Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles Book 5)

by Kresley Cole

  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 dangerous 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 an
gel—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?”

  “He wasn’t a big believer in Tarot. Humor aside, he was a very practical man. From New England,” she added, as if that explained everything. “I’d been wearing Karen down about the Arcana—until she met him. Before I knew it, your mother was pregnant. Even then, I sensed you were the Empress.”

  “He didn’t want us to live up north?”

  “David planned to move there.” Her gaze went distant. “To move you—the great Empress—away from her Haven.” That must have gone over well. “In the end, I convinced them not to go.”

  My dad had disappeared in the Basin just two years after I was born. If he’d insisted on moving north, would he still be alive? Or would he have been—at least until the Flash? I might have grown up with a father. “He died so young.” Twenty-nine.

  She nodded. “That man only adored one thing as much as Karen: you.”

  Mom had told me he’d doted on me—

  My head snapped up. I sensed something outside: energy, a faint thrumming. Circe was here—just down the mountain. Had she come to visit her ally Death? Were they together right now? If so, I would drop in on their members-only meeting. “I’ll be back.” I rose and headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  I paused in the doorway. “To visit the river.”

  Gran blinked at me. “Why are you so sure you’re coming back?”

  29

  With a lantern in hand, I made my way toward the water. My breaths were puffs of smoke in the chilly, dark night. The storm had waned, rain drizzling on and off.

  I pulled my poncho hood over my hair—

  Aric emerged from the mist, his tall frame outlined by a flickering gas lamp. He wore all black, his tailored garments highlighting his powerful body. His pale hair was tousled and longer than he usually kept it.

  I stutter-stepped at the mere sight of him.

  He was heading from the river back to the castle. As he neared, I noticed he looked weary, his gaze filled with shadows.

  With pain.

  Which called to mind my dreams of him. Over this week, my nightmares had come less frequently, making way for dream-memories of the last game, when I’d been known as Phyta. Aric had pursued me then, had eventually revealed that I’d married—then betrayed—him in a past life. Realizing how badly he’d ached for a companion, I’d begun to seduce him, all the while planning to kill him. . . .

  Each morning here I would wake, shamed by my behavior—and rocked by his loneliness. Rocked by his fragile hope of a future with me.

  Never slowing his pace, he intoned, “Empress.”

  “Hey. What were you doing down there?”

  “Visiting my ally.” As I’d suspected.

  I frowned when he passed right by me. To his back, I asked, “You’ve been talking to Circe?”

  Without turning, he said, “As I often do.”

  When I hurried ahead to block his path, he exhaled an impatient breath. “What do you want?”

  This close, I caught a thread of his addictive scent. Hints of sandalwood and pine, two trees, made my lids grow heavy. In the lamplight, his face was hypnotically gorgeous.

  But my attraction to him was more than physical. Endless epochs seemed to tie me to him. A bone-deep connection that endured.

  If past Empresses hadn’t been raised from birth to hate him, they would have fallen for him. I would have fallen for him. “How long will we go on like this, Aric?”

  Finally, interest lit his amber eyes. “What is the alternative? Tell me what has changed.”

  I didn’t know! I glanced down as I tried to string words together and noticed his gloved hands were clenched. Words left my lips: “You want to touch me.” He’d once told me it was a luxury he’d always savor. I gazed up. Unable to help myself, I reached for his proud face.

  But he caught my wrist in his strong hand, his eyes growing cold as the night. “And since when has it mattered what I want?” Releasing me, he strode away.

  I stared after him long after he’d disappeared in the mist. Miserable and confused, I trudged down to the river.

  Was the water level even hig
her than the last time I was here? A blanket of fog covered the calm surface. At the bank, I raised my lantern. “Circe?” I called. “Where are you?”

  Water in the shape of a hand waved, then collapsed in a splash. She couldn’t even hold that small form?

  My earlier anger toward her faded. She might not have been avoiding me; she could’ve been too weak for a long chat. Especially if she’d been talking to Aric a lot.

  “You can hear me?” I asked.

  A slight ripple. Then a murmured: “I hear. Hail Tar Ro.”

  “Hail Tar Ro to you.” I tried out one of my new powers—sensing seeds latent in the dirt—but found none, so I slashed my thumb with a claw and grew some grass along the bank. I set the lantern down and pulled my poncho under me to sit. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “You assume I did, Evie Greene?”

  “Okay. Then thank you for not killing me outright. Maybe you did it for Death? You two seem tight.”

  “Hmm.”

  “He was just here, huh?” No answer. Anyway . . . “Your tidal wave was mind-blowing.”

  “An afterthought. Soon I will show the game a reckoning.” Softening her tone, she said, “I regret that I couldn’t save all those mortals. Your mortal. The Fortune Card avoided flying over rivers on her approach. By the time she and Richter crossed over water, I was too late.”

  The tourniquet twisted, and I barely showed a reaction at all.

  “I wonder how they knew of my powers,” Circe said. “Their lines don’t chronicle.”

  “Would the Sun know?”

  “Possibly. He learns much from his Bagmen. I heard about your run-in with them. Becoming food must have been . . . unpleasant.”

  Unpleasant? Would I ever get over those slurping sounds, those grueling bites? That was one memory I wish I could forget. I told myself I shouldn’t fear them now that I’d seen their worst. I’d survived an attack—without any long-term effects.

  Possibly.

  Circe asked, “Still think we can stop the game?”

  I shrugged. Every now and then, I would feel a silly glimmer of hope, but mostly I didn’t. The game demanded blood. I would give it the Emperor’s.