by Kresley Cole
Aric looked like he wanted to believe me, but didn't quite. Because Arcana lied. "Leave me, Empress."
Though his dismissal stung, I stayed. Even if our relationship had been broken by my choice, we still had an enemy to defeat. "What are you working on?" Papers and books were strewn everywhere. "What happened to the Lovers' chronicles? Is there anything about the Emperor?"
"I'm still translating them."
"As usual, you know more than you're telling me."
He shot his glass, then slammed it down on his desk. "I've been too preoccupied to translate--because I've been living in the goddamned nursery for weeks while urging you to live."
He was right. I parted my lips to apologize, but he said, "Your grandmother is already sowing her seeds of discord. Perhaps I should be on my guard against you once more. Tell me, Empress, was our truce only temporary?"
Ugh! "You know I would never hurt you. I had the chance to inject poison into your neck, but I didn't. I could have killed you with my kiss, but instead I made sure you were protected. At the first sign of trouble with my grandmother, I came to warn you. So why say things like that? To punish me for my choice? That shouldn't have undone the trust we established."
Staring into his empty glass, he said, "Maybe I am punishing you."
As if he hadn't done that enough in this life? "Then you should break out your favorite torture tool: the cilice." I'd never forget the pain of that barbed cuff and the frustration of having no powers. Then cutting the thing off . . . "I'll bet it still has pieces of my skin on it."
He raised his face, an unsettling resentment in his eyes. "Perhaps I've made a choice to be cruel to you. If you don't like it, you should stay away from me."
I rose and turned to go. Over my shoulder, I said, "Go to hell, Aric."
"Already here, wife."
27
I lay in bed replaying my entire weird day, but especially my interaction with Aric. After leaving his study, I'd curled up under the covers, hating that he was in pain. I hated that we'd fought.
Most women and men who shared a romantic history had difficulties to contend with. Sometimes an ugly breakup. Possibly lies. Maybe a betrayal.
He and I had millennia of bad blood--and murder.
Even if I didn't dance on the razor's edge over Jack's death, I didn't see how Aric and I could overcome so much to mend the connection we'd once shared.
Or that we even should. The game demands blood. Would I get him killed as well?
Uneasy and alone, I finally drifted off to sleep . . . into a dream so vivid, I knew it was a memory from a previous life. I was the Empress known as Phyta.
"Are you certain the Empress is asleep?" the Magician asks Fauna.
The two Arcana are meeting again, beneath the moonlight--in my garden. Fauna believes she has nothing to fear from me.
She tells the boy, "Phyta sleeps."
Not so. I regard them from my balcony. As I have for the last three nights.
He whips his head around at a noise. "What was that?" His eyes dart.
"The Empress moves her vines as she dreams."
In a wry tone, he says, "I believe that is the most disturbing thing I've ever heard."
I also move my vines on purpose, so an Arcana like Fauna will ignore any sounds I might make up here. Her hearing is remarkable, as is her sense of smell.
Fauna would surely scent my presence--if she and the Magician didn't meet among my flowers.
She smiles at the boy. "And do my creatures also disturb you? Or my fangs?"
He casts her a mischievous grin. "Why would I be disturbed? I adore your fangs. And all of your creatures adore me."
The boy has shown a surprising lack of fear of her lions. The great beasts laze among my plants, their muzzles still stained with blood from an earlier kill. They'd taken out a band of the Hierophant's demented followers.
Fauna shyly says, "I adore your illusions."
The Magician conjures a ball of light above them, then shapes it into an infinity symbol: an unbroken line that stretches through eternity--and back on itself.
Fauna is duly impressed. The light reflects in her eyes.
He turns to her and brushes his fingers over her cheek.
Are they in love? How does one know? If love has moved them to be so careless, it seems a dangerous emotion.
He leans in, catching her gaze, just before he presses his lips to hers.
I tilt my head, running the pad of my forefinger over my lips. What does kissing feel like? By the sound of her sighs and his groans, it must be heavenly.
