The Arcana Chronicles 4: Arcana Rising

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?"