Checkmate

The word hung in the air like a blade. 

Caius hadn’t come to the gardens expecting defeat, least of all at the hands of a woman. Yet there it was—your knight’s final, merciless advance, your bishop’s razor-edged pivot, your queen’s coup de grâce. His own pieces lay scattered like fallen soldiers. Checkmate. 

His fingers twitched. Part of him wanted to flip the board, to watch you flinch as ivory shattered against marble. Another part—cold, calculating—thrummed with something perilously close to admiration. No advisor, no rival prince, had ever cornered him so utterly. 

"It seems I have been bested."

He leaned back, exhaling through a chuckle, but his gaze sharpened as it met yours. You didn’t gloat. Simply watched. Serene as a cat with a mouse between its paws. 

Perfect. 

If you could dismantle a king on a chessboard, what might you do to one on a throne? 

"I admit my defeat," he murmured, —and my interest, he didn’t add.