reminded her of her father. With him, she could never be predictable either, and always had to try to outthink him. He had been more skilled than she was at concealing himself, and at following—skills that she now suspected were tied to his abilities with the shadows—but she could try to think through what he might do and anticipate how to stop him. How was this so different?

  Carth slid one of the pyramids forward. There was likely some proper name for it, but in her mind it was only the pyramid. It could move over the other pieces, but could only land on one of the black squares. There was a risk in moving her defenses like this, and she’d played the game before where she had done something similar and been quickly defeated by the other side as a result, but she thought she had learned how that had happened. Making this move almost forced Ras to change to a different attack, if he responded in the way she expected.

  “Interesting choice,” Ras said. “Perhaps you have not grown as skilled as I suspected. A shame, really.”

  He moved his piece, taking one of his horses and sliding it next to her piece.

  Carth considered the board. The obvious move would be to send one of the soldier pieces—an attacker—into the space where he’d moved his horse, but doing that would sacrifice that piece, and it wouldn’t make her any stronger against his side. What she needed to do was to fortify her defenses.

  She pulled another of the pyramid pieces out and set it on the other side of the board, opposite her first move. The positions would not only defend her side of the board, but also the Stone, keeping Ras from moving it against her. The problem with the move was that it also exposed her side to a strong attack, one where he would simply destroy her side of the board and then take the Stone.

  Ras frowned a moment, then a hint of a smile crossed his face. “Interesting technique. Most take months to discover the Rogue Feint, but you’ve come up with it in days.”

  He moved a rectangular piece behind hers and toppled one of her soldiers. She could attack, destroying the rectangular piece, but doing so would again create a gap in her defenses, and she suspected that was the move he wanted her to make. To have a chance against Ras, she would have to not only outthink him, but also surprise him.

  She moved a back row piece, this one a tall decorative tower. As she did, Ras watched, waiting to see where she’d play it. Carth debated placing it near the edge of the board, where it would trap his piece, but decided against it. Something her father had once said to her came to mind, a reminder about how you to hide in plain sight. Since learning of her ability with shadows, Carth hadn’t attempted to hide the same way. She’d come to rely upon her shadow gifts, using them—and the A’ras magic—in everything she did.

  Would there be a way to move the piece that would essentially hide it?

  She studied the board, trying to determine the best place to play the piece. The tower could move forward and backward in a straight line to jump over other pieces. With a clear board, she could move it to either side as well.

  Ras watched, waiting to see what she would do.

  Carth placed the piece next to the Stone.

  It was a simple move, one that didn’t really matter much, especially as the tower didn’t have the necessary strength to move the piece around the board, but with the pyramids on either side, the tower was protected as well. Ras could attack it, but she doubted he would, not with the piece positioned as it was.

  His next move brought his piece to the middle of her side of the board, moving in where the tower had gone. Ras used the Ranger, a strangely shaped wolf like piece that had unusual rules to how it could move.

  “Interesting,” Ras went on. “You occasionally play as if you know what you’re doing, and then you make a move like that. The Poled provides a certain advantage. Moving it as you did removes that advantage, and then when I place the Ranger here…” he sat back, waiting for Carth’s next move.

  The next few moves were simple, designed to do nothing more than shift the pieces around the board. Carth didn’t want to move the pieces she’d played at the center of the board, but she didn’t mind losing some of the others she considered extraneous. Many of the horses—the pieces Ras referred to as cavalry—she willingly sacrificed. With each one she abandoned, Ras stared at the playing board as if there was something she did that he missed. All the time, she left the tower at the center of the board.

  When his side had shifted, leaving most of his players on her side of the board, she began her movements.

  The pyramids went first, as she slid them slightly forward. When that move was complete, she moved the tower, but in such a way that it shifted the Stone.

  The first time she did this, Ras watched her and continued to settle his pieces on her side of the board, clearing out her players so that he would have a clear path when it came time for him to move the Stone. The next time she pushed on the Stone, he changed his approach and began to circle her pieces.

  When he placed his pyramids on either side of hers, he smiled. “You had an interesting tactic,” he started, “but you have sacrificed too much. There is nothing you can do to defend against the Talings now. You’ve left them too exposed.”

  Carth moved her tower forward and took out one of his pyramids. Doing so weakened his defenses, so that she could now move freely. She began to shift her approach, starting to move her remaining pieces toward the back of his board.

  Ras changed the way he played, a half smile on his face as he did. “Fascinating,” he said, shifting his remaining pyramid. “It has been a while since I’ve played anyone with such an unconventional approach.”

  They each made a few more moves, but as they did, Carth realized he had still anticipated what she’d planned. Somehow, even as she had been sacrificing all of her pieces, hiding the others and thinking that she could outmaneuver him, he had managed to outthink her.

  With a final push, he took the Stone.

  Ras stood, leaving the board as it was. “You have talent, shadow born, I will give you that. Keep practicing.”

  With that, he disappeared into the light, leaving her sitting alone, staring at the board, wondering if she would ever escape. How could she, when he so easily demonstrated the way he would plan for anything she could do?

  That had to be his reason for showing this game to her. He wanted her to know there was nothing she could do, nowhere she could go, that would get her freedom. She was at his mercy, such as it was.

  Sighing, Carth began setting the pieces back onto the board. Ras had suggested that she practice, and all she had was time in which to do that. She began another game, determined to find a way to beat him at Tsatsun, hoping that doing so would show her a way to free herself from this prison.

  8

  Carth sat with her back toward where she suspected the door to be when Ras came the next time. He was dressed differently than before, now with thick leather pants and a jacket that seemed to absor
b the light. He crouched across from her, eyeing the game board before finally looking at her.

  “You do not play.”

  Carth glanced at the board. She’d stopped playing… what was it—days ago? A week? Long enough that she didn’t care. What did it matter if she played the game? It was a distraction, something Ras had given her in order to keep her mind off what she really needed—and that was a plan to escape. When she’d come to that realization, she had turned her attention once more to finding a way to get free.

  Only, there didn’t appear to be any way to get free.

  The light wrapped around her in a continuous sheet, too thick for her to get through it. The cold might be less severe near the center, but toward the edges, the cold intensified. Each time she attempted to move closer to the edges and find some way of getting free, the barriers Ras had placed pushed her back again.

  “I don’t want to play,” she answered.

  Carth didn’t care if it sounded sullen. She wasn’t here to make him happy. She was his prisoner and he’d made it clear that he might kill her. If she could find a way to escape, she needed to take it.

  “A shame. Tsatsun might have kept you alive longer.”

  He took the board and started away.

  As he did, Carth lunged.

  She’d been waiting for an opportunity to attack, needing some distraction to draw his attention. This seemed as good an opportunity as she would likely get.

  Carth struck Ras in the back. The Tsatsun board dropped to the ground with a clatter, the pieces in the bag flying out.

  He spun, moving more quickly than she’d remembered.

  Without meaning to, she reached for shadows, but the brightness of the light around her still limited her access.

  Ras clenched his jaw. “A shame that you decided to attack me, shadow born. I was beginning to think you might have some use.”

  “You just said Tsatsun was the only thing keeping me alive.”

  She tried moving to the side, but the cold pressed on her. Her abilities wouldn’t be of much help now, not against him, but would there be another way she could get past him?