Chapter 2:

The ribbons of light moved away.

The blueprint had finally stopped curling, but only because I secured it under a collection of obscure texts on gravitational theory.

Not the study for today.

The quiet had returned after Diener's visit. The dust resumed its lazy descent through the colored beams. I traced the release arc again, this time to calm myself. 

The silence shifted, not broken, but disturbed. As if the room sensed the arrival before my ears confirmed it. The way it always does when he enters. 

"Mordrde," I greeted softly, looking up.

His leather soles whispered against the marble. No door creaked. No servant announced him. He was simply there, standing just within the threshold of the room as though he had just materialized there. 

His posture straight, balanced, always exact. His black doublet bore no crest, no sigil, nothing to declare his rank. Yet his very presence radiated a strange, quiet authority. Not over me, but over the air itself. 

"Good morning, Ser." I offered, voice steady.

"Good morning, Lady Speer." His eyes drifted toward the sprawled blueprint. "I see siege mechanics occupy your mind today."

I allowed myself a small nod, returning my gaze to the vellum.

"A trebuchet," he said softly, as though naming a species he'd discovered in the wild. "A design of elegant precision."

"I thought to infer how one gets as precise as you, Ser." I replied.

His lips curved slightly. Not a smile, but something adjacent. "Your wit is as sharp as you, m'Lady."

A smirk betrayed me. 

"You find comfort in certainty," he continued.

"I find comfort in order, Ser."

"Order," he echoed quietly. "An ambitious word for one so young."

The words were carefully weighted.

"I only observe," I replied.

His eyes studied me, the way a craftsman inspects a mechanism—searching for how it operates.

"A fallen leaf follows the flow of the river it lands in..." Mordrde said, voice almost musing, "but even a brilliant leaf goes nowhere if the water is still."

My fingers tapped the table's edge thrice. 

"The leaf is not, without the tree."

He inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the answer. 

"There are those in certain...circles..." he continued, voice as soft as silk, "who take interest in your... diligence."

The familiar weight of scrutiny pressed against my chest. I stiffened, but only slightly. 

"I—I need only myself."

His gaze did not waver. "As one should, m'Lady... Though we do not live for only ourselves."

The air hung heavier in response to his words, the intimate truth. 

He allowed the pause to linger before shifting his gaze back to the blueprint. His eyes moved along the drawn curve.

"Your precision is commendable, Lady Speer."

He looked at me again, and something in his gaze made me feel very small.

The pressure weighed. I went mute, as did the library. 

At last, he broke the silence himself.

"Your father returns soon. "

"Of course," I exhaled softly.

Mordrde nodded, moving not towards the exit, but instead to the adjacent table, filing my reaction away into some internal ledger.

Without word, he opened a case I hadn't realized he was carrying. Inside, two neatly carved rows of wooden figures gleamed beneath the stained glass light. Black and ivory, polished but unadorned.

I watched him in silence.

He began setting the pieces with quiet care, one by one, like placing variables into an equation. The chess board was a small travel set, but his arrangement was precise.

"Do you play, Lady Speer?"

I shook my head faintly. "No."

"Then let us begin with position."

He motioned gently toward the board. His voice never rose above the hush of the library as I crept to his table.

"The pawns," he began, "stand in the front. Eight soldiers. Identical in form. Each one moves one step at a time."

I studied the pieces. "They shield the others."

"Indeed." He allowed the faintest breath of amusement. "Or perhaps... they are placed first because they are expendable."

The word hung heavy in the air.

I kept my voice even. "Expendable does not mean useless... Ser."

"Correct." His eyes flashed, pleased. "A pawn that reaches the other side may become anything it desires. Even a queen."

The sentence lodged itself deeper than I intended.

Mordrde continued. "The queen moves freely, but draws attention. The knight deceives—jumping unexpectedly, ignoring the usual flow of distance. The rook reaches far in straight lines, relentless and unbending. And the king of course... is what all others seek to defend..."

His fingers hovered above the king's simple form.

"Every piece has its strength," he said. "Every strength, a weakness. Control lies not in their abilities, but in their placement." 

I watched carefully. My mind, already wired to patterns and motion, began assembling the game's geometry.

"Why show me this?" I asked.

He did not answer at first.

"Because formulas may give you control over stone and weight," Mordrde said at last. "But people... people are boards of their own."

I pondered on that.

"People are unpredictable."

"But they still have patterns." 

His hand withdrew from the board. 

"When you master position, Lady Speer, you can read the world."

I ran my fingers lightly along a pawn's smooth head.

"One step at a time." I whispered.

"Yes." Mordrde's voice softened further. "But do not mistake slowness for insignificance. The pawn moves forward while other remain still."

The air sat between us.

"Shall we play?" He asked, quietly making his opening move.

The complexity was intoxicating. The careful pedagogy of before transformed into a ballet of threat and opportunity. Where my bishops slid across the diagonal, his rooks would emerge to challenge them. Knights captured by pawns, Queens by knights. The geometry unfolded like architecture. 

Alive. 

Breathing with possibility.

Each of his moves carried layers I hadn't anticipated. Combinations that reached three—no, four moves deep. Patterns within patterns, revealing themselves only as they closed around my pieces, each game ending in loss.

I felt no frustration. Only fascination. 

As quickly as we had began, shadows started to stretch. 

With the same methodical precision he brought to our dueling, Mordrde began packing away the chess set, each piece finding its designated place in the lacquered box.

As the board cleared, the weight of the lesson settled around us. My fingers traced the edge of the table where the board had rested. 

"Your father draws near, m'Lady," Mordrde said quietly, securing the chess box with careful hands.

My breath remained steady, but the mention of Father tensed my shoulders.

Mordrde observed my reaction without comment, then added with neutral diplomacy: "He will be pleased with your studies."

I gave a small nod, my eyes lowering toward the empty table. "Of course."

There was nothing else to say. 

He allowed one final breath to pass, then stepped back toward the door, the chess box tucked securely under his arm. His departing words floated behind him like a final move upon an invisible board:

"In chess, even the king may fall to a properly placed pawn... Lady Speer."

The door closed with a quiet whisper, leaving me alone with implications that seemed to echo off the library's vaulted ceiling. I remained seated, staring at the table where the board had rested, my fingers hovering above invisible positions as I traced where the pieces had stood.

Position is power.

The thought settled into my consciousness with the weight of mathematical proof.

But who decides where the pieces stand initially?

I glanced toward my usual alcove, seeking the comfort of familiar books and study. But something had shifted—literally. The carefully stacked gravity tomes had moved slightly, curling the blueprint once more. 

"Persistent."