The Secret Opponent

A plain knife, no larger than a palm and bearing neither engraving nor pattern. She had been unable to hand it over to Owen while wringing her mind for a plausible explanation of how it had come into her possession.

Will the day ever come when I can speak the truth?

Kayla drove the cloth-wrapped blade deep into the drawer, as though burying the wave of self-loathing that rose with it. Only then did her eyes shift to the notebook Owen had returned, now lying askew on the desk.

Numbers ran from one to eight, yet only seven volumes remained in her keeping. The sixth had vanished without trace. The first five contained her father’s meticulous records of every missing person who had disappeared when the Bunker Breeder first appeared—names, descriptions, last known movements. The seventh and eighth were her own, written in hurried, diary-like fragments.

Her fingers traced the black leather, seeking the warmth that had once lived there.

“It begins here.”

From this point forward she would trace the vanished backward, step by step. With that resolve she opened the volume marked eight. No words greeted her—only a dense table of random numbers, the cipher her father had devised in life. She alone could read it now.

She dipped her pen, recorded the circumstances of the Basil incident and the plans she meant to pursue, then drafted the letter she would send to Lady Zenma. Five sheets of paper were ruined before she managed even a brief mention of the marriage; whether her mother would believe it remained uncertain.

When she lifted her head, night had fallen in full silence. From the wardrobe she drew three long strips of cloth. Half her sleepwalking episodes were triggered by Basil’s presence; she should have prepared for it. Yet last evening, while the women of the flat laughed over the actor’s name, she had let the matter slip.

How foolish.

She tied the strips to the bedposts, extinguished the lamp, and climbed onto the mattress. Two lengths she fastened about her ankles, the third about her wrist. Even in darkness her hands moved with practiced certainty. It was, she knew, largely a futile gesture; more than once she had woken to find the knots loosened. Still, there had been mornings when she opened her eyes still bound, exactly as she had left herself. She prayed tonight would be one of them.

Her body felt heavy enough to sink through the bed, yet sleep refused to come. Memories crowded in instead—narrow corridors, the Royal Academy, the years she had been called Duncan’s rat. The premonition was unpleasant. Tonight, too, she would wander in her sleep. Even so, she stepped willingly into the maze of recollection, because two brief seasons of warmth and fluttering excitement waited there—seasons that had never come again.

Only days after thirteen-year-old Kayla had been presented for the Duke Gerard’s inspection, her mother packed their belongings with frantic haste, terrified the man might change his mind. For the first time in her life Kayla boarded a train alone, bound for the Crownland Pale North—the northern royal domain.

Her dream had always been to become a police officer like her father, yet that path was closed to women. Lady Zenma had urged her toward the Royal Academy, promising that graduation would open other doors even if the original dream must be abandoned. Kayla had agreed; a diploma from the academy might still help her become a policewoman one day.

It was the lingering edge of summer. Because the term began in autumn, the dormitory stood nearly empty. The servant who escorted her led her to a room far removed from the main building. The housemistress had promised a proper chamber once she returned, but the distant room remained Kayla’s until the day she withdrew.

She had been grateful. For months she prayed it would never change.

They said never to cross the wall…

Yet it was vacation. Surely the rule did not apply.

She received her textbooks and uniform, listened to the strict regulations, and was promptly forgotten. The isolation of the quiet dormitory quickly became tedious.

“It’s too hot.”

With no one to observe her, she set off to explore. She passed a storage shed cluttered with broken desks and chairs, skirted the incinerator, and followed the high wall until the ground began to rise into low hills. There the wall dipped, becoming easy to scale. Beyond it stood an unfamiliar building. She halted.

That side is the boys’ dormitory.

Thirst had begun to trouble her when the sound of running water drew her forward. She gathered her skirts and climbed over the wall.

The structure beyond was either unfinished or deliberately austere; its interior lay open to view. The skeletal frame, however, possessed a stark, almost handsome strength. A rope ladder invited her upward.

“Oh…”

The platform she reached was open at both ends; wind swept through, cool and pleasant. On the far side a sizable spring fed a stream that wound through the valley. Beyond the water, rows of young trees stood like a living fence.

Completely cut off from the outside.

Inside, the space was simple: a scorched drum, firewood, a low-slung military hammock. The question of who used it vanished the moment she turned her head.

“Oh, heavens.”

A chessboard blazed with reflected color, every piece cut from what looked like living gemstone. Kayla had played with her father since childhood; even on the eve of leaving Duncan City they had sat over a board. Never, however, had she seen a set so beautiful.

She studied the single chair.

“A place for only one person?”

Her gaze returned to the board and found something odd. The black knight advanced toward the center looked like a blunder—until she saw that any capture of it would open a direct line for the black rook to threaten the white king. Bishop and queen stood ready to complete the mate. The sequence was elegant, lethal. Even Kayla, who had often been praised for her skill, felt her pulse quicken at the precision of the trap.

She sat. Her fingers moved the white bishop one square back, blocking the knight’s line of attack. Satisfied, she rose and descended the ladder.

That night the chessboard refused to leave her thoughts.

The following day the pieces had changed again. The black rook now dominated the center, pinning white’s king and queen on the same file. Instead of alarm, an inexplicable delight rose in her.

Is he accepting the challenge?

She hesitated, then placed the white queen between the rook and the king—an attacking square that also allowed her own king to protect the queen. The move was perfect.

“Woof! Woof!”

A sudden howl and a burst of human laughter shattered the quiet. Heart pounding, Kayla pressed herself against the wall and peered toward the stream. Something flashed above the trees and dropped; three times the motion repeated before another object sailed farther away. Two dogs streaked after it.

Between the trees she glimpsed the source of the laughter: hair that shone like molten gold in the sunlight, a loose white shirt billowing then clinging to a lean frame with every gust of wind. Even at a distance the figure seemed unreal, slow and luminous, as though she could smell the summer on his skin.

He was no servant.

A spirit, perhaps?

The foolish thought dissolved when the man tossed something high, caught it, and bit into it with evident pleasure.

Ah. A peach.

Her own mouth watered. The man licked juice from his chin, then turned his head sharply toward her hiding place. Clear blue eyes met hers across the distance.

“Eek!”

For an instant she thought she had been seen. No—she had been seen. How else could she have known the color of those eyes? Cold sweat slid down her spine. It felt as though he were already crossing the valley toward her.