Arcana Rising

by Kresley Cole

  He ignored my question. "You look exhausted, Empress." Was that a flare of pity in his eyes?

  My own line's Tarasova was beating me down--because I was desperately clinging to my trust in my allies, and to myself as a person.

  Yesterday Gran had murmured, "All you have to do is surrender . . . draw on your hatred and pain. Become her: the Empress you were meant to be." My grandmother was trying to "program" me again, to undo the work of shrinks and psych meds. To undo everything Mom had taught me about being decent.

  My mind felt like a bloody battlefield. I dreaded going to see Gran, which made me sick with guilt.

  Aric said, "Paul could help out with her more."

  "He's already with her so much." Whereas I seemed only to frustrate her, he could get her to calm down and even to eat. But he'd also told me she couldn't hold on much longer. "I keep thinking each day will be her . . . last." Couldn't Aric sense impending death? I wondered what he'd say if I asked him for a heads-up.

  I also wondered why I wasn't sadder about Gran. Yes, she was being hateful, but she hadn't been during my childhood. At least, as far as I could trust my memories.

  Maybe I'd grown so numb to grief that nothing could affect me. What if I'd strangled my heart until it was permanently damaged?

  I gazed at Aric and knew the answer to that question. I was grieving for him as much as for Jack, even though Aric was right here in front of me.

  I'd lost the love of my life. But the man I considered my soul mate was waiting for me. How much longer could I claw my way through an apocalypse alone?

  Studying my face, Aric said, "The Tarasova will no doubt tell you I've harmed her. For the record, I would never hurt her."

  "And I would never believe you could."

  With a curt nod, he strode past me. "Empress."

  I followed him. "If you won't call me sieva, then use my name: Evie."

  "I've told you: your ever-changing names don't matter. Empress remains the same."

  "E-V. Evangeline, if you must." I trailed him back to his study. "How long are you going to avoid me? You said you'd train me."

  He took a bottle and glass to his desk, sinking into his chair. "At present, your grandmother is seeing to your . . . education."

  "You'll be happy to hear that Paul doesn't give her long."

  "That doesn't make me happy. It doesn't make me anything."

  "Because you and I are merely allies. Of a sort."

  Shrug.

  "So we'll go long stretches at a time without seeing each other?" Sadness washed over me.

  "You had planned never to see me again, Empress." His expression grew so enraged that I almost took a step back. "You rode away with that full intention."

  "Do you think that was easy for me?"

  He hissed, "Effortless." Then he inhaled to get a rein on his temper. "I offered you everything. And you spurned me for another. What's so bad is that I can't fault you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Deveaux fought with bravery. He was intelligent. He had cunning and was a born leader. If I was going to lose you to anyone, I would want it to be him."

  "I told you I don't want to talk about him."

  As if I hadn't spoken, Aric continued, "I hated him at first, was seething with jealousy when the two of you were together. But through your memories, I learned a lot about him. I saw what he'd struggled against as a boy. I comprehended his frustrations and his dreams." Aric shot his glass, and poured another. "I needed to continue hating Deveaux, but ultimately I liked him. Which made everything more confusing."

  I took my usual seat. "The night you two got drunk together, something changed."

  Nod. "And when we fought together. Plus he was the only man on earth who understood the way I had felt about you, the only other man who dreaded your coming decision."

  Had felt about me. Past tense. Was Aric moving on? From the one woman he could touch?

  He gave a humorless laugh.

  "What?"

  "I know this will be difficult for you to understand, but Jack was the closest thing I've had to a friend since my father died."

  A pang twisted in my chest. "I had that thought. In a different time or circumstance, you two would have been fast friends."

  "At the fort, I shared more whiskey with him, and we talked for hours. Toward the end of the night, I explained all the things I could offer you. He agreed to march without you--in order to make it easier for you to leave with me. But he told me a very real truth."

  "Which was?"

  "He said, 'If Evangeline Greene wants something, she's going to get it. If she sets her sights on me, it'll happen, whether I want better for her or not.'"

