The Immortal Game

by Talia Rothschild

  Demitri dropped a sword, leapt for her wrist and caught it, yanking her back to the ground. His grip was like stone, and he twisted her arm so hard that she gasped, dropping her spike.

  He pulled her close, eyes blazing. His dark hair was damp with sweat, and dirt smudged across his cheek and down to his neck, where angry, red skin blistered.

  Iyana’s heart stopped.

  His tunic was singed, too, and now that she looked more closely, she saw similar burns across his arms, on the hand that gripped her wrist—

  “Where’s Braxtus?” she whispered.

  Leaning over her, he tightened his hold. Her fingers began to go numb. “I told you I would protect you. And I did. Even from him.”

  She struggled to make sense of the words, staring at his face, twisted into an ugly sneer. “You … what?”

  “He’s dead, Iyana. I killed him.”

  Time froze. The world went silent and dark for a moment that lasted an eternity.

  Braxtus was dead.

  No. No no no no no no no—

  Something erupted inside of her.

  She slammed her fist into Demitri’s jaw.

  He reeled back, grunting in pain and letting go of her arm.

  She threw her hands out, and a hurricane ripped to life, catching Demitri’s arms and flinging him into the sky.

  Demitri thrashed against the wind. As he writhed, he ripped free of ribbons of air, hindering her from pushing him upward. So she held him in place, wind swirling around him in a tight fist to keep him suspended twenty feet in the air.

  Her breathing grew heavy, not from effort or strain, but from the pure loathing that roared in her brain. She picked up the spike she’d dropped and hurled it at him, aiming directly for his neck. A breeze kept her missile on target.

  Demitri swung his sword, somehow, impossibly, knocking the spike aside.

  She threw another. Harder. Faster.

  A flash of panic lit his blue eyes, but he stopped that one, too.

  Fine.

  She cut the wind, then pounded him from above. He dropped, slamming against the ground.

  Wind came back as she called it, wriggling under him and tossing him back into the sky, lifting him until he started fighting again.

  She dropped him again.

  And again.

  “Stop, Iyana!” Demiti’s voice was weak, panicked, as she launched him skyward once more. “I lied! I didn’t kill Braxtus—he’s alive!”

  Hot rage pounded through Iyana. She slammed him back to the ground, then kept the wind pummeling him, pinning him to the earth. She leapt, soaring through the air to land on his chest.

  He groaned, and she seized his helmet, ripping it off to see his face. He flinched from the heat of her glare, ichor trailing from his lips. The wind still rushed downward, pulling her hair fully free from her braid and snapping it against his cheeks.

  She wrapped her fingers around the last spike in her quiver and drew it slowly, making him hear the sound of it dragging across the leather. Making him see the flash of it against the sky. She pressed it under his chin.

  He swallowed, chest heaving.

  “You have lied to me too many times to count,” she hissed.

  “It’s the truth.” His voice came out hoarse. “Poinê needed him. I didn’t kill him. I trapped him in the avyssos.”

  The words knocked the breath out of her. She sat up a little, delirious hope expanding in her chest. It made sense. There had been the blast, and there was no sign of his body …

  “Listen to me, Iyana. I love you.”

  She snapped her eyes back down to Demitri’s pain-filled face, and saw that somewhere in his twisted heart he really believed his own words. It only disgusted her more.

  She pressed the tip of the spike in harder. “You don’t get to say that anymore. You don’t know what love is.”

  Real fear and horror crossed his face. “You’re angry, I get it, but you love me, too. I know you—”

  “Shut up, Demitri, I’m warning you—”

  “If you kill me, after everything we’ve been through, you’d never get over the guilt—”

  Iyana struck with all of her strength.

  Demitri slumped and fell still.

  She leaned close to whisper in his ear. “I’m done with your games.”

  52

  KOSTAS

  Fury, hatred, and betrayal rushed over Kostas—a seething, nauseating tide he couldn’t keep at bay. He doubled over, watching Iyana thrust her hands forward, battering Demitri away with her wind. She stalked after him, reaching for her weapons.

