We begin to circle each other.
She cants her head. "The fall sun shines. Chaff spreads on the winds. So much birdsong, music fit for murder. Which one of us will it be?" She is stalling. Her roots are likely spreading beneath me, her serpents at the ready.
But I am invulnerable to them in my armor. "I don't wish to fight today. I only want to converse with you."
"Converse?" She narrows her green eyes. "If that were true, then why are you covered in metal?"
Taking a calculated risk, I remove my helmet, but keep it in hand. "Better?"
Her gaze sweeps from my sword to my helmet. She's assessing her odds. She knows I can cut through her vines with my inhuman speed. Then she studies my face.
I make my expression blank, refusing to show my yearning for a wife, a companion.
"You're a handsome man. Very handsome." Observing how the sunlight strikes my gaze, she murmurs, "With spellbinding eyes."
I stifle my ridiculous flare of pleasure.
"Yet so grim. Is it because you're untouched? Or perhaps a male like you has no wish to be caressed?"
I would do murder for it! But I say nothing. We continue circling each other.
"Fitting that we--life and death--should meet in a time of pestilence and famine." She tilts her head, her red locks swaying over a pale shoulder. "Why do you follow me throughout this game, Reaper?"
"To determine your character."
"You've seen me make many kills."
She'd defeated the Lovers before I could reach her, but I'd watched her annihilate humans in a bloodbath, taunting them all the while. At the time, I hadn't known why she'd lashed out at them. "You attacked those men because they attempted to burn you at the stake. I did not know you sought retribution."
"They blamed me for their starvation." She shrugs. "They have no idea that I lament the famine as well." It weakens her powers. Each plant is a potential weapon for her. "When I smelled my flesh cooking like a savory leg of venison, I bayed for their blood." Still we circle. "Between the humans and the Arcana, I've been quite busy. And the Emperor must be nearing soon."
"In the last game, he killed you. Gruesomely."
"Unlike when you killed me--cleanly." Her tone is amused.
I incline my head.
"If I recall my chronicles, you defeated the Emperor last," she says, "but in contrast to all the rest of your kills, you tortured him. Why?"
Because he destroyed you before I could get to you. Because I'll never know what might have been. "What would you say if I told you I did it for you?"
She smiles, and it fills me with wariness and lust. "I would say do it again, my Grim Reaper."
_______________
"After disappearing for weeks, you are back again?" The Empress's tone is teasing. "Perhaps to converse more?"
I don't remove my helmet this time. I have heard through the Arcana calls that she betrayed one of her staunch allies. "You murdered Fauna in cold blood." Upon the Empress's hand are three icons, those of the Lovers, the Magician, and Fauna.
"No, I defended myself. She and the Magician plotted against me. She attacked with her lions . . . one creature seized my leg in its fangs." She pulls up her skirt to reveal her thigh. "Oh, thank the gods, I have already healed."
My heart begins to thunder at the sight of her bare flesh. Noting my interest, she glides the material higher, as if searching for the wound.
Unable to stop myself, I step closer. Words leave my lips: "Empress, I can touch you."
"Should I believe that?" She drops her skirt. "If I trusted you, and you lied, I would die."
"Our Lady of Thorns suspects me of lying." I shake my head at the irony. "Not only can I touch you, we were together two games ago."
"Together on a raid? In an alliance? My chronicles say nothing of this."
I gaze past her. "You were separated from your chronicler." After I'd captured the Empress.
"And then?"
"And then we . . . wed."
She laughs. "My Grim Reaper has a sense of humor after all."
I give her a tight nod. "I see I will have to prove it to you."
_______________
That night, she wakes with my palm over her mouth. Her eyes flash open.
My bare skin against hers. With Fauna's sentries gone, I easily slipped past the Empress's vines into this villa.
She casts me a murderous look, thinking her life is over.
Seconds tick by. Yet nothing happens. No pain. No streaks of black across her skin. Even though I'd discovered her immunity centuries ago, it still strikes me as miraculous.
Of all the people in the world, over all time, she is the only one I can touch without killing.
She frowns.