  "I've set my sights on things right now, but I'm not getting them."

  Aric tilted his head. "Such as?"

  "Revenge against Richter."

  He released a breath. "Leave me, Empress."

  I didn't move. "I want us to read together and talk into the night. I want to be friends again."

  "Spend time with you as a friend? Impossible."

  "Why?"

  His eyes flashed. "Because I don't want merely a friend. I want my wife!"

  "Can't we just . . . see how things go?"

  "We are wed. Yet it seems I am the only one who cares about that detail."

  I almost pointed out that he hadn't seemed to care about that detail when he'd tortured me.

  Aric raised his full glass, peering into the clear liquid. "I am disgusted with myself for continuing to desire you like this." Appearing lost in thought, he absently said, "In a moment of weakness, will I beg?" He glanced at me, seeming shocked by what he'd admitted. He abruptly stood. "I might not fault you for your decision. But it still gutted me. When I told you something died in me that day, I meant it." He started toward the study door.

  I blocked his path.

  "Move out of the way. Damn you, I won't be a stand-in substitute. Cease tormenting me."

  "You do still love me."

  He squared his shoulders. "I didn't say it lightly."

  "You think I did?"

  "Perhaps once you told me of your love, you should not have told me good-bye directly after."

  I winced. "What do you want from me?"

  "What I can never have: for you to have chosen me!" His fists clenched. Even now he was fighting not to touch me. "When you rode away, you looked back at me, and for a second I thought you were going to turn around."

  "So did I."

  His lips parted. "It was that close?"

  "When I faced Vincent, he searched my heart and saw it was divided. He said that I loved two men equally."

  "You told me as much on the way here after you were bitten by the Bagmen."

  And then I'd forgotten what I'd said.

  Aric's eyes glittered; I could feel his yearning. He wanted to believe so badly. "What do you expect from me?"

  "Closeness and trust," I told him. "I expect you not to treat me like an enemy. Or a stranger." I laid my hand on his arm, and his muscles flexed to my fingers. "With our lives on the line"--Richter, I'm coming for you--"we shouldn't be divided like this."

  "Imminent peril is your reason for seeking more time with me?" He drew my hand from him. "Armor or no, I've got your dagger in my chest. You love to twist it."

  I was saying all the wrong things. "That's not what I meant! I regretted so much with Jack, so many things I wished I'd done or said. When I couldn't find you, I felt those same regrets. Then . . . then you were there. Alive. When I die, will you regret not spending this time with me?"

  "I vow to you, Empress, you will never die before me," he said, turning to stride away.

  But he tensed when I whispered, "That's what I'm afraid of."

  32

  Day 444 A.F.

  "You look like utter hell," Circe told me.

  "I wish you'd stop sugar-coating things, Water Witch."

  Over a month had passed since I'd first heard my grandmother's voice in the nursery. For so long, I'
d dreamed of our reunion. I'd had such great intentions, and yet everything had gone to hell.

  Each day I watched her deteriorate. Sometimes she would rail at me with so much venom, Paul would have to rush inside the room to calm her. Other times, she rambled, barely lucid.

  As much as she'd been talking, she hadn't answered any of my questions. For instance, I still didn't know why Aric had approached her.

  Despite my grandmother's anger, I wanted to be with her at the end--as I hadn't been with Mom. So I returned to Gran's room, day after day.

  Circe said, "You are drained because you fight her at every second."

  Between my grandmother, my confusion about Aric, and my dread . . .

  I glanced back at the castle. That ominous feeling of mine remained firmly in place. Something unexpected was approaching. Were we on a countdown clock?

  Tick-tock.

  Changing the subject, I said, "I don't think it's fair that you can comment on my looks and my mental health, but I can't even see your expressions when we talk."

  "Trying to get me on land again?"

  I rolled my eyes. "No. But you could make that girl water-form again." She'd once manipulated water into her likeness. "Or you could do that window thingy."

  A small wave rose before me. The water morphed until an oval shape emerged, like a wall mirror--only this was a window.

  Into the abyss.

