“I had no control of myself!”
“What about when you first abducted me away from Jack all those months ago? Or when you stabbed my picture? You hated me back then, and it had nothing to do with Paul!”
“Sievā, I am so—”
“Evie!” I shot to my feet. “My name is Evie. But you don’t call me that, because I’m interchangeable with the other Empresses, right? The names change, but the evil bitch remains the same? Then watch this evil bitch go take care of business.”
“I call you wife. I am proud and humbled to do so.”
“And I liked that, but can’t I be more than either a wife or an enemy? Because right now I’m not fitting into either box you want to stuff me into!”
“I do not wish to do that.” In a voice laden with regret, he said, “I only wish to make amends, to make things right between us once more.”
His patience just stoked my fury. My God, pregnancy emotions were crazy. I couldn’t catch my breath, felt like I was spinning around on Tess’s carousel. Faster. Faster. Until I’d be flung out into nothing. “Amends? What if you can’t make up for what’s happened? What if we’ve lost too much?” Why hadn’t Tee moved again? I clutched my stomach. Damn it, kid, do something. “I can’t handle this! I just can’t—”
“Hey, now.” Jack hurried inside, striding between us. “Let’s save some fight for the days ahead.”
“Being in this place makes me remember things. Like licking an empty cat-food can while talking to him.” I pointed accusingly at Aric. “Or Kentarch trying to feed me his blood. I should’ve tried to drink it. If not for me, then for . . .” My voice cracked.
Was I even expecting a kid anymore? Just like that, I burst into tears.
Jack pulled me into his arms. I could feel him waving Death away behind my back.
In a rasp, Aric said, “Please forgive me.” His spurs were silent as he left the cave.
45
Death
I paced outside, sucking in lungfuls of air. The weight of a meteor rested on my chest. It must be that—my heart couldn’t pain me this much otherwise.
I could hear my wife sobbing in the mortal’s arms. Yet I could do nothing to comfort her. When we’d spoken on the phone, she’d predicted that the guilt would torture me.
It does.
I heard Deveaux murmur, “Shh, I got you.”
Fists clenched, I stared at the sky. She’d once told me that he used to say that to her. Jealousy warred with despondency.
“Bébé,” he continued in a hushed tone, “you might’ve caught a touch of PTSD. Not surprising, non? But remember, there’s nothing we can’t get through as long as we’re together.”
I flinched at that, cursing my enhanced hearing.
“Just breathe,” he told her. “That’s it, ma bonne fille.”
“I-I can’t do this anymore.”
“If you can’t be here, then let’s go. I’ll take you anywhere you want.” I half expected Deveaux to walk out and tell me the two of them were setting off: Au revoir, Reaper.
She cried, “Y-you know where I want to go. To confront Paul. You t-told me if I could show you some powers, you would support me. I killed all the Cups.” She cried harder at that.
How much more violence and grief could she be expected to suffer? I’d concluded that she’d been through too much trauma even before the Hanged Man had woven his insidious web.
He was my kill to make. And yet, I couldn’t. After being in control for millennia, I could do nothing but endure this misery, lest I get taken in by that sphere once more.
The mortal was right—I was the biggest threat to them.
“Shh, shh, calme-toi. You got to breathe.”
After all her trials, being near me while in that cave had pushed her past some limit that I’d never known existed.
She’d sent me awash in the scent of her deadly roses. Maybe she would poison me in my sleep. I deserved nothing less.
The day she’d fled the castle, I’d taken all of my rage combined through the ages, and I’d afflicted her with it.
Of my many past sins, that pained me most—and I’d been a murderous son. I put my head in my hands and squeezed.
So many sins. I’d left her unprotected against Ogen, her powers bound by the cilice. She’d nearly died in the grip of that devil—my ally! I’d kept Paul in the castle, despite her doubts, despite her pregnancy. While Deveaux kept trying to shoulder every burden for her, I’d let her grandmother’s killer live in our home.
