The hotel room was suffocating.
Alexei stood in front of the mirror, shirt half-buttoned, face hollow. On the television behind him, commentators dissected his latest defeat — brutal, surgical. They were no longer surprised when he lost. They expected it.
"He keeps trying that cursed line. It's outdated. Broken."
The words echoed in his skull like a taunt from within. He grabbed the remote and hurled it across the room, shattering the silence — and the screen.
The forbidden line.
The same line that had once made him a legend-in-the-making now chained him to every defeat. Rivals had studied it, reversed it, shattered it. They used it against him — his line — as if mocking his genius.
His fingers shook as he opened the worn notebook — Tal's notebook — the one he'd kept hidden all these years. The page was still marked where that line began: a dazzling sacrifice of a knight, followed by a storm of unpredictable moves.
Alexei's breath grew short. His knees gave out as he fell to the floor beside the chessboard. He shoved the pieces onto the board — rough, unarranged — trying to relive that line, searching for answers, forgiveness.
"I ruined it," he whispered to no one. "I made your magic look foolish…"
Tears burned hot down his cheeks. He pressed his forehead against the board.
"I didn't deserve it, Tal. I don't know who I am without it."
Silence.
Then — the room dimmed.
The bulb above flickered twice. The torchlight from his childhood chess nights buzzed back to life.
Alexei didn't dare look up.
The air shifted, thick with memory, electricity, and the ghost of sacrifice. He could hear faint tapping — a knight gently falling onto d5. Then… the sound of breathing, not his own.
"You're not broken," said a voice from behind, soft as a whisper yet clear as thunder.
Alexei turned.
Tal stood in the doorway, eyes shadowed, but aglow with a strange warmth.
"You've only been playing half the game."
"What do you mean?" Alexei choked.
Tal walked forward, kneeling by the board. He began moving the pieces — slow, thoughtful. The line reappeared, but this time, there were subtle shifts. Lines Alexei had never considered. Defensive geometry hidden beneath aggression.
"A true sacrifice," Tal said, "is not about destruction. It's about understanding what must be given… to create something more."
Alexei watched as the final move landed with an almost sacred click.
A new position. Balanced. Unbreakable.
"Now," Tal said, rising into the flickering light, "you're ready for the real game."
The Redemption Game
The crowd was hushed. Not silent—just... waiting.
Alexei stepped into the grand hall of the Continental Masters Tournament, now eighteen, his name still whispered like a memory that had dulled. The former prodigy. The boy who burned too bright, too fast.
He could feel the eyes. Some were curious. Some sympathetic. Others bored.
But none of them knew.
He wasn't the same Alexei.
He sat across from his opponent — the reigning champion, Viktor Larenko. A brutal tactician. The kind of player who feasted on broken legends.
The pieces were set. The clock clicked.
And Alexei… opened with the forbidden line.
Gasps rippled through the spectators. Analysts stared wide-eyed at the monitors. The crowd murmured. "Not again…"
Viktor's lips curled in a knowing smirk. He dove in confidently, following the path that had led many to victory against Alexei in the past.
But then—
Alexei deviated.
Not wildly. Subtly. A single bishop's retreat. A pawn left untouched. Moves so quiet they whispered.
Viktor hesitated.
And the board changed.
What once was overused, cracked, and exposed, now coiled like a serpent, deceptive and alive. Every time Viktor thought he saw an opening, Alexei closed it, reshaped it — not aggressively, but artfully. Calculated, patient, precise.
He had learned to listen to the silence between the moves.
The match reached a crescendo. Sacrifices were made — bold, but never reckless. Pieces fell. But it was purposeful, no longer flamboyant for the sake of awe.
Alexei's final move came not with a roar, but with the softest click.
Checkmate.
The crowd stood.
Stunned.
It wasn't the dazzling brilliance of the prodigy they remembered.
It was something better: the maturity of a master reborn through pain, reflection, and fire.
As Viktor extended his hand, stunned and smiling, Alexei glanced up at the ceiling lights
In their flickering reflection, for just a breath of a second, a shadowed figure watched from above — arms folded, smiling with eyes full of sacrifice.
Tal was there.
And somewhere deep in the hum of the lights, Alexei could almost hear him whisper:
"Now, this is how you play with fire."