Did she still love her children? Was there some vestige of a desire to give them the best of everything? Where was the urge to hold them and soothe away their fears when they had nightmares? Or were these things forever lost to her?

It had to be that way, though. Otherwise, she would not have had the strength to do what was best for them all.

Audrey shifted her focus to the game. It was a study on the forms of combat, on strategies and death, a metaphor on the families and their never-ending politics. They called the game Towers.

Audrey smoothed the rumpled leather mat and ran her fingers over the lines that radiated from the center, around the circles that divided the space into four tiers. Slaves (or their modern equivalent, Pawns) sat on the outer edge. Warriors took the second tier. Princes collected near the nexus of power on the third tier. The Master sat in the center space. Rings about rings. Rings of power and love and deception and regret.

She and Cecilia divided the stone cubes and took alternating turns, selecting their starting positions along their respective inner areas.

Much of the game was decided by this deceptively simple planning stage. Good players could tell how their game would end from such opening moves. One could set up near an opponent’s boundary, preparing for an aggressive rush. Or they could set up in the back regions and strategize to take the center-a longer game of dominance and subtlety.

Like the twins. How things went today at school would very much affect their endgame.

Cecilia set up on Audrey’s boundary. In response, Audrey placed only a few weak defenders to counter her and concentrated her efforts on the longer back-region game.

Cee immediately took one of Audrey’s border guards. “I am worried about their father,” she said, a smug smile appearing on her face as she removed Audrey’s piece.

“There has been no word from him,” Audrey replied.