I hadn’t trusted my wife’s judgment when she’d needed me most.
I gazed back at the cave where she’d nearly starved. On the phone, she’d pleaded with me to come home, and I’d laughed. Home? Do you mean my castle?
If Deveaux hadn’t come along, my wife and son would be dead. The babe might be even now. And how could she weather that? With me as a reminder of our bloody history? Or with Deveaux’s understanding?
What right did I have to her? What if this had always been her story with Jackson Deveaux, and I truly was the villain?
46
The Empress
Day 585 A.F.
A blur of movement outside of the truck caught my eye just as Jack and Aric both tensed. I straightened in my seat between them. “What was that?”
We’d been riding in silence since we’d left the cave. I was mortified by my breakdown. I usually handled my business better than that. And what was the point of my fury? I couldn’t possibly punish Aric more than he was punishing himself.
He frowned, his eyes bloodshot. “A Bagman in a hurry.” I wondered when Aric had last slept.
Last night, even the fire hadn’t been enough to keep me warm, so Jack had climbed into my sleeping bag. I’d been dozing off when Aric had finally returned, hours after he’d left. Though nothing had happened between me and Jack, Aric had sat on the other side of the fire and met my gaze with pure anguish in his expression.
“Up ahead.” Jack grabbed his bow from the backseat. “Three o’clock.”
When Aric braked, I squinted into the snowy dark. Dozens of Bagmen swarmed along the roadside. Why had they gathered?
“My gods,” Aric muttered, just as I caught sight of their meal.
A white horse. Thanatos.
He lay on his side in the bloody snow—but was still moving!
Aric slammed the truck into park, then leaped out. He drew his swords with a yell. Metal flashed in the headlights; Bagger heads and entrails went flying.
Once Aric had cleared the way and we saw what remained, Jack breathed, “Jesus.”
I put my hand over my mouth. Thanatos’s red eyes were crazed with fear and pain, his legs nothing more than bloody stumps pawing the air. His black armor had been torn away, chunks of skin missing from his flesh. Bite marks told a horror story—hours of torment.
“Is that horse immortal like Domīnija?”
“No. Any horse that he claims as his own is mystically connected to him, but not immortal.” Still, Thanatos had survived so much that I’d thought of him as deathless. “Aric’s going to have to put him down.”
“Stay here.” Jack hurried from the truck to join Aric.
Ignoring him, I followed.
Aric had dropped to his knees beside Thanatos. “Whoa, stallion. Rest easy.” His gaze held Thanatos’s, which seemed to calm the horse, easing its wild-eyed movements. “I’m here. I will make the pain end.” As he soothingly stroked a narrow swath of unbitten flesh, Aric clenched his other fist.
I sidled closer to them. “What about Lark? You could use her powers,” I said, even as I pictured how vacant-eyed that sparrow had looked.
“Never,” he rasped. “Never that. He’s earned his rest. He’s earned far more than I gave him at this bitter end. I left him half-dead with threats lurking all around.”
“Then let me help. I can make it painless. He’ll just go to sleep.”
“We’ll be within striking distance of the castle tomorrow. You can’t spare an ounce of your po
wer if you’re still bent on the same plan.”
“I am.”
“Then I will end this.” Aric placed the tip of one sword against the steed’s chest. To Thanatos, he whispered, “Good-bye, my old friend. Rest well.” Aric plunged the sword.
The horse shrieked, and I could have sworn Thanatos looked . . . betrayed. Was he wondering why his golden-haired knight would forsake him? After all his unending service?
Thanatos’s red eyes flickered. Once. Twice.
They closed forever.
Aric’s stoic façade never faltered, but I could sense his utter agony. He must be drowning in guilt and grief.
I put my hand on his armored shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
He inclined his head, couldn’t seem to find words.
Jack said, “I’ll help you bury him. Evie, it’s too cold for you out here.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“We doan know if more Baggers will smell the blood.”