For some reason, my last meeting with the Reaper dances in my thoughts. He continues to trail me through this game. Observing, watching, lying in wait, no doubt. Why is his attention so fixed upon me? Because he is Death and I am life?
What would it be like to kiss him? I shiver, and my heart starts racing, which shames me. He is my worst enemy, can kill with his very skin. Despite his godlike looks, he's a monster who proudly wields his Touch of Death. . . .
Even if he could kiss me, it wouldn't last long--for I would expel poison through my lips to end him.
Fauna draws back, then she and the Magician sit forehead to forehead, catching their breath.
He says, "I want you to run away with me."
I roll my eyes. This has gone on long enough. I shall have to kill Fauna and her admirer sooner than I'd anticipated. . . .
I woke with a cry, my eyes darting.
Cyclops was in the bed again. He glanced up, but I couldn't meet the wolf's gaze.
Oh, just remembering how I planned to kill your mistress. No big deal. How casual I'd been when deciding to murder a young couple.
They'd had no idea that some evil force plotted to punish them because they'd dared to fall in love--and to want out of the game.
As I lay in the dark centuries later, I couldn't help drawing parallels to my own life--and to any future I might imagine with Aric.
28
Day 432 A.F.
I'd buried myself in the chronicles, uncovering one secret after another. Shocking, gut-wrenching secrets.
Each day over the past week, I'd headed to Gran's room to read. Naturally, she wouldn't allow me to take the book anywhere else. But to guard it when I wasn't around, she actually . . . slept with it in her bed.
Now I gazed over at her. She'd nodded off again after dinner. She was sleeping more and more, but eating less. While all my injuries had healed, she continued to deteriorate. Yet no matter how much I'd pleaded, she wouldn't let Paul examine her, insisting she would rally.
Though I no longer believed her, I refused to think about her dying. . . .
When she and I weren't discussing the book--everything from the section on Minor Arcana to the pros/cons of my last alliances--I read on my own.
I knew more than I'd thought about the players just from my own encounters with them, but the book held so many surprises.
With each one, I would muse, Jack will think this is cool. Then I would remember. He'd been murdered.
Jack and I had marveled at the snow.
The temperature continued to drop. Soon the rain would turn to snow again. I thought I'd lose it then. The tourniquet would snap, my heart would swell, and I'd bleed out in the white.
For now, I would strangle the pain and keep studying my chronicles.
I'd also begun editing and updating the book. I'd added details from my vision-dreams and recorded battles from this game. I'd even illustrated certain plants. The process was slow going, but I didn't have anything else to do.
Aric avoided me, seeming as if he could barely stand to look at me. We hadn't spoken since our fight, and I hated how we'd left things.
Did he miss me at all?
I missed him, had begun to dream about him more and more. I missed simply visiting with him--discussing books and playing cards, sharing meals together. When things had been good between us, I'd loved every second with him, panicking whenever he'd ventured out into the dangero
us world.
I hadn't spoken to Lark either. She hunted for Finn--and Richter--with the single-minded focus her card was named for, running Scarface, the falcon, and a team of other creatures ragged out in the Ash. She kept Cyclops on the property as her weapon (though he slept with me), and Maneater remained--because the she-wolf was pregnant.
A lot of creatures were. Lark's animals were breeding like crazy. . . .
I'd headed down to the river a few times seeking Circe, but she hadn't answered. Was she avoiding me as well? Too busy replaying my betrayals?
I knew I'd been evil; the chronicles told me I was in good company.
Two games ago, the Emperor had captured me and tortured me for months. He'd burned away my limbs with his lava hands, keeping me weakened until he'd finally taken my head.
Had Sol been about to deliver me to a similar fate?
In another game, Ogen had dunked me in a river, toying with me, robbing me of air. Though I lasted longer than most, I could drown to death. Before he finished me, Circe had pulled him down to the deep.