  Circe appeared, seated upon the coral throne in her underwater temple. With her flowing black hair and luminous eyes, she was drop-dead gorgeous.

  The Priestess inclined her head regally. In her temple's firelight, the dazzling blue scales on her forearms and the backs of her hands shimmered, almost the same blue as the fins jutting from her elbows.

  Talk about presentation, Sol.

  When skittering sounded around her throne, I cocked my head. Possibly a tentacle? I'd never seen below her knees, so the jury was still out. And how did one go about asking that? I was also curious how she made clothes out of sea-foam, but I didn't want to come across as juvenile.

  "When are you going to meet the other member of our alliance?" I asked. "I think you'll like Lark." I'd been trying to set up a meeting.

  "You presume much." Circe adjusted the golden trident over her lap. "I'm not in an alliance with you and Fauna. I ally only with Death and Kentarch. Besides, Fauna has her hands full." With her search--and with animal breeding. "Even your grandmother has noticed."

  Gran had murmured, "The animal calls ring out in the night! Every new beast is a weapon. I hear predators prowling around this castle. Their claws skitter over the floor. They'll eat your entrails while you watch!"

  The last time I'd visited Lark, her room had been an overflowing ark. I'd stopped by to confess my behavior in past games, and to talk about her deal with Death to win this one.

  As usual, her eyes had pulsed red. Her hair was growing out into a wild mane, and her fangs and claws were getting even longer. The more time she spent mingling her senses with her creatures', the more animalistic she grew. She'd been in no mood to talk. "Make it snappy."

  Once her eyes had returned to normal, I'd said, "You were in love with Finn in at least one other life. In that game, I betrayed the two of you. I kind of . . . killed you guys."

  "Yeah, Eves, the boss already told me that part, pretty much on Day Zero." She'd once said that her family chronicled, a lie to conceal where she'd really gotten her information. "He told me lots." Her eyes had turned red again, but as I'd exited, she'd called, "Don't let any animals out! Boss said the castle's off-limits to anything but Cyclops."

  Had Aric made that exception for me because that wolf was my favorite . . . ?

  Now Circe pointed out, "Of course, your grandmother also warns against me."

  Gran had told me that she heard waves right outside her window, and that my lungs would explode and my eyeballs burst from my skull. Oh, and that Circe would take me down to her murky hiding places where I'd never see the light again.

  Circe chuckled. "Considering her feelings on the subject, I doubt 'Gran' would approve of our visits."

  I raised a brow. I did come down most nights. Sometimes the Priestess and I discussed past games. Other times, I could sense her presence as we sat in companionable silence.

  Each visit I had to create a new patch of grass--because her river truly was rising. Water covered the bridge to the castle and continued to climb up the mountain.

  While Fauna increased the number of her "weapons" and Circe's floodwaters gained momentum, I'd managed a few more vines in my room.

  For some reason, my powers seemed to be . . . weakening.

  "You haven't spoken with Death?" Circe asked.

  I shook my head. How easily he could go without talking to me.

  "He is hurting. He knows the only reason you might choose him is because there's no choice. I wonder if he wasn't born to suffer."

  Cursed to want me. "He visits you a lot." They talked "often." Though my memories of him were sporadic, Aric and the beautiful Circe remembered each other over all these ages. They might not be able to touch, but what if they felt . . . affection?

  "Look at your eyes go green with jealousy." Jack had said the same thing.

  I wasn't merely jealous of Circe. I was jealous--of myself. My dreamed memories of Aric and Phyta together made me crazed--like the night she'd planned to poison him with her kiss: By the time I release my poison, I will have him so far gone in the throes, he'll wonder if it's not worth it.

  I wanted to touch him. I wanted to send him into the throes. Not to hurt him, but because I loved him.

  He'd told Phyta, "Empress, you were born for me, and I for you. One day I will convince you of this."

  What if he already had?

  Circe laughed. "Your glyphs are glowing again, Evie Greene."

  "Do you have feelings for him?" I demanded.

  "My heart belongs to someone else," she said. "I will never love another."

