The Black Rook

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The roar of the crowd is a physical blow. The stench of unwashed bodies and spilled ale is a</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>stench that suffocates thought. For Marcus the world of the fighting pit is a sensory assault a</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>language of chaos he cannot speak. To survive it his mind does something remarkable.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>It fractures.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The chaotic leering faces of the mob blur their individual features smoothing away until they</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>are nothing but identical carved pieces. The blood-soaked floor resolves into a perfect grid of</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>sixty-four squares the lines sharp and impossibly straight. The roaring fades into a binary state:</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>the white noise of approval the black silence of disapproval.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>He is on the board.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>This is his fortress the only sanctuary he has ever known a world of cold clean logic where</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>everything has a rule. In this silent internal game he is not a frightened boy. He is a Rook: an</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>unfeeling piece of iron moving in a straight predictable line.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>But his private war is interrupted by a master player who sees not a piece but a weapon.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Trafficked from his brutal but structured world by the ruthless Commander Felcher Marcus is</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>thrust into a new game played in the shadows of the court. It is a world without a grid a war of</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>unspoken rules shifting loyalties and subtle deceptions his rigid mind cannot process.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Now the mental fortress that was his salvation has become his prison. To serve his new master</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The Rook must learn to navigate a board of infinite terrifying complexity... or shatter completely.</span></p>