He shrugs. “Unless you have a brilliant counter to my attack, yes. You spent your human soldiers too quickly in that chasm, and it allowed me to flank you with the demons. It was close, but that’s how all battles are. Always plan for things to go slightly wrong instead of slightly right.”
“You weren’t playing defensively at all this time, but last time, you held your ground the entire game. What changed?”
“Every game must be played differently. If you learn strategies only for defense, you give up any advantages for attacking or if you have cards that are best in a charge. No one worries about cavalry if they’re hidden behind walls.”
It’s obvious, but the way he shifts so fluidly between strategies is impressive. “You should play my father sometime. He loves this game.”
“I have,” he says with a smirk. “I let him win each time. No need to let him know that I’m not an idiot. We have Rhion and Ainslee to convince him that there’s some intelligence in Selithar.”
I blink. “You lose on purpose?”
He leans back in his chair and runs his hand through his messy brown hair. For just a moment, instead of the childish look in his eyes, I see behind the mask. The exhaustion and intelligence. A lifetime of moves and counter-moves.
“I prefer it if no one takes me too seriously, Fi. Normally, only my sister and her husband are fully aware of that, but the two of us are bound together in this thing. You need to understand I’m not the part I play. We’re all pieces in these games, and what someone sees isn’t necessarily what that part is.”
He pulls out a card from the deck and hands it to me. The Chained card. It’s a powerful card that I’ve always been happy to get. “What is the purpose of this card? How do you use it?”
“It’s a primary infantry. You use it to advance positions because its attack and defense are so great.”
He shakes his head. “No. That’s what new players see because they look at the monstrous beasts and are terrified. But they’re still infantry and can’t travel quickly. They don’t deal with terrain well. They just… crush things that get too close. Why not use catapults to counter them? Why not Rivena’s flying troops to drop stones on them? You can even sabotage the terrain to stall or incapacitate them.”
He slides the card back into the deck. “Listen closely, because this is important. Knowing the true value of someone means you can plan around them. If everyone sees Rhion and Ainslee and says, ‘Those are the clever ones,’ then no one gives a dragon’s dropping if I’m manipulating them to tell me their weaknesses. It’s no different with you. Everyone here thinks you’re an unimportant humanwho got lucky with an easy Road. Maybe someone helped you. Maybe you were too dumb to have a difficult Road. It doesn’t matter. They don’t see you as a piece in the game yet.”
I frown. “And if I pass the next trial?”
He grins. “Then some will take notice, but most will still think you got lucky. It’s hard to believe a human could survive a trial that kills Godforged. This is very important because everyone will be watching the third and fourth trials. These first two are private, but in the last two… it’s going to be very different.”
“So, this entire time, you’ve been the brains behind Adelyth’s success?” I ask.
He chuckles and shakes his head. “Don’t want to talk about the trials?”
“Not particularly. I just need to focus on surviving each day. Trying to think about what’s coming in a month does me no good except to keep me from sleeping.”
He stands up and stretches after spending the last several hours sitting at this little table playing Khorra. “You know,” he says mid-stretch, “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier. It has been quieter. I wonder how many people have died in these corridors.”
I shrug. “I didn’t see any bodies on the way out of the castle. We won’t know anything until after the next trial.”
A particularly loud pop from his shoulder echoes in the little room. “You’re right, of course. But I’m curious.”
“Considering leaving the safety of our lovely little prison cell?” I ask with more than a little excitement.
He sighs as he rolls his shoulders. “In another life, before all this started, you couldn’t have kept me in here even if it was made of four-inch-thick steel walls. I’d have gone insane. But my sister’s right. I can’t imagine that they’ll wait much longer for the next trial to begin.”
Darian sits back down and picks up the decks of cards again. “Another game?”
I squint at him, knowing that I’ll lose this one too. “Yes, but on one condition.”
He arches an eyebrow. “You want to play for clothes?”
I can’t stop the chuckle from escaping my lips as I shake my head. “No. I’m notthatbored yet. Teach me to play better. I’ve never really been one to play games all day, so I think I’d handle the boredom better if I were actively learning something. Who knows? Maybe I could even go back to Stormhaven and beat my father after all this is done.”
He grins at me and begins flipping terrain cards. “Deal. But you have to promise to blame your new skills on Rhion. Secrets, my dear, are important in this game that we’re all in the middle of.”
Chapter 16
Each champion will know the Laws of the Pact. It is necessary, for as they agreed to be our hands, mouths, and blades, their actions are our own. If they break the Law, we break the Law. Do not inform them of this directive, or you will give them a weapon against their masters.
~Directive Four Hundred Twenty-Six of the Pact