  Good luck, Iyana.

  As they moved away, her emotions faded, replaced by Galene’s terror.

  She stood apart from Chrysander, hair stuck to her cheeks and neck, a knife still in her hand. Silver rimmed, those sea-green irises moved from Iyana to him. She was so scared—scared for him, for Iyana, for Olympus.

  Kostas closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. Running his thumb down the Deck of Fates, he crouched and set the cards onto the dirt at his feet. He removed twenty-six, placing thirteen on one side of the deck, thirteen on the other. They glowed as he finished the setup, recognizing the game he wanted to play. Their arena was set.

  The air seemed to vibrate. Kostas backed up until he stood an equal distance from the cards as Poinê. He held his breath.

  Cards erupted into the air, gleaming as if on fire. Easily over a hundred hovered by the time every card had left the ground. Then they blasted outward, forming one giant ring between Poinê and Kostas. A ripple of energy engulfed him, a tie binding him to the game. The cards were casting their own magic, forcing the players to stay until the game ended.

  They whirled in front of him. Kostas’s stomach clenched—this is where luck came into play. Blank, random cards flashed out to bob at his side. He watched them, counting in his head until thirteen flicked into place.

  He steeled himself for the worst, watching as images and words blossomed to life on the cards’ faces.

  Hearing of a gorgon, Strength of a hellhound, Poison of a manticore. He focused on the best cards, and his heart resumed beating. This was a hand he could work with. Images of a potential beast began to form behind his eyes. He had cards he needed to get rid of, too, but he was confident it was within his ability.

  Sensing Poinê’s emotions, he tried to gauge how good her cards were. She remained fairly neutral, with twinges of both excitement and disappointment.

  The ring of cards between them slowed. A picture appeared on the surface of one, and Kostas watched as it flashed by, rounding the circle to show Poinê. The image of a centaur, the word beneath reading brains.

  Whatever his creature became, it needed that kind of genius to stand a chance.

  Furrowing his eyebrows, he looked back through his hand. What am I willing to risk?

  Slowly, he selected one and held it out to the ring. It tugged free of his fingers and flew to the center of the circle, joining a card Poinê had chosen from her hand. Together, the two cards rose into view, rotating to show everyone.

  Kostas’s card: Strength of a hellhound.

  Poinê’s card: Talons of a harpy.

  His shoulders relaxed. The card he gambled was obviously the better of the two, and so he won the new card. Brains of a centaur whizzed into place by his side, and he exchanged it with his worst card, the determination of an orc.

  Poinê glowered at him as her card rushed back into the ring and a random one flashed out to take its place in her hand. Nothing but fury and hatred seeped from her.

  This opportunity to gamble for better cards would only come a few more times before they were stuck with their ending hand. This is where the game was played, this is what ultimately decided if Kostas would be the winner, or if he would lose … and die.

  As they played, Kostas tried keeping track of Poinê’s emotions, but the strain of it only added to his fatigue. His legs began to shake again, his chest and back aching mercilessly as he strained
to hold himself upright.

  He focused on his cards.

  Size of a satyr.

  I still have to get rid of that.

  Rage of a dryad.

  My worst card. With a dryad’s temper, his beast would more likely forgive Poinê’s creature for every strike than fight back.

  But then his prize. He carefully kept the grin from his face.

  Speed of the Ceryneian Hind. Artemis’s sacred deer was said to be able to outrun an arrow in flight.

  He looked up in time to see a card flash by, Determination of Laelaps inked under the picture of a black dog. Laelaps was destined to catch whatever he hunted. That, too, was a powerful card. Kostas glanced through his, and when his gaze rested on the dryad’s rage, he paused, thinking. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad card after all. If it was coupled with Laelaps, that would give him a beast that was outwardly calm, but coldly determined to kill.

  He looked at Poinê, reading her emotions. She, too, wanted that card. The only one of his he was sure would trump any of her cards was the Ceryneian Hind, and that would reveal his most powerful asset …

  “It’s worth it,” he muttered, seizing it and thrusting it at the ring.