"I told you." I remove my hand from her mouth, unable to keep myself from stroking the silken skin of her cheek. So starved for touch.
She blinks at me. "Were we truly married?"
"Yes. Empress, you were born for me, and I for you. One day I will convince you of this."
Brows drawn, she admits, "I've had thoughts of you that I could not reconcile. Desires for you." She runs the pad of her finger over her lips, gaze growing distant.
I swallow thickly. Can she tell how badly I want this to be true? "What are you thinking, Empress?"
She meets my eyes. "Guess."
I answer as honestly as ever. "I believe you plot to take my icon and all those I've harvested. You wish for them to join your three, and eventually the Priestess's."
"I would never harm the Priestess; she is my best friend. Fauna was a friend until . . ." She casts me a hurt look. "Why do you think so terribly of me?"
"You killed the Priestess in past games." I've warned the Water Witch, but she swears the Empress is different this time.
"Circe knows this. She has memories from previous games. But I am changed from how I was before." She assesses my face. "I must have hurt you as well."
"You betrayed me."
"How?"
"You tried . . . to kill me on our wedding night." Reminded, I rise, my spurs clinking as I head toward the door.
She sits up, calling, "Where are you going, Reaper?"
Over my shoulder, I say, "To contemplate my next move."
_______________
"How long will you be wary of me, my love?" she asks. She is reclining among the pillows on her large bed, sipping wine. Her shift is gauzy, concealing little.
We have been meeting for the last month. She has sent away her disapproving Tarasova, one of many concessions the Empress has made. Slowly this female seduces me to trust her. After my centuries-long solitude, I am helpless not to seek her out. She smiles whenever she first sees me, and excitement lights her glyphs.
Unless it is all a ruse.
She pats the bed beside her. "Will you not sit? Remove your armor, and be comfortable. Have a goblet of wine with me."
I do go to her bed, but I keep my armor on and my sword nearby. Though she is beguiling, I have learned a harsh lesson.
She sits up and reaches for me. Her delicate fingers caress my face. I steel myself, remembering our wedding night, how she sank her claws into my back to inject her poison.
"It is time, Death."
Something in her tone makes my body stir. "Time for what?" She couldn't be speaking of . . .
"For you to claim your wife in truth. I want to be yours. Fully. You've waited centuries; wait no longer."
I know better than to hope, but gods, maybe I could finally know contentment--the kind other men take for granted. I have with me an heirloom wedding ring, have considered giving it to her this night, but I hesitate. "Perhaps I don't yet trust you."
"You know how horrified I am that I hurt you." Her eyes glint. "I would give anything to go back and relive that night."
And I would give anything to know her true thoughts.
"But I can't go back. I can never appease your suspicions." She turns from me. "How can a proud woman offer her body to a male who won't accept it?
When he insists on substituting cold metal for warm skin? How can I be with a man who must hate me deep down?"
I lay my hand on her shoulder--the contact is a heady indulgence--but she stiffens at my touch. My brows draw together. I know little of women, have no experience with their ways. But even I know I'm losing her regard.
She's right: if she is different, then I have misjudged her and am unfairly hurting her. "Empress." I cup her cheek. When she faces me again, I say, "Let us start anew with a kiss."
Before I take her lips, she murmurs, "I could love you so easily."
Though I desire her, I do not--and could not--love this creature. Yes, she has been made for me, but perhaps I'm unable to love.
My lips meet hers. My head swims, my senses overloaded. Who needs love when there is this? Contact, warmth, softness, her intoxicating scent. She smells like the meadow flowers that used to bloom near my childhood home.
As I deepen the kiss, I grow drunk on her, on happiness. A future with her spreads out before me. Tonight I will know a woman's flesh, my woman's, and tomorrow we will plan a life together, an existence away from this game.
I take her mouth harder. When she moans for me, the anguish of all those miserable centuries begins to fade.
Over and over I kiss her. Lost in the dizzying sweetness of her lips.
But something needles my mind. Some detail . . .
Roses. Her scent has changed, as it did when she last struck. Pain shoots through my body. Comprehension dawns.
Poison?
