“My name is Anabella Sanerris. My son is Arvin Sanerris, the Lord of Mistlight and ruler of Odrana. You’ve been sent here to be tortured. You may have some information crucial to defeating the [Hero] and saving our world from total annihilation from the demon armies that will soon invade our lands,” she paused dramatically and smiled. “Do you know how to play Kala?”

Lady Sanerris was giving Orrin a tour of the little villa they were in. The extra people in the house were kept out of sight, so he wasn’t able to place the dots on his [Map] to faces. Anabella moved Orrin throughout the house without a care, pointing out the different rooms. Orrin was amazed at how easily she gave out information.

This room was where the help prepared the food. This room was where the two guards who stayed on site slept in shifts. The front door opened to a path that ran down a long stairway carved into the cliff base. Nobody could come up or go down without using those stairs. More guards were stationed at the bottom and would only allow those on Lord Sanerris’ list to go through.

“Aren’t you worried I’ll try to escape?” Orrin couldn’t help asking after she showed him the back patio that captured a picturesque view that he couldn’t appreciate at the moment. The sunlight dancing along the waves of the ocean below their feet and the expanse of blue that spread out as far as he could see were ignored.

“My son sent you here to vex me,” Anabella held open the door and ushered Orrin back inside. “After he usurped my position, he has tried many times to force my hand in accepting his rule and giving him aid. If you were to escape, I would return to my studies or perhaps try writing a book. Nothing of worth, mind you. I won’t give Arvin one more hint about magic. However, I have been toying with the idea of a romance novel… I see that you don’t care. If you try to escape, you will most likely die. Your collar is set to restrict all your skills and spells. It also will glow with a dull light if you move too far away. I would recommend finding me quickly if that happens. Here we are.”

She opened a door on the opposite side of Orrin’s room. The small room was similar to his own, except a set of doors opened on a veranda that could comfortably seat two. A small table for tea or coffee was pushed up against the rail and two weathered but comfortable-looking chairs were set to either side.

Anabella opened a wardrobe and pulled out a board for Kala. She set it on a small table and pressed a lever on the bottom of the board. A spring-loaded insert popped out, containing the needed cards and marbles.

“Shall we?”

Orrin sighed. Why did he meet weirdos wherever he ended up?

“I don’t have a choice, do I?”

Anabella had already begun to put the marbles into a velvet bag for the pregame selection. “You always have a choice. The consequences of your actions are your own to bear.”

Orrin slumped into the proffered chair. “If I don’t play, I get tortured. If I do play, I still get tortured. Yay for torture.”

He noticed a slight pull at her lips as she shuffled the cards. She likes a bit of impertinence and bravery in the face of danger. He needed every edge he could get until he figured out a way to escape. “How many prisoners have you played Kala with?”

Anabella raised her eyebrows in feigned surprise. “Prisoners? None. I haven’t played Kala in two or three years at this point.”

Orrin reached into the bag and pulled out his eight marbles: four white, two black, and two green. Like a game of checkers, the objective was to either take all of the opponent’s marbles off the board or reach the back line for an automatic victory. He could set his eight marbles anywhere on the three lines closest to him on the eight-by-eight grid board.

The white stones could move forward or back, one space at a time; however, they could only attack diagonally one space as well. The workhorse of a basic game, Orrin had drawn half of his pieces as the easiest to lose ‘forces.’

He rolled his two green marbles in one hand. By far his luckiest pull, a green marble created an imaginary forest line that the attacker could not pass until the marble itself was attacked. Good placement during setup could ensure victory unless he screwed up bad.

The last two black marbles were the other common piece. They could be moved diagonally one square at a time but could only attack vertically.

Orrin hadn’t pulled any red marbles. Those could be placed at any time during the game on the person’s own half of the grid. Any piece that surrounded it was destroyed. Orrin had once called it a bomb before Madi had corrected him. It represented any magical attack that could take out a force in number but most referred to it as a fireball.

After ten turns, each person could draw an extra two marbles. This continued until someone won or they ran out of more pieces and capitulated to a draw.

Orrin ran the rules of the game through his head once more. He had played with Silas and Madi a few times. He had tried to get Daniel into it but he’d insisted on playing checkers instead. Not surprisingly, Madi had humored him and learned to play.

“One or two card draw?” Anabella laid the shuffled deck down. Orrin grimaced. He hated the cards. They added another element of randomness to the game and he’d avoided playing with them for the most part.

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Only ten cards and yet they could make an entire strategy to win irrelevant. The two lightning cards could destroy a green forest line, effectively taking a marble from the opponent from the very beginning. The two rain cards were perfect again the red marble, played immediately after your opponent used the fireball stone. The red stone would be discarded, rendered inept.

Four of the remaining six cards were color change cards, used to change one of your white marbles into a red or green depending on which color you had.

“One card,” Orrin answered. He always tried to minimize the randomness. It was harder to figure out the odds and make the best moves with more cards in play.

“Live a little,” Anabella smiled and drew the top two cards. “Let’s use two.”

Orrin cursed under his breath but selected the next two cards. The rules stated the players had to agree on how many to use but he didn’t see disagreeing with Lady Sanerris going well. He had to bite his tongue from cursing louder. He’d pulled one of the last two ‘special’ cards.

