Stealing Sorcery by Andrew Rowe

fine red dress trimmed with gold, her hair raised into an elegant display. She looked less like a woman in mourning and more like a lady prepared to attend a courtly ball.
    In her right hand, Baroness Theas held a mostly full glass of wine by the stem. The bottle on the table next to her, however, was quite nearly empty.
    Nedelya did not turn toward Lydia as the sorceress approached. Instead, she silently stared out over the nearby railing. The sorceress glanced at the nearby house guard, but he simply shrugged. Lydia stepped closer, looking over the railing and finding the source of Nedelya’s distraction – a familiar pair sitting at a similar table in the gardens below.
    Aladir and Nakane seemed oblivious to their observation, staring in rapt concentration at the game board in front of them. Lydia squinted, trying to make out the details of the individual pieces. The game was Crowns, a popular war game among the local nobility. It was asymmetrical, with each player selecting an army that represented a particular faction, such as the armies of a city or an organization like the Paladins of Tae’os.
    “She must like him,” Nedelya noted without shifting her gaze. “Nakane almost never lets anyone win.”
    Lydia tilted her head to the side, trying to get a better angle to look at the board. Aladir’s pieces were bright blue, and she noted several archers on his side of the board. Nakane’s pieces were red, but with orange highlights rather than the gold of House Theas. They appeared to have an equal number of troops still in play, but Aladir’s archers had the high ground, giving them the range they needed to fire on Nakane’s sorcerers.
    “Perhaps she’s just distracted, given everything your family has been going through.”
    Nedelya just shook her head. “Nakane is never distracted, my dear. Do you see how she clenches her jaw as she moves that paladin? She knows she is making the wrong move, extending herself needlessly. Aladir knows this as well – that is why he is smiling.”
    Lydia leaned out over the railing, watching the pair play. It was only after several minutes of watching that she grew certain of what she suspected.
    Aladir is deliberately making suboptimal moves, too.
    But, unlike Nakane, he never stopped smiling.
    “Do you play, dear?”
    Lydia glanced to her right and saw that Nedelya was finally looking directly at her.
    “No, Baroness. It’s not an accurate depiction of military tactics, and thus I’ve never found it useful.”
    The baroness took another sip of her wine, frowning. “I don’t believe most people play because they are making a study of tactics, Miss Hastings. I believe they find it enjoyable.”
    “Hm.” Lydia pushed up her glasses, which had been slipping down her nose while she leaned against the railing. “Do you play, then, baroness?”
    Nedelya chuckled lightly, raising two fingers to her lips. “Of course not, darling. Crowns is not a lady’s game.”
    The baroness turned her head, looking back over the railing. “Nakane, unfortunately, has never been much of a lady. She has always taken more after her father.”
    I’m not sure how to respond to that in a way that would not be insulting to someone. “She seems to be very talented.”
    “Yes,” the baroness nodded. “She plays each game on several different levels.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Baroness Theas momentarily shut her eyes, and then waved her wine glass over the railing. “She plays a friendly game with the son of a man who may have murdered her brother. In playing, she chooses the armies of Blake Hartigan, her father’s greatest rival – and then allows herself to lose to the pieces of House Dianis, skillfully chosen by Aladir as a logical army to counter her own.”
    Lydia frowned. Is she testing Aladir somehow? “Why is she playing the game that way?”
    Nedelya fluttered her eyes, forming a slight smile. “I haven’t the faintest idea, my dear. I don’t play Crowns.”
    ***
    It was