She is poisoning me with her lips! Even as I grasp for my sword, part of me is tempted to allow it. To die in her arms. Why live, alone and cursed, forever?
She clutches me harder, wanting the kill. Fury engulfs me, the heat of battle rising. I struggle to draw back, but she has weakened me. In a rage, I shove her away, and my sword flashes out.
Blood arcs across the room.
A flick of my wrist. An instant of action. She is . . . dead.
All my hope dies with her. I had believed her. I had prayed to the gods that this time would be different. That she would at last be mine.
I've waited more than a thousand years for this night--only to be betrayed. I gaze at all the blood. Tonight I have been cursed to several more centuries of waiting for her to return.
"Nooo!" In the next game, I will not be seduced. I will mete vengeance upon her. She will pay for each moment of pain!
The poison lingers. The Empress's sweet taste lingers. I will replay the feel of her lips every night for eternity. I tear apart the room with grief. I tear at my hated armor.
A wave of pain overwhelms me, and I collapse to my knees. She may have delivered enough poison to kill me.
Why live? Why fight?
For retribution. . . .
I've endured all these mind-numbing years just to make her pay. Yet still, I burn for her.
My wife. Maybe I should try one last time.
And maybe you're an idiot, Reaper.
When I'd finally risen on that last fateful night and struggled past the Empress's remains to get to my horse, I'd heard sounds in the cellar. I'd found Circe in chains, drying out, dying of thirst. I'd freed her, then spared her life.
The Priestess had grown suspicious after the Empress had killed Fauna. But before Circe could slip back to the safety of her underwater temple, the Empress had captured her, keeping her alive--so that I wouldn't hear of yet another murder, another betrayal. The treacherous Empress had planned to poison me first, then do away with Circe. . . .
No, I will not be seduced this game. My heart is as black as my armor. The Empress has made it so.
I am Death. When her blood bathes my sword, I will drink it just to mock her.
Unsettled and frustrated, I return the ring to my safe, then cross to the large windows of my study. The sun has set, yet Fauna is heading to the menagerie. She's told me her animals have been behaving strangely. She has no idea what this means, but I do.
The end is nigh. Anticipation is like fire in my veins.
I yank on my gloves and exit the castle. On my way across the grounds, a hot wind gusts over the mountain, and movement above catches my eyes. A strange light appears in the sky, filling me with expectancy.
I can sense deaths coming. Dear gods, I sense a reckoning of them.
I pull down my right glove. The rest of the Empress's icon fades before my eyes.
And so it begins. . . .
The Fool (0)
Matthew, Gamekeeper of Old
"Crazy like a fox."
A.k.a.: The Hand of Fate, Il Matto, Mat, Null
Powers: Foresight, astral projection, clairaudience, telepathy, dream delivery/scrying/ manipulation, memory implantation and absorption, omniscience, and other game-keeping abilities never chronicled.
Special Skills: Genetic memory. Can slow or accelerate the Arcana game. Can call a temporary "trues" (truce).
Weapons: None. If given a weapon, he will toss it away.
Tableau: A smiling young man carries a knapsack and a single white rose. Vacant gaze raised to a blinding sun, he strolls toward the edge of a cliff with a small dog nipping at his heels.
Icon: A null sign: a circle with a diagonal line through it.
Unique Arcana Characteristics: Nose will bleed if he is mentally overloaded from the game.
Before Flash: Living with his mother in the South. Enrolled in a program for autistic students.
Huntsville, Alabama
Day 0
Portions of Text Redacted the Beginning is _ _ darkness _ _ __ _ the End _ is _ _ _ _ two _ __
_ _ _ _ He hurts _ WORSE! _
_ Who is _ _ ___ the hunter _ __ Major Arcana _ _ _ so strong _ _ _ _ _
_ _ Why _ _ _ will _
_ she _ _ not _ _ _ _ listen _ _ _ _ _
Beware! A fox __ is as it seems __
_ REDACTED _ _
_ _ Foes _ _ _ hope for hell _ _ __ terror _ _ _ Then you'll die _ _ _
_ _ Crazy like a _ _ knight _ _ carry _ __ the memory of _ _ a flower
__ I'll give
_ _ _ my only friend _ _ _ _ _ another _ _ _ Matthew __ _ _
_ REDACTED _ _ Future flows like _ __ _ _ _ the old _ _ _ _ gods _ _ _
_ __ Will we _ _ ___ sleep forever and ever _ at _ _ ___ the End
_ _ _
The Magician (I)
Finneas, Master of Illusions
"Don't look at this hand, look at that one."