The art on the card was exquisite. A shadowy being lounging on a throne of gold. Orrin had drawn the Demon Lord, the sister card to the Hero. He could use it to summon two black marbles to his back line for three turns. It was a last-ditch defense card and was used mostly if a person was losing badly.

If I had to get one of the special cards, the Hero would have been better. I could use the extra white marble to press the attack. Orrin checked the red color change card he’d also drawn and put them both to the side. I’ll just ignore them both and go for it.

Orrin placed a green marble on the leftmost spot of the third line and on the rightmost spot of the second line. He spaced the two black marbles on the second line as defense, having them cover as much of the middle of the board as he could with their ability to move diagonally for a quick attack ahead. The four white marbles, he placed along the front. He’d need to play aggressively and move into the middle of the board quickly to keep Anabella on her toes.

As nervous as he felt under the cool calm of [Mind Bastion], Orrin felt a little excited as well. He wasn’t half-bad at this game. He’d impressed Silas with a few moves, even if he’d never beat the Lord of Dey.

“Ready.”

“Hmm,” Anabella raised an eyebrow at his setup. The advantage of putting your marbles down first was you moved first. However, Anabella would be able to set down her marbles with an eye on defending against whatever was on the board. “You play like a child.”

“Excuse me?” Orrin double-checked to make sure [Mind Bastion] was running. He felt a little heated.

“You scream to the world, here is my plan.” She placed a green marble in the middle of her second line and three white marbles and three black ones at confusing points around the same. She held one back in her hand, so Orrin knew she had one red marble as well. “Make your move.”

Orrin had to admit, Anabella had his number from the beginning. While he rushed his marbles in, she maneuvered her pieces so he couldn’t attack but found himself getting taken piece by piece before he reached her forest line. She played a lightning card to destroy his first forest line and sacrificed a black marble to take out his other before he finally took hers down. She retaliated with a fireball that took two of his pieces at once. He’d tried the same, sacrificing one of his last two white marbles to make a red but her other card was a rain card. They’d danced back and forth on the sides and drawn two more marbles each but Orrin was losing and he knew it. He had one white marble left, running it from two of her black marbles while she had two moving in to take his backline.

He played his Demon Lord card, trying to buy the next three rounds for another marble draw.

Anabella smiled. “I wondered if you were saving that. You fight with all that you have. I respect that. I sacrifice one of my whites for another card.”

Orrin barely remembered that as a rule. Neither Madi nor Silas had ever played that way, but he could remember reading or hearing it a few times. He watched as she took one of her two attacking pieces and moved it off the board. She picked up her new card and smiled. Orrin knew he’d lost.

“I play the Hero. All your Demon Lord pieces are gone, as well as half the pieces we have left. We both have odd numbers left. If we round up, you have no pieces left. If we round down, I still block you with this one and have my marble here to move in the next round. Do you yield?”

Orrin nodded. “That was a brilliant game. If you hadn’t pulled the Hero card, I might have won.”

Anabella scoffed and shuffled the cards. “You win or you lose. Again?”

After his third game, Anabella packed the board up and stretched. She was smiling and Orrin thought it was in no small part to how poorly he had played in the last game. He thought he had her again but she managed to move her pieces in a way that messed up what he planned to do each time.

“Don’t pout, it’s unbecoming. What was it you said earlier? That was a brilliant game. I’m sure that you’ll manage a win in a month or two.”

Orrin clenched his fist and moved to the railing with her. “I don’t plan on being here that long but at least I have good company.”

The mother of his captor leaned back on the rail and studied him. “Why does my son fear your friend? Did your [Hero] not understand what is at stake or does he not care that we will be destroyed?”

“Your son tried to kidnap him. Twice actually. He blackmailed our friend using his family and caused his death. He has never tried to have an actual conversation with us, not that it would matter. Daniel was already aware a Demon Lord was on the way to Dey. We were training and ready to stop anything from happening when we found out he was going to kill another one of our friends.”

“The man who snuck into Mistlight and tried to assassinate him?”

Orrin scratched his elbow. “I mean, yeah. It’s weird talking to you about this. I feel like I’m telling on someone to his mom.”

“You are,” Anabella smirked. She clenched one hand tightly before turning toward the sea. “So, he didn’t tell you. What are you hiding Arvin?”

“Tell us what?”

The elegant woman standing in front of him sighed again. “This is what comes of keeping me secluded and not informed. He wants answers but gives nothing to those by his side. It’s why I’ll be back in charge within a decade. Oh Arvin, you impatient little shit.”

Orrin tried to keep up with her jumping thoughts but felt like he was missing something. “He didn’t need to tell us the Demon Lord was coming. Daniel has a Quest to stop it from happening. Even without me, he’ll be—”

“The Demon Lord is a black marble moving on the board. My son is playing Kala on a level you aren’t ready for. We’ve known about his forces amassing for years but knew a [Hero] would come along to fight him. History repeats itself no matter how long it takes,” Anabella said and unclenched her fist. Orrin saw the dark marble in her hand but couldn’t see what color it was from the angle she held it. “He isn’t worried about the Demon Lord or a silly little Quest. He is preparing to fight the man who made the Demon Lord. The man who wants to end humanity and make all races into demons.”

Anabella flung the marble. It was tiny against the crashing ocean below and Orrin missed its splash against the white foam waves. “My son is trying to stop the end of Asmea.”