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Second Story Publishing

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Contact the author at joannahmiley.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Cover design by Pintado

Developmental editing by Drew Cherry

Copy editing by Virginia Herrick, Kestrel’s Way Editorial Services

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The Immortal Game/ Joannah Miley. -- 1st ed.

ISBN 978-0-9860555-1-5 (MOBI)

For Fran and Hope

How did I get so lucky?

“Every pawn is a potential queen.”

-James Mason

ONE

“Do you play?” the barista asked as Ruby approached the espresso counter at the back of the bookstore.

“Huh?” Ruby blinked. Her mind was still stuck on the organic chemistry chapter she had been reading at her table by the window.

The barista nodded her mass of dark spiral curls in the direction of the chess table to the right of the counter.

Usually a crowd hovered around the board, but tonight there were only a few stragglers watching Ash play a man Ruby didn’t recognize. It had been three days since the Rogue terrorist attack killed a dozen people and knocked out both the landlines and the cell towers throughout the Northwest.

The war, which was safely across the world for over a decade, had unexpectedly blown up on the outskirts of Portland and most people were still holed up at home.

“Do you play?” the barista repeated as if picking up the thread of a casual conversation.

“Sure.” Ruby shrugged. She scanned the chalkboard menu with the words
Athenaeum Books: Used and Rare
drawn in swooping green letters across the top.

“You should play Ash,” the barista said as she opened a bag of coffee beans. “You’ve been here for hours. Take a break from studying.” The whole beans clinked in rapid-fire succession against the plastic sides of the coffee grinder, nearly drowning out the tail end of her words.

The rich aroma reminded Ruby of lazy Sunday mornings playing with her father. Chess had been his favorite game, one of the few he liked to play between his long trips away. She pictured his wide smile poised over the rim of his coffee cup and the way sunlight turned his brown eyes, the same color as hers, a golden shade of honey.

She stole a furtive glance at the chess table. Ash’s opponent flashed a peace sign as he rose to leave with his friends, but Ash was busy putting the man’s captured white marble pieces back on the board and didn’t notice.

Ruby didn’t think Ash was a student. She only knew his name because of the constant chatter of the college girls who fawned over him and because of his reputation for being unbeatable. She winced when she saw the back of his left hand. It was a livid shade of red and the skin was puckered along a deep maroon furrow that ran from pinky to wrist at a diagonal.

“Sage, you want to play?” he asked without looking up from the board.

“No. I don’t want to play,” the barista said. “I’m helping a customer.” She sounded annoyed, like she’d been asked too many times already.

Ash’s turquoise eyes darted up to Ruby and she felt herself stiffen. His white T-shirt set off his dark complexion. A loose tangle of black curls framed his angular face. “Do you want to play?” he asked.

“I … I can’t,” she stammered at the unexpected invitation. There was usually a line of people waiting to play him. “I have to study.”

“A quick game,” he said to one of them, although Ruby couldn’t tell who he was talking to. His injured hand came up to rub his temple. “I’m leaving soon anyway.”

“Of course you are. Your mistress is high maintenance.” Sage flipped the coffee grinder’s switch and filled the air with a loud whirring. Ash glanced at the night-darkened windows that made up the front wall of the room.

Ruby looked that way too, but all she saw were the red and orange lights of Inferno Wood Fire Pizza blazing from across the street. No cars passed by. No one came or went through the restaurant’s large wooden doors.

Sage turned to Ruby when the grinder finished. “What can I get you?”

“Vanilla latte, please,” she said, ignoring the odd exchange between the barista and the chess master.

“Like I said, you should play him.” Sage reached for a plain white mug. “I’ll throw in an Ambrosia Bar. You’re in here enough. We’ll call it customer appreciation.”

Ash sat back in his chair with his ankles crossed and his long legs stretched out to the side of the table. His injured hand rested in a loose fist on his thigh. The chess board was set up for the next game.

Ruby hadn’t seriously considered playing. It had been so long.

She looked at her table across the room near the window. The top was covered with books. The organic chemistry chapter sat open and she had a week’s worth of reading to do for western civ.

The bombing had not kept her from going to class or from following her strict studying schedule. If the war was ramping up, she needed to be even more focused. She knew she should go home and study, but the quiet there was stifling.

She glanced back to Ash, looking at her. Waiting.

…

Ruby moved a white pawn out.

Ash matched it.

She moved another, sacrificing it to offer a King’s Gambit.

He accepted and took her piece.

“How did you get so good?” she asked.

“Instinct.” His voice was deep and a little husky. His attention remained on the worn black and white marble chessboard between them.

She moved a bishop, deliberately leaving her king open.

