I had laughed at her, rejecting the proposition of alittle girl.
But then she had asked me if I was scared.Scared to be beaten by alittle girl.No one had ever had the guts to talk back to me like that.To challenge me.It infuriated me.Intrigued me.All I had wanted that entire game was to beat her, to prove a point, but the truth was—I was infatuated with her.Curious about this unknown girl who had the audacity to put me in my place, the girl whose long white-blond hair and pale skin made her stand out from others, the girl who I decided was one of the prettiest girls I had ever seen.
And then she had beat me at chess.
The humiliation that had washed over me was like nothing I had ever felt before.The crowd around me mocked and jeered, insulted me for being so prideful, glad that I was put in my place, and by alittle girlno less.
But she hadn’t jeered.
She had simply looked at the board, said, “Checkmate.”
Shrugged her shoulders.
Smiled.
Then left.
I’d crawled away from the chess table in shame, slipping into the shadows where I could watch her, figure out who she was and where she was from.That was the night I had vowed to never lose a game of chess again, the night I started training with my uncle, but that vow had now shattered, cracked at its very core.
Because this entire event of the seven balls had been a chess board, and while I hadn’t known it, I was playing against her.We were each moving pieces, fighting for a common goal, but we were ultimately playing against each other, and like a game of cards, she had just shown her hand.
I’d vowed to never lose, to never be humiliated like that.
But I hadn’t learned yet.
And she had beat me again.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Analleia
The darkness swallowedme whole, eating me alive like a predator not willing to wait for the prize.I stumbled through the shadowed alleyways, sloshing through puddles, trying to hold my cloak around me as the rain soaked through my clothes.Shivers overwhelmed my body as I fought my way through the deluge, trying to make sense of the endless roads around me.I passed street gangs, darted from corner to corner, tried to avoid detection.
I collapsed beneath the awning of a bakery in a grimy alley, the rain and thunder masking the cries that slipped from my throat, the tears that poured down my face.Defeat and hurt pulsed through me like poison, voices in my head shouting it was all my fault, that everything that had happened was because of me.
And they were right.