  The cards flew above the ring, and Kostas won. He could feel Poinê’s silent fury, twisted with a second of fear that she quickly smothered.

  With a breath of relief, he got rid of the size of a satyr. Now if I can only get rid of the sight of a cyclops …

  But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the cards in the ring sped up, then imploded into a tight group. They flew in a pack toward Kostas, piling themselves back into a neat deck at his feet.

  He gazed at his now final thirteen cards. Poinê looked over her own to appraise him, and he met her black gaze.

  “Are you ready, Kostas?”

  He clenched and unclenched his sweaty hands. Now the beasts would be created from their cards and fight. And Kostas would take every blow with his beast. He was confident in his hand—on a day when he was healthy he’d be sure of his imminent victory.

  But he could hardly stay on his feet. It wouldn’t take much injury to his beast to bring him down.

  I am the God of Games. I can do this.

  His cards started to vibrate. They flew away from him to form their own circle, each trait on the cards facing the center. On the other end of the arena, Poinê’s cards did the same.

  In turn, each card shot a blinding ray of light onto the ground at the center of the circle. Kostas’s eyes watered at the brightness. When all thirteen cards were lit, something began to writhe in the dust at the center of the beams.

  The light shifted, roiled, morphed, grew, shaping itself into something blazing and solid. A beastly cry rang from Poinê. The light grew too painful, and he screwed his eyes shut.

  And then everything dimmed, and he looked up.

  Before him stood his beast.

  Short tusks curved elegantly down around the lower jaw of the skeletal head. Long, powerful legs with rippling muscles held up the roughly horse-like body, and the broad, muscled chest heaved in and out as the beast breathed. Three rows of spines grew from the blue-green, scaly hide, running from the forehead along the back, down the tail that forked into two gleaming spikes. Its feet were wide, with long toes that ended in claws. They curled into the ground, breaking up the dirt beneath.

  A thrill of pride went through him as he looked over the magnificent creature, but he assessed its possible weaknesses. The sight of the cyclops had been distributed between two milky blue eyes, and so it was obviously nearly blind, but when he snapped his fingers it jerked its thin head in his direction. The dark holes on the side of its skull offered fairly good compensation.

  He turned to face Poinê’s beast.

  Two sharp, dark eyes were set on top of the head that ended in a short snout, its entire body covered in hard sea monster scales: the armor of Campe.

  Kostas was amazed at how lizard-like the creature looked, from its wide belly to the short legs he could barely see. His relief at the beasts’ height difference was short-lived, for at that moment, it unfurled two huge, white, feathery wings that more than tripled its size. Pegasus wings.

  So Poinê had managed to hide her secret weapon from him.

  The creatures locked eyes, and nothing else mattered.

  Poinê and Kostas backed away. He could feel her anxiety: wanting to leave, bound to stay.

  His beast crouched down, long legs bending backward under it, giving it a distinct birdlike appearance. It went still, alert and focused on its opponent.

  Poinê’s beast had its wings out to either side of it, flared but inactive, and slunk forward, hissing and snarling.

  The muscles tensed under his creature’s scaly hide as its opponent got nearer and nearer. Only a few steps away now …

  His beast sprang. Its powerful hindquarters propelled it into the air, directly on top of the lizard-beast.

  It bucked and howled as his beast sunk its teeth into a shoulder blade. Poinê cried out and convulsed. Ichor stained the robes at her shoulder. Scarlet drops flew as her creature shook itself, and then the wings flared even bigger. With a sudden heave, it reared. His beast flew through the air, twisted, and slammed on its feet.

  Poinê’s creature launched into the sky. Even its belly was plated in armor.

  It swung around nimbly in the air. Its claws flexed, sharp and bright, and it plunged downward, talons outstretched.

  Barely two feet away, his beast’s tail flashed up, as quick as a scorpion’s, slicing across the flying creature’s jaw.

  It shrieked but didn’t retreat, scoring Kostas’s beast across the side of the neck with its claws before kicking off its shoulders to spring back into the air.