Aric absently said, “It isn’t safe.”
Jack squired me back to the truck, then helped me into the cab. Under his breath, he said, “Let him grieve without having to be in protection mode.” He was right.
“Okay. I will.”
Jack closed the door behind him. After fetching a shovel from the nearly-full truck bed, he secured a burial spot.
From their body language, I could tell Aric insisted on digging the grave, no doubt wanting to punish himself.
As he buried his horse, Jack stowed the tackle, armor, and saddlebags among the many boxes he’d loaded up from the cave. Joining me inside the truck, he pulled his flask from his coat. At the rim, he said, “Thought I’d give the Reaper some space too.”
I nodded. “He shared a bond with Thanatos for longer than I’ve been alive. On his card, Death is astride a stallion. Now he’s a knight with no steed.” Death was incomplete. “Aric loved that horse, yet he ran him into the ground and didn’t even spare a sword strike to euthanize him.”
“Which means the Reaper was out of his head to reach you.” Another swig. “Damn him.”
“Damn him,” I echoed.
“So much harder to hate him.”
“Welcome to my world.”
“What are we goan to do with him?”
“Hell if I know. But I don’t want to hurt him anymore.” I deeply regretted flying off the handle in the cave. “He must have already been crumbling inside because of what he did to me, and then I piled it on last night. Now this.”
“It’s not your fault. You’ve been through a lot. You’re doing the best you can in a shit situation.”
“It’s worse than you think. Jack, when Aric’s powers first manifested, he accidentally killed innocent people—including his parents. His mom was pregnant at the time.”
Jack swore low.
“For him to have come so close to ending me and Tee . . .” I trailed off when Aric turned toward us, trudging back.
His eyes were dim and glinting, his shoulders heavy.
Jack muttered, “Never thought I’d say this, but il tombe en botte. The Reaper is falling to ruin.”
When Aric rejoined us, he had a frozen track down his cheek. A tear.
Oh, Aric. The pain I felt convinced me that I was still as deeply in love with him as I’d ever been.
Did that mean I was right back where I’d started with both of them? Without thought, I placed my hand on his cheek and gave him a sympathetic expression.
In a pained tone, he rasped, “A touch and a soft look. I am felled.”
Jack tensed beside me, breaking the spell.
47
Day 586 A.F.
I couldn’t believe I’d agreed to come to this place.
As the truck meandered up the snowy drive to the cabin where Aric and I had first had sex, emotions churned inside me.
Yes, it was strategically located with a generator, a small kitchen, and running water. We would be able to grab a shower and cook some of the food we’d transported from the cave. For the first time in months, I’d have a real bed to sleep in.
But the cabin also held way too many memories.
When Aric had first suggested it, I’d said, “It’s less than a day’s drive from the castle. How close will the sphere be?”
“Some distance away. And that haze might even have contracted with my absence.” Over the long drive, Aric had seemed to bury his grief over Thanatos, at one point saying, You live. That’s what matters. But he was still running on empty.
“Or not. Aric, the risk . . .”
“Sievā, I will never be taken by it again.”
He and Jack had both looked exhausted, so I’d acquiesced, even while wondering if I could handle what this place meant to me.
Aric parked in front. The cabin was built into the side of a mountain with a nearby stable. The last time I’d ridden here, Thanatos had been inside.
The enormous satellite dish came into view, illuminated by the continual lightning overhead. Were pieces of my clothing still littered around the base?
“Look at that dish!” Jack exclaimed. “Does it work?”
“Alas, it does not.” Catching my gaze, Aric murmured, “A hailstorm damaged it beyond repair.”
My cheeks heated. His face was flushed as well. So we were both replaying the details of that night?
Tee had probably been conceived here. Had Aric put that together? When his attention dipped to my belly, I had my answer.
Jack climbed out, bow at the ready. As he helped me down, I couldn’t meet his gaze. Coming here had been a mistake.
