“I don’t want to play,” Karigan said.

“I thought you wanted to leave this place,” Shawdell said. “You must win the game to leave.”

“No,” Karigan said.

“No? You are the Triad. You have been throughout, the unexpected player of the game, the player none of us knew how to counter—not Mirwell, Amilton, or myself. Zachary, however, managed to woo you to his side early on.”

“Don’t twist it,” Karigan said. “I chose—”

“We never knew what you would do next,” Shawdell said as if he had not heard her. “Other pieces supported you, and others hindered you. I suppose it is too late for me to coax you to our side? We would make an incomparable match.”

His smile was charming, his eyes warm. He held his hand out to her. Karigan recoiled.

“I could show you things you never dreamed of,” he said. “I could give you power a thousand times that of the horse trinket you wear. A simple mortal king like Zachary is not good enough for you. You’ve a temperament that requires much, much more.” He folded his hands on the table, and with earnest eyes, he said, “It pains me to admit it, but I find you most intriguing for a mortal, Karigan G’ladheon. What do you think about immortality? I have the power to grant it.”

Karigan sputtered, her mind awhirl and appalled by all he implied. “Is that what you offered Amilton? Immortality?” She glanced at the prince who was oblivious to everything but the game board.

“What I offered Amilton is between him and me, and needless to say, it is quite different than what I offer you.”

This couldn’t be happening, could it? Immortality? To spend all her days with Shawdell the Eletian? The one who unthinkingly killed so many for his own purposes? She could never cross over to his side. This one thing at least, she knew.

“I made my choice long ago,” she said. “I made my choice free of false promises and coercion.”

Shawdell’s expression was one of genuine regret. “My promises are not false. I wish you would join me, for we could share more than power.” He paused to allow his words time to sink in. “Since you have refused my offer, there is no alternative. I ask again, won’t you finish the game?”

Karigan hated Intrigue. She always lost. By rising to Shawdell’s challenge, she doomed King Zachary, her father, all her friends. She doomed Sacoridia.

She nodded toward Amilton who still muttered to himself and dithered over the game board. “Why doesn’t he make a move?”

“He moves when I give him leave,” Shawdell said.

“And when do you move?”

Shawdell crooked a golden eyebrow. “I move when you sit down to play.”

“You mean everything is just . . . stalled?”

“It is a stalemate.”

“And if I refuse to sit?”

Shawdell slowly smiled. “We share an eternity in this place. But if you play the game, you have a chance to win.”

“Why don’t you use your magic?” Karigan asked.

“Play the game,” Shawdell said.

“Why don’t you use your magic?” she repeated.

Shawdell’s posture grew rigid. Amilton, too, tensed and his murmuring increased in urgency.

“Play the game,” Shawdell said. “It is the only way you can leave.”

Karigan laughed, giddy with sudden insight. The essence of her insight, the only truth to be found in this unreality, was far more mundane than simple magic. She was the Triad, the random element. She could spur the game on, or maintain the stalemate. She controlled the game.

“I won’t break the stalemate,” she said. The colorful game pieces reflected on the shiny blade of the First Rider. She bent close to Shawdell and whispered, “You are too weak to break it yourself.”

And if this place was a combination of symbols, images, and the corporeal . . .

She raised the sword over her head. Shawdell quailed. The sword slashed down like a scythe.

It plummeted down between the enthroned pieces of Amilton and Shawdell, severing the black thread that linked them. The blade bit into the cork game board and green, blue, and red pieces scattered. The sword carved deep into the table and through it. A roar grew louder and louder in Karigan’s ears like a great whoosh of air—the screams of Shawdell and Amilton.

The table split into two neatly sliced halves. Shawdell and Amilton, one the mirror of the other, brought their arms up as if to ward off some invisible blow, their faces averted. Cracks crazed their images and they shattered into thousands of tiny fragments.

Still the sword descended. It plowed into the white earth and sank deep. It kept sinking. The ground engulfed the blade, the hilt, her hand. It swallowed her wrist and forearm and elbow. Still the sword descended. The ground took her shoulder. It took her all the way.

The blade rang on the stone floor of the throne room.

Gold links from the chain that had held the black stone around Amilton’s neck rained to the floor in pieces. The black stone bounced again, and when it struck the floor, it cracked.

Wild magic escaped from it.

The magic crackled and shot across the room in a black streak, hungry and vengeful. It found Karigan’s sword and sizzled up the blade. She flung it aside, but still the tendrils leaped off it and lashed onto her like a live creature, a predator sustained by the screams of Shawdell and Amilton.

She added her own scream as the wild magic twined around her torso and around each limb. It pulsed on her flesh, strangling the life from her. The other faces in the throne room blurred in her tearing eyes.