Phillis did keep it short, which made Ty more suspicious than grateful.
The knights came first. The board pressed their shape into his hand: broken angles, sudden reach, a path no straight line could block. When fed, they left danger behind them and arrived with enough force to punish anything standing too close.
Ty looked at the two crouched pieces on his back row. Their mounts were not horses, not really. They had the lean shape of animals built from black bone and heat, but their hooves did not strike the board. They hovered a finger above it, waiting for permission to make the rules bend.
"They do not move like soldiers who trust roads."
"They move like problems that refuse straight answers," Phillis answered.
"That is the first useful thing you have said."
"You asked for short, not gentle or comforting."