Outside of the cabin, I was about to voice more opposition, but Aric said, “It’s safe here. It’s comfortable. Battle comes tomorrow, and this is a strategic point of departure. Allow me to enter first and ensure that no one—or thing—has taken up residence.”
My wide-eyed look told him: Ensure it doesn’t look like a love nest.
A couple of minutes later, Aric gestured from the door, and Jack and I followed him inside. I peeked into the back room. Aric had used his supernatural speed to make the bed and straighten up. He could have flaunted what had gone on here, but he was being a gentleman about it.
If the cave had reminded me of my rage toward Aric, this place reminded me of promises. I vividly recalled the way it had felt to stroke the blond stubble on his defined jaw. The way his lips had covered mine, demanding everything from me. The way he’d tried to explain his feelings—clumsily, because he’d had no experience with things like that.
As he tossed wood into the fireplace, Jack explored the radio equipment on the desk. “How’d you find this place, Reaper?”
“I commissioned the dish and the cabin to be constructed before the Flash.” In moments, he had a fire going. “I suspected communications would fall with the beginning of the game.”
“So you had an alternate site of your own.”
“Yet I foolishly didn’t provision it.”
Jack thumped the copper covering the walls, then turned to inspect the maps of constellations. “How much did something like that dish cost? Millions?” When Aric didn’t deny it, Jack said, “So you were a multimillionaire?”
Shrug.
Perceptive Jack narrowed his eyes. “Billionaire, then?”
“For all the good it’s doing me now.”
“Jesus. Can’t even wrap my head around that much money.”
Aric leaned his armored shoulder against the wall. “I would have given up every penny not to be immortal.”
Jack’s smile was bitter. “You can say that ’cause you’ve never been poor.”
“And you can say that because you’ve never lived forever.”
With a contemplative look, Jack gave a nod, and something seemed to pass between them.
As different as the two men were, they had more than me in common. They shared a rapport that they likely both hated. But it was there, all the same.
God, I loved them both.
Jack turned from the desk. “I’m goan to grab so
me food for us.”
Once the door closed behind him, I said, “Aric, I don’t like this. Coming here feels underhanded. I hate keeping secrets from Jack.”
“I don’t like it either. But this made sense.”
“Still, I—oh!” My eyes went wide. I felt that fluttering inside, stronger than ever. Relief swamped me, and my eyes pricked with tears. Decided to stick around, kid?
“What is it?” Aric hurried beside me.
I peered up at him. “Tee’s kicking. I worried he’d been lost. That was part of the reason I freaked out so bad in the cave.”
“May I?” He tugged off his gauntlet.
I nodded before I’d thought better of it. Aric swallowed with nervousness, then placed his shaking hand on my belly. His amber eyes turned starry with emotion. “I feel him, sievā!” he said in wonder. “I can feel our son. He’s strong.”
As I stared at Aric’s noble face, my glyphs shivered over me, glowing brighter and brighter. That old feeling of unity between us bloomed. I’d missed this so much. I’d missed the life we’d made together. “Strong like his father.”
Jack stood in the doorway, a box of supplies in his hands. His troubled gaze took in the scene.
I drew back with guilt. “Tee kicked. Hard.” After all those nights Jack had patiently waited to feel that . . .
Where’s your head at, Evie?
“Good, good.” Before Jack schooled his expression, I saw his disappointment. He wordlessly began unloading food in the small kitchenette.
I hurried to join his side. “Let me help you.”
He shook off some of his unease, even managing a smile for me. “You sure? Two cooks, and all that?”
“Over the last few weeks, I’ve become really proficient at cooking pasta.”
In a dry tone, he said, “No, bébé, you really haven’t.”
I slapped his chest. “Dick.”
Aric avidly watched this interplay, then excused himself. While Jack and I prepared the meal, he changed from his armor to clothes he’d had in his saddlebags. Customary gloves, of course.
The Dark Calling Page 29