Ash brought out his queen. “Check,” he said, sounding tired, or irritated, or both.

She took a sip of her latte, but quickly put it back down. She felt too warm already. She moved her king to safety and picked at the brown Ambrosia Bar next to her. “Who taught you to play?”

His eyes met hers but he didn’t answer. She knew that serious chess was played in silence, but not usually a friendly game in a coffee shop, and definitely not when she played her father.

She glanced at his injured hand and saw that it wasn’t as bad as she had originally thought. The skin was a light pink. The gash wasn’t too deep, but there was no doubt that he should have gotten stitches.

“I used to play with my dad,” she said, pulling her eyes away from the injury. “Before he was killed in the war.”

Ash’s good hand stopped with his knight pinched between his fingers. “The war, huh?”

She wasn’t sure why she said it. She hadn’t told anyone here, not at Athenaeum, not in the study group, not in any of her classes. She kept to herself mostly. A pre-med major—and the three-point-five GPA she needed for medical school—was a stretch for her, she knew that. When it came to research or writing, the A’s came easy. When it came to math or molecules,
there was work to be done and redone.

Ruby glanced across the room. Low lamps hung over the empty tables. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three walls of the rectangular room. Horizontal stacks of books lay on top of the crowded vertical rows and she could smell the aged paper under the strong aroma of fresh-brewed espresso.

“Was he Army?” Ash asked, still holding the black marble horse poised over the board.

She shook her head. “He was a doctor. With Medics for Mercy.”

He set the knight down but he held Ruby’s stare. “How?”

How?
“You mean … how did he die?”

Ash’s face was steady.

“It was a roadside bomb,” she said, matter-of-fact. “He was treating wounded civilians when a second charge went off. His entire team was killed.”

“He’s a hero,” Ash said.

“He was brave. I know that.” The word
hero
always left her cold, and still fatherless, no matter how well-meaning the sentiment. She broke away from his gaze and moved her knight, letting the familiarity of the game take over. “He died helping people,” she said after a long pause. Her father had told her helping people was what really mattered in the world.

Ash didn’t say anything more and Ruby was happy with the silence.

He took her bishop with a lowly pawn. In the next few moves he took her queen as well. He sat deep in his chair and put the fingers of his wounded hand to his lips as if contemplating his next move. As if planning the impending win.

Ruby’s eyes lingered at his mouth, then went to the long gash on his hand, and from there to a simple black ring on his fourth finger. The ring was pitted and old looking. A smile passed over her lips as she pictured the women swarming around him. She thought of Sage’s irritation about his “high maintenance” girlfriend.
Not a girlfriend
, she realized,
a wife
.

Ash was looking at her. She dropped the smile and nodded at his hand. “What happened?”

He cocked his head to one side as if confused. He looked to where she had motioned. “It’s nothing.” He leaned forward and put the injured hand below the tabletop. His attention returned to the game.

“It will heal faster if you—”

“Your move,” he said without looking up.

Her head pulled back in surprise at his abruptness. She moved her bishop and checked the position of her knights. She looked across the table at the same time Ash looked up, dark eyebrows coming down low over blazing blue eyes.

She grinned. “Checkmate.”

…

Athenaeum was quiet when Ruby walked in the next morning, too early for book buyers, too early for most coffee drinkers. Sage smiled at her from a table she was wiping near the door. “What happened last night?” she asked. “He’s been going over your game for hours.” She motioned to the back where Ash sat alone, moving both white and black pieces on the board.

“Nothing,” Ruby said. She swept a golden-brown tangle of windblown hair behind her ear and unzipped her rain jacket. “I mean … I beat him, that’s all.”

“You beat him?” Sage’s smile fell. She glanced at Ash and then back to Ruby. “How …?” She shook her head. “Never mind.” She slung the dishcloth over her shoulder and walked behind the counter.

“Can I have a latte?” Ruby asked. “And an Ambrosia Bar.” She walked to a table and hoisted her heavy messenger bag onto its wooden top. Ash and his chess game had interrupted her study schedule. She had organic at eight and then western civ. She knew from Greek mythology the previous semester that Dr. Garcia loved to give pop quizzes; catching up on the reading was her first priority.

She turned to pay for her breakfast but stopped short when she saw Ash striding toward her through the deserted coffeehouse.

“Where did you learn that?” he said. There was no preamble. No
Hi
or
Good
morning
or even an acknowledgment an entire night had gone by since their game.

“I …” She trailed off, rattled by his demeanor. She shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“How did you
beat
me?”

Heat rose into her cheeks despite the chilly autumn morning. “Hey, don’t blame me if you have a problem with your game.”

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