In this game, Ogen had been afraid of water. Maybe he'd retained some animal memory of Circe's reach.
In a battle against Joules and Gabriel (allies even then), the Lord of Lightning had blasted my oaks to splinters, then speared me in the heart with one of his javelins. While I'd been stunned, Gabriel had taken to the air, dropping burning oil on me and my plants.
I'd been seconds from dying when Fauna's lions had dragged me from the flames.
Joules and Gabriel hadn't yet known that I--and my trees--could regenerate. In the end, my oaks and my thorn tornado had defeated those two. Unless something had been skewed in translation--let's hope--I was pretty sure I'd desecrated their corpses.
And I might have hung Gabriel's silken black wings over my hearth.
I was like the movie monster that never died, returning for more jump scares. Beheading was the only way to be sure.
Regeneration was a handy ability to have, but others' powers were just as enviable.
The Fury possessed batlike wings that changed color like a chameleon's skin, camouflaging her. An Arcana could be walking along, unaware that she stalked him--until a shower of acid rained down.
The Emperor could travel via his lava--riding it like a wave.
When the teleporting Centurion became intangible, no offensive strike would work against him for as long as his powers held out. I'd managed to kill him once before, by stumbling upon a battle already in progress. Just as his reserves hit empty, I'd launched my thorn tornado, scouring his body down to the bones.
Fauna had the ability to revive all animals, and not merely her connected familiars. In the same way that my blood seeded plants, her blood could reanimate a creature, bringing a bird back from a feather or a bull from a fragment of horn.
Did Lark know about her animal resurrection power? Did Aric know? When was I going to tell them?
The book, with its constant tales of treachery, was making me nearly as paranoid as Gran. Aric's distance wasn't helping. I understood why he avoided me, but I didn't want this rift between us to widen--for more than one reason.
An ominous feeling had descended over the castle of lost time. I got the sense that something big was coming down the pipeline. Something in addition to the Richter threat or Gran's failing health. But what??
If we weren't a united front . . .
The Fool had told me that things would happen beyond my wildest imaginings. I no longer thought they'd be positive things.
Biting my lip, I returned my attention to the book. The next section was titled "Setting Moon." Sometimes as I read, I would look up from the page in a trance, remembering a certain battle or day. Now I recalled Circe and me relaxing in the middle of my fortress of plants--my "green killers," as she'd called them. A river had circled us protectively. We'd been laughing about something. . . .
An arrow sped through my vines, hitting the tree inches from Circe's head.
She and I leapt up and whirled around.
Atop a distant hill stood a girl with silvery hair, a bow, and a quiver. Her tableau revealed her to be the Moon. She called out, "I could have killed the Priestess." Indeed. Somehow the Moon's arrow had perfectly threaded my vines. "I did not, because I want to be a part of your alliance."
Circe and I met gazes, smiling at each other.
"She is bold," I said. My vines slithered like snakes.
Circe's river thrummed with power, gathering to strike. "Normally we might reward such daring . . ."
". . . but not today," I finished for her.
We'd killed the Moon. Circe had gotten her icon.
No wonder Selena hadn't trusted me! No wonder she'd been shocked when I'd faced off against the Lovers, hell-bent on rescuing her.
I'd never known how much she'd overcome to be my friend. I narrowed my eyes, my glyphs glowing. Matthew could have told me. Circe could have. She treated me like I was some vicious backstabber; she'd been just as bad.
Whenever she finally deigned to talk to me, I was going to give her a piece of my mind! Not that I had much left to give--
"This is what I've wanted to see," Gran said from her bed. She rubbed her eyes, shaking off sleep.
"What?" I closed the book and set it away.
"Your anger." With difficulty, she sat up against the headboard, and I hurried over to help her. "Did you read about a double cross?"
"Not exactly." I sank down on the edge of the bed.
"Do you dream about past games?" At my nod, she said, "So the Fool transferred your memories."
"Yes. But they come slowly." I frowned. "Why would he have done that?"