A.k.a.: The Trickster
Powers: Illusion creation and casting. Hallucikinesis, reality distortion, conjurations, and invocations.
Special Skills: Surfing.
Weapons: None.
Tableau: A young man wearing a red robe, holds a wand skyward while pointing to the ground with his free hand. On a table before him lies a pentagram, a chalice, a sword, and a cane. A bed of roses and lilies grow at his feet, vines trailing above.
Icon: Ouroboros.
Unique Arcana Characteristics: Speaks a mysterious magician language when he conjures illusions.
Before Flash: "Problem" kid from California, sent to visit his extended family.
Backwoods, North Carolina
Day 0
"I heard you used to live in a mansion in Malibu," the girl said.
What was this chick's name again? I racked my drunken brain. A double-barreled name. Tammy-Something. Uh, what was she doing on the couch with me? She was Buck's girl. "Yeah. I used to."
Until my parents had exiled me.
Only for the summer, they'd said. Finally my time in the woods had been dragging to a close.
Then my folks had enrolled me in school here. They had tricked me.
Me!
Tonight, I'd guzzled a vat of Natty Light, but this fact wasn't changing. All it'd done was make me more depressed.
Tammy-Something drew her tanned legs up under her, getting comfy. "This must be a big change for you. Going from Cali to the sticks."
When I'd asked my aunt if her grits were non-GMO,
she and the rest of the family had laughed till tears streaked down their faces. I told Tammy-Something, "You could say that."
Back home, I'd surfed every morning before school with my best friends. Yet my parents had abandoned me in a place where I had no friends and surfing didn't exist.
No. Freaking. Waves.
It was like my folks hated me. Which sucked. Because I missed the hell out of my mom and dad.
And it wasn't as if I could control all this weird shit that kept happening to me. The illusions and hallucinations . . .
Tammy-Something twirled her shiny brown hair. "Is Buck gonna be back anytime soon?"
My oldest cousin was nicknamed Buck--because he'd killed so many deer. Their heads adorned the basement wall; their glassy, accusing eyes were giving me the wiggins.
He had a full gun rack in the back of his souped-up gas guzzler. Weirdly, he and I didn't agree on conserving resources. Or anything at all, for that matter.
"Not likely," I said. He and his two brothers had forced me out into the nearby woods on a mission to go shoot Bambi's mom, and I'd reached my limit. So I'd conjured an illusion of the biggest deer imaginable, the second coming of trophy bucks. They'd set out after it like they were on a quest for freaking fire.
"Guess I'll just wait down here with you." Tammy rose and headed to the fridge, snagging two more beers. She was smoking hot in her tank top and cutoffs--but off-limits.
She returned to the couch, sitting a little too close for comfort. I didn't want Buck to mount my stuffed head up on the wall.
She handed me another Natty Light. Had I finished mine? I accepted the can. A little different from the artisanal brand I'd favored in Malibu. "Appreciate it." Was I slurring? The room seemed to tilt.
"How do you like school here?"
I hated Redneck High, home of the Fighting Hicks. Last week, one of my teachers had winked as he'd said, "I reckon we can chalk this dry season up to--heh-heh--global warming." The cafeteria was neolithic. No gluten-free food. Nothing organic. Not even a juicer.
"It's all right, I guess." My mom had gotten out of this place at eighteen, heading as far away as possible, and she would never return--yet she'd ditched me here.
All because of a few pranks. Maybe she and my dad sensed something was really wrong with me.
When I'd been the only one who could see the illusions, that'd been one thing. But then I'd kinda started using them to jank others. And then I sorta hadn't been able to stop. Even with my folks.