Opening — Deborah Blouet

We believe we know our history. We believe myths are just fantasy. We believe we are in charge of our own destiny. But only two things are certain. We all start as Pawns and we all die eventually. Thousands of years ago and far away, a planet called Olympus was dying. Its inhabitants, shape-shifting beings, set out to find somewhere else to live and found Earth. Humans named them gods, but these gods fought continually between themselves and so Zeus, their king, invented tournaments to stop the bloodshed. Over time the tournaments transformed into a complex game involving many people. The gods drafted humans to fight and sacrificed them in order to win. The game was named chess and humans devised a way to learn it by using a chequered board. As centuries passed, humans grew in numbers and the gods became a myth. But they never stopped playing their game or using humans. Seventeen years ago the goddess Demeter fell in love with a human, Captain John Mcburney, while fighting in a game together. They had a forbidden child, Iris, and fearing for her life they abandoned her with John's sister. Dreaming every night of a shape-shifting horse god called Arion, Iris grew up knowing she was different but not knowing why. Now at sixteen Iris runs away, meets Arion and learns from him who she really is. He takes her to a racing stables in Wales where he is in training for a race, and she gains employment working for the grumpy trainer. Iris helps Arion prepare for his race, which he must win in order for their side to advance in the new game. However the Olympian gods have discovered Iris and enter her in to it. She now has only a short time to learn all about the Game of the Gods.