"Not as a kindness to you, I promise. The Fool must believe knowledge of the past will somehow render you more careless or weaken your alliances." She reached for a glass of water on the nightstand, and I rushed to hand it to her. "Whenever you see the past, look for symbols. In the present as well. Tarot cards are filled with symbols, because life is."
"What do they mean? What's the purpose?"
"To remind you to mark some detail or remember some moment. Symbols are waypoints on your journey." She took a sip of water. "Learn this: as with life, so with the cards."
Was that why so many things had begun to feel connected? "Gabriel sees symbols from up on high, things he says can't be random. He told me he has the senses of both animal and angel--and he recognizes the gods' return."
"Ah, the Archangel, the errand spirit." I'd read that he sometimes acted as a messenger between allies. Like a herald or courier. "He is an uneasy hybrid of angel and animal, both halves at war inside him. His animal senses are as keen as Fauna's, and he has claw-tipped fingers like her." His claws were actually more like talons. "Yet he also possesses angelic wings. Those are his strength--and his weakness."
"Is he right about the gods' return? Will they hear prayers now?"
"Perhaps they have returned. He would recognize such a thing. If they have, they will hear us. Prayers fuel them, the way food fuels us." Her lips thinned. "But they won't hear prayers asking to end their game, if that's what you're wondering. There's only one possible way to right the earth: by finishing this."
At my expression, she sighed, as if I'd just exhausted her. Again. She no longer hid her disappointment. "You read the origin of the Arcana?"
"I'd already heard the story from Aric." He'd told me and Jack on the way to the Lovers. The three of us had shared a bottle of whiskey while sitting around a fire. When I'd passed out, Jack and Aric had finished it together. In a different time and place, they might have been friends.
"How strange that Death has been teaching you," she said. "I would expect him to be a miser with his knowledge."
"Oh, in general, he's still tightfisted with it." Yes, my recovery had distracted him from translating the Lovers' chronicles, but he'd already gotten a start on them. He could've divulged some tidbit from those pages.
"Did he tell you about Tar Ro?"
I nodded. "It was
a sacred realm as big as a thousand kingdoms. In the first game, twenty-two players were sent there to fight."
"Think of Tar Ro as an arena"--like Sol's Olympus?--"with deities in the stands. Why do you think the gods would end their amusement? Would you stop the Super Bowl because one athlete didn't want to play?"
The gods sounded like dicks--not exactly the types to care if their "amusement" caused an apocalypse. Except . . . "If they consume prayers, how many people are feeding them right now? Does Demeter receive prayers for a good crop? There are no crops. What about Aphrodite? Few people are thinking about love after the Flash. A death deity? Who prays over the dead anymore? Most survivors leave their fallen on the side of the road."
If I'd gone to a funeral for every friend or loved one who'd died since the night of the Flash, I would have attended more than a dozen.
"This is not for you to question," Gran said, steel in her tone. "Your purpose is to follow the rules of the gods. Anything else is blasphemy."
Aric had said, "I was twice a blasphemer." I was one as well. And I'd been punished. "I plan to follow the rules with Richter. Tell me how to defeat him."
"Death has killed him before. Your best play is to seduce your protector into bringing you the Emperor's head. We can hope both will fall in the clash."
My fists balled. Inside, I primal-screamed. "That's it?" I was getting nowhere with her.
"Until you fully embrace your viciousness, you have no chance against the Emperor. I can't teach you to develop powers you don't yet possess."
Not the first time she'd told me that. Another impasse.
Maybe I should dig for information about my parents. She was my last link to Mom, and even to my dad. "Gran, what was Mom like as a girl?"
"Stubborn. Refusing to believe what was right before her eyes! Like you."
I was proud to be like my mother. "What about my dad? Mom used to talk about him a lot, but over time I heard less and less."
"David Greene was kind, and he had a sense of humor. He made your mother laugh."
That was all Gran could muster up? "Did you not like him?"
