The Arcana Chronicles 3: Dead of Winter

“Burn it with something else. Another shape.”

After a moment’s hesitation—as Jack clearly weighed and approved of this suggestion—he said, “Why you care, anyway?”

Aric drank deep. “If you knew what the Lovers truly want to do to the Empress, you’d ache to annihilate every last vestige of them.”

35

I stood on a rise, overlooking the plague valley. Matthew was beside me.

The last thing I remembered was crawling into my sleeping bag after the whiskey had hit me like a two-by-four to the face. Now my friend was here with me. “I’ve missed you. Are you feeling better?” How much was this vision taking out of him?

“Better.” He didn’t appear as pale. He wore a heavy coat, open over a space camp T-shirt.

“I’m so relieved to hear that, sweetheart. Why would you bring us here?”

“Power is your burden.”

I surveyed all the bodies. “I felt the weight of it when I killed these people.”

“Obstacles multiply.”

“Which ones?” A breeze soughed over the valley. “Bagmen, slavers, militia, or cannibals?”

He held up the fingers of one hand. “There are now five. The miners watch us. Plotting.”

“But miners are the same as cannibals, right?”

He shuffled his boots with irritation. “Miners, Empress.”

“Okay, okay.” I rubbed his arm. “Are you and Finn being safe?”

His brows drew together as he gazed out. “Smite and fall, mad and struck.”

I looked with him, like we were viewing a sunset, a beautiful vista. Not plague and death. “You’ve told me those words before.”

“So much for you to learn, Empress. Beware the inactivated card.”

One Arcana’s powers lay dormant—until he or she killed another player. “Who is it?”

“Don’t ask, if you ever want to know.”

Naturally, I started to ask, but he cut me off. “Do you believe I see far?” He peered down at me. “Do you believe I see an unbroken line that stretches on through eternity? Centuries ago, I told an Empress that a future incarnation of hers would live in a world of ash where nothing grew. She never believed me.”

I could imagine Phyta or the May Queen surveying verdant fields and crops, doubting the Fool.

“Now I tell you that dark days are ahead. Will you believe me?”

“I will. I do. Please tell me what will happen. How dark?”

“Darkest. Power is your burden; knowing is mine.” His expression turned pleading, his soft brown eyes imploring. “Never hate me.”

I raised my hands, cradling his face. “Even when I was so mad at you, I never hated you.”

“Remember. Matthew knows best.” He sounded like his mom—when she’d tried to drown him: Mother knows best, son.

I dropped my hands. “It scares me when you say that.”

“Do you know what you really want? I see it. I feel it. Think, Empress. See far.”

I was trying! “Help me, then. I’m ready. Help me see far!”

“All is not as it seems. What would you sacrifice? What would you endure?”

“To end the game?”

His voice grew thick as he said, “Things will happen beyond your wildest imaginings.”

“Good things?”

His eyes watered. “Good, bad, good, bad, good, good, bad, bad, good-bye. You are my friend.”

“Wait!”

But he was gone, leaving me there, in the company of corpses.

I exhaled, gazing out—

My heart lurched; a girl lay among them. She was on her front, swords jutting up from her savaged back. Ten of them.

She turned her head, and it was me, crying blood. . . .

I woke from that disturbing vision—to find just as disturbing a sight.

Jack was shirtless, kneeling before the fire, about to press his red-hot bowie knife over the wound on his chest.

Sitting nearby, Aric looked on, as if this was cool or something.

I shot upright. “What are you doing??”

“Prend-lé aisé, bébé.” Take it easy? Was Jack buzzed? That bottle lay empty beside him. “I’d rather a knife mark than the twins’ brand. Can’t stand to see it, me. To feel it.”

I turned to Aric. “And you think this is a good idea?”

“Your squire entertains.” His accent was thick, his words slurred.

Jack flipped him off with his free hand. “Reap. This.”

I gaped. They’d gotten drunk together.

Aric shrugged, telling me, “I’d do the same at the earliest opportunity.”

I would never, never understand males. These two despised each other. They sniped at each other. Yet they’d worked together.

Then I thought of Selena. Maybe I didn’t understand females either.

Because she and I had done the same.

Jack inhaled, holding his breath. His bravery burned as bright as the metal inching closer.

Closer. The fiery red reflected off his sweat-dampened skin, off the beads of his rosary. Closer.

When Aric jerked his chin, Jack pressed the blade down.

Contact. The knife seared his chest. His flesh sizzled, his breath leaving him in a rush.

Jack’s head fell back, muscles straining as he silently took the pain.

Years seemed to pass before the blade cooled. He lowered his head, and his glinting eyes met mine. “They got no hold on me.”

36

DAY 378 A.F.

“That is a serious goddamned door,” Jack said at the entrance to the bunker.

Aric pounded an armored fist against the damp metal. “Must be three or four feet thick.”

Across sheer mountain passes and through winding canyons, Aric had tracked Selena’s call, leading us directly here. A couple of hours ago, I’d begun hearing her as well: Behold the Bringer of Doubt. The Lovers’ call had sounded too. Their real one.

I regarded the mountain enveloping the Shrine. The peak was wreathed in fog, the rock scorched. “Will the explosives work?”

Jack cast a glance at Milo, gagged and tied some distance away. “Non. Door’s even thicker than I expected. We need some way to worm our way into the metal.”

“So what do we do now?” I scouted, searching for an opening, a weakness of some kind—as climbing ivy would. “We can’t get in, and we can’t get them to answer us.” They’d ignored today’s attempts.

Suddenly Aric went motionless.

“What’s wrong?”

He put his forefinger over his lips and cocked his helmeted head. “The Archer’s call just went silent.”