  Heat coursed through Kostas’s body, and three long, shallow gashes ripped open along the side of his neck. The weight of a boulder seemed to crash onto his shoulders and he stumbled, just managing to keep his feet.

  Nausea rose again. He pressed a shaking hand against his neck to stanch the bleeding and fixed his gaze on Poinê. Ichor dripped from her jawline and her fangs were exposed, but her black eyes focused only on the battle.

  Her creature circled above, snapping its teeth in agitation. His beast looked unperturbed, despite the pain Kostas knew it was feeling. Its toes dug into the ground again, pulling up clots of dirt. It turned its head from side to side, viewing the world through its ears.

  In one fluid motion, it rose on its hind legs and hurled a rock at the beast with toes as capable as hands.

  Poinê’s beast swerved, but the rock slammed into its right wing. It careened in the air, a few feathers bent, but then another rock struck the beast in the wing joint. A snap echoed around them.

  Poinê gasped.

  It flapped harder than ever to stay aloft, but swerved and hit the ground in a clumsy landing.

  Kostas’s creature charged, and the lizard’s wide, white wings flipped up and around itself like a shield. It launched forward, running on quick feet directly at his charging beast.

  His creature reared up to attack, but before it could hit, a snout emerged from the feathers to seize a leg with its teeth and twist …

  Kostas’s creature toppled, emitting a sound like a bugle as it fell, pinning a wing under it in the process. Holes opened up in his leg, the markings of teeth. He hissed, bracing for more, but the pain of a broken leg didn’t come.

  His beast moaned again, struggling to stand.

  Or … pretending to struggle.

  Her beast twisted and slammed its tail against his creature’s back. Its wing slid free, and, a moment later, it pushed back into the sky. Though it couldn’t fully fly, the creature reached an astonishing height, and Kostas knew it wanted to strike the death blow while his creature was down.

  His beast feigned well, trembling, throwing its tail into the ground for extra support. Kostas saw its front knees bend, but not straighten, as Poinê’s beast dove once more.

  His beast tensed, shoving its tail
deeper underground. Hers gave a cry of triumph as its claws descended.

  Faster than lightning, Kostas’s beast propelled itself high into the air, straight up. Poinê’s beast missed his by inches, slamming into the ground right where his had been. A split second later, his beast landed on a wing.

  The other creature screamed, trying to bat it away, but Kostas’s beast held firm. It anchored one foot on the wing and slammed the other onto its spine.

  Poinê’s beast writhed, lashing its tail, but could not escape. With one swing of his beast’s mighty tail, it plunged the spikes between its opponent's shoulder blades.

  It roared and flailed, and Poinê screamed. Kostas saw the silver agony that ripped through her aura. She swayed, but forced words through her lips.

  “You! Trickster!”

  A blast of light exploded from where Poinê’s beast had been lying. As the light faded, Poinê fell forward, corpse hitting the dirt.

  Kostas’s beast swiveled its head until it was staring at him, and then gradually, it melted away, vaporizing into dusty light.

  Black spots blurred his vision, and Kostas let himself collapse.

  The game was over.

  53

  GALENE

  Galene sprinted to Poinê as she hit the ground, Chrysander right on her heels. Without even checking to make sure the goddess was dead, she dove for the prostrate body, clumsy hands delving into the pockets of Poinê’s robes. Her fingers closed around the icy touch of the avyssos as her brother seized her shoulders.

  Chrysander hauled Galene away, but she tightened her grip on the orb, letting herself be flung to the ground.

  Madness lit a fire in Chrysander’s eyes, and Galene’s heart jolted. She tried to scramble away, but he leapt on her, pinning her down.

  “Give it to me!”

  “Chrysander, she’s dead.” Galene wriggled and ripped her hand from his grasp over and over.

  He fought her. “The war is still undecided. I can still capture the Olympians.”

  “I won’t let you!” Managing to flip onto her stomach, Galene shoved her hands under her body and curled around the avyssos.

  Chrysander scratched and pulled, trying to pry her arms away from her. Finally, he gripped her upper arms and lifted her clean off the ground.