The Black Inheritance: The Vestalis Game

The room was cold, like someone had measured out the chill. Angela sat at a small round table in the east drawing room, hands folded neatly in her lap. A chessboard sat in front of her. The pieces gleamed: heavy, polished wood, each carved to brutal elegance. The pawns had angular faces. The queens looked like they could command armies beyond the board.

Eleanor sat across from her, silent. She hadn't said much when Angela was brought in, just gestured at the board and motioned for her to sit. Evander was somewhere else, probably listening from a vent or watching through the hidden cameras Angela had already learned to stop glancing at.

She reached for a pawn.

"White moves first," Eleanor said flatly.

Angela looked down. Her pieces were black.

Of course.

She waited as Eleanor picked up a white knight and moved it forward, not the traditional e4 pawn opening, Angela noticed that.

"You play?" Eleanor asked, not looking up.

"I've read the rules," Angela said. "Watched games when the nuns let us crowd around the TV. Once a month."

Eleanor's lips curved slightly. "Rules and play aren't the same."

Angela moved her pawn. They continued like that for a while, no talk, just moves. Eleanor wasn't aggressive, but she wasn't lazy either. Her pieces spread like water. Angela responded conservatively, choosing not to sacrifice unless she could trade. She didn't want to play like a child. She wanted to be taken seriously. She always did.

"You're not bad," Eleanor said, tilting her head. "You don't rush. That's rare."

Angela didn't answer. Eleanor's bishop took one of Angela's pawns.

Angela stared at the board, then up at Eleanor. "This isn't about chess."

"No," Eleanor said. "It's about patterns."

Angela blinked. "What kind of patterns?"

"The kind you hide even from yourself."

Angela's throat went tight. She didn't know why.

Eleanor folded her arms. "Let's say the board is your life. Each piece is something you can control: speech, silence, speed, stillness. You've learned to move things carefully. To control risk."

Angela said nothing.

"But there's always one move," Eleanor continued, "that you fear someone else will make before you. That fear—it's not obvious, not even to you. It lives between the moves."

Angela frowned slightly. "You're saying... I'm playing to survive."

Eleanor nodded. "But you don't know what you're surviving from, do you?"

Angela opened her mouth. Closed it. A flush of something, heat, or shame, rose in her chest. She wasn't used to this kind of silence. Not heavy and slow like molasses. Not from Eleanor.

"You want me to say I'm scared," Angela said softly.

"No," Eleanor replied. "I want you to discover what you're scared of."

Angela swallowed. Eleanor stood and walked behind her, quiet as a shadow. Then she spoke, low and near Angela's ear. "Tell me, if this game were real... what would you protect?"

Angela looked at the board again. "The king."

"Wrong," Eleanor whispered. "You protect the queen."

Angela hesitated. She didn't understand, was that wrong too? But Eleanor wasn't teaching her to win. She was teaching her to think about loss.

"You don't flinch from pain," Eleanor said. "You didn't scream when Evander bloodied your palms. You didn't cry when we put you in the trap room."

Angela's fingers curled around a rook. "So?"

"So what makes you break, Angela?"

Angela didn't know. And that terrified her.

Eleanor walked around and sat again. "When you were little," she said casually, "do you remember a time someone tried to take something from you?"

Angela stared. Not a memory, too sharp. A flash. A pair of hands grabbing the rag doll the nuns had told her she didn't deserve. It was the only thing she hadn't stolen. She'd made it herself, from scraps.

"I made her," Angela said before she realized she was speaking.

Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"The doll."

"What happened to her?"

Angela's voice was very quiet. "They took her. One of the older girls. She said... she needed it more."

"Did you get her back?"

Angela shook her head. Her knuckles were white around the rook.

Eleanor leaned forward. "That's it. You don't fear death. You don't fear pain. You fear being stolen from. You fear helplessness."

Angela dropped the piece. It hit the board and rolled.

It made sense in a horrible, locked-room kind of way. The way she was obsessed with knowing. With seeing ahead. With cataloging movements, reading lips, memorizing exits. The way she had to be prepared.

Even now, at eight years old, the fear wasn't that Eleanor might kill her—it was that Eleanor might see too far inside. Might take something she couldn't get back. Eleanor's smile was slow. Not cruel, pleased.

"I win," she said.

Angela looked up. "How?"

"You told me a fear you didn't even know you had."

Angela breathed out. She hadn't realized she'd been holding it.

"But here's your prize," Eleanor said. She opened a small black box and pushed it across the table. Inside: a carved wooden queen, small enough to fit in a palm. The same shape as the one on the board, but hollow, a tiny latch built into the base.

"What's inside?" Angela asked.

"That's your next lesson," Eleanor said. "Figure it out without breaking it."

Angela picked it up. It was smooth and cool.

Eleanor rose. "This wasn't just a game, Angela. It was a map. You just learned where your border is."

Angela nodded slowly. She didn't smile. But she understood something now, about Eleanor, about herself. Not every game was about victory. Some were about what survived when you lost.