  "Really?"

  Her eyes were filled with sorrow. "Do you think you're the only one who's lost someone? My wedding was supposed to have been on . . . Day Zero." The river grew choppy.

  "Oh, God, Circe, I didn't know." That day had been fateful for several Arcana in more ways than one.

  My birthday. Sol's anniversary. Circe's wedding.

  Her gaze grew distant. "After the Flash evaporated the seas, I was trapped inside an aquifer beneath the ocean floor, unable to reach my island home, unable to reach my fiance, my entire family. It took months for me to get free. Once I found what remained of them, I was so dried out and thirsty I couldn't manage two tears of grief."

  "What did you do?" Petals appeared on the surface of the river. Without thought, I'd grown roses for her pain, scattering them.

  "I . . . I . . ." She trailed off, going quiet for tense moments, before finally saying, "Enough of that." She airily waved her hand, and water swayed in the river. "We're talking about you and Death now. You have the potential to harm him much more than in games past."

  I let her change the subject. "How?"

  "He is two millennia in age. He has spent all of those years one way. Now, for this short span--really only a blink of an eye over his lifetime--a nobleman knight from a different age finds himself in love. You've been with him for a heartbeat's time, but he is reeling."

  As though with an affliction. Like the Lovers had said.

  "Death craves knowledge," Circe said. "How frustrating that some mysteries must go unsolved even after thousands of years. He now comprehends what it means to love another--but not to be loved in return."

  "I do love him."

  She arched a brow. "Clearly."

  What could I say? Why convince her?

  "Death told me the Fool showed you a vision with ten swords in your back."

  I nodded. "The ten of swords card indicates that a devastating catastrophe is headed one's way and will strike without warning. Bingo, Matthew."

  "Hmm."

  "Hmm, what?"
/>
  "That card is also about letting go and accepting one's current circumstances."

  Accepting that you can't change fate. As my mom had done with my dad. "Should I let go of Jack? Like you let go of the man you lost?"

  She lifted one slim shoulder. "You'd already fallen for another."

  "I swore revenge on Richter. How can I think of surrendering that need?" Richter, I'm . . . not coming for you? "Do you know what I fear more than marching off to die fighting him? That I might have to live with what he did."

  "No one's suggesting you give up your revenge. But what if we can't find him for half a year? Two years? Will you cease living till then? Will you force Death to stop as well? He yearns to be a normal man. Even if just for a day. Will you not give that to him?"

  "I made the point to him about our limited time," I said, still cringing at my clumsiness. "All I did was insult him."

  "He wanted a wife. Not a buddy."

  Was she listening to everything in the castle? "I don't want to hurt him, but I don't know what to do."

  She pinned my gaze with her own. "Therein lies the lesson of the card, Evie Greene. The lesson of life. When you can't change your situation, you must change yourself. You must rise and walk--despite the ten swords in your back."

  What was harder than dying? Living a nightmare.

  Mom had learned to live without Dad. I had learned to live without Mom. Could I go on without Jack? "I shouldn't even be thinking about Aric. I disobeyed the dictates of the game, and I got Jack killed. What if I do the same to Aric?"

  Circe made a sound of amusement. "You always did think highly of yourself. Do you believe you had something to do with that massacre? Think logically. Richter could have reversed the order of his attacks--targeting Fort Arcana earlier, vaporizing the Magician, one of Fauna's wolves, and the stronghold of his enemies. He could have shot at the army by helicopter afterward. Instead he targeted mortals and one player. The Moon."

  My lips parted. "Because she was more of a threat to him."

  "She was the only one in the area who could slay him from a distance. Richter will target the Tower as well, since Joules shares that ability," she said. "So if we should blame any card for your mortal's death, blame the Moon."

  "I'll never blame her."

  "Yet you'll blame yourself?" Circe shook her head, and the river swirled. "I say we blame the Emperor." Could it be that easy?

  Had Richter always had Selena in his sights? If fate couldn't be changed--then she'd been doomed to die the second we'd saved her from the Lovers.