40
DAY 365 A.F.
EVE OF YEAR 2
“Why did you not dance today?” Death asked.
I’d just taken a seat on his study couch, curling my feet up under me. “I didn’t sleep very well.” Yes, I’d had dreams of him almost every night, but last night I’d been bombarded by scenes so lifelike, I’d awakened confused to find myself alone.
When he sat beside me, though not too close, I swallowed hard. I wondered what he’d do if I kissed him.
He was studying my expression. Could he see my cheeks heating?
“You looked flushed. Are you ill? The mortal here worked in medicine before the Flash.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Very well,” he said, looking unconvinced. “I wanted to tell you that I leave tonight for another trip.”
My spirits sank. “How long will you be gone?”
“Two or three days. Will you miss me, Empress?”
Not to talk with him into the night? “Yes,” I admitted. “And I’ll worry about you. I wish you wouldn’t go.”
My answer seemed to rattle him worse than my wet T-shirt had. He moved to sit behind his desk, clearing his throat before saying, “Fauna tells me you both fear Ogen when I’m away.”
“You’ve had to dock his horns again, haven’t you?”
Curt nod.
“I wouldn’t fear him as much if you removed my cuff.”
His expression darkened. “You know I can’t do that. Would it make you feel better if I locked him out of the compound?”
Best I was going to get. “Yes, thank you.”
As ever, he seemed uncomfortable with my gratitude, changing the subject. “Fauna also tells me tomorrow is your birthday.”
“I suppose it’s not a big deal for you, since you’ve had thousands of them.”
“If you ask me for a boon, perhaps I’ll provide it.”
I rose with excitement. “Like a birthday present?” I sauntered behind his desk, trespassing into his comfort zone. I hopped up on the desktop beside his chair, my thigh inches from his hand.
He clenched his fist. “I’ve warned you. I won’t be seduced.”
I said softly, “If we weren’t competitors, perhaps you could be? Why do you insist on playing this game?”
“Because it is what we were born to do.”
A non-answer. “You don’t strike me as the type who would blindly follow the dictates of some long-ago gods.”
“It is so much a part of me I wouldn’t know how to extricate myself.”
“You called me willfully na?ve, but you’re stubbornly stuck in the past. Won’t you even imagine a different future?” My temper was getting the better of me.
So was his. “I play—because there is no choice! You think I haven’t tried to upend the game?”
“You? You were one of the ones to make a truce?” My surprise appeared to infuriate him.
He shot to his feet, beginning to pace the study. “Talk of ending the game is a blasphemy—I was twice a blasphemer!”
“Don’t you, well, live for this?”
He raked a hand through his blond hair. “I wanted to change my existence so much, my bloody Tarot card is associated with change to this day.” Voice rising with each word, he said, “This game is a hell we’ve all been damned into. It’s designed to madden us. The most intelligent Arcana ever to play is called the Fool. The one who least wanted to kill was named Death. And you, Empress, rule over nothing!”
“You don’t need to kill?”
He turned to his vodka, drank. “Need. Want. Doesn’t matter. I do it.” When he refilled, the bottle clattered against the glass. “If any of these Arcana knew what awaited the winner, they would not be so keen to snatch a victory from me. They would thank me for reaping their lives.”
“I had no idea you felt this way.” Understatement. He wasn’t merely weary of killing, he despised it.
Another glass down. “You have no idea about me at all.”
“You’re right. And now that I’m thinking about it, I do want a boon. I want to ask you questions about your life and past, and have you answer them honestly.” Still atop his desk, I reached over and took the bottle from him to refill his glass.
“And so I am snared?” With an exhalation, he sank into his chair once more. “Then ask.”
“What do those runes on your skin mean?” The runes I’d dreamed of . . .
“As much as you watch me training, I’m surprised you haven’t deciphered them.”
I gave him a helpless shrug.
“They tell a story, one I can never forget—even if I die in this game. Each morning I look at them in the mirror to remind myself. And I’ll never reveal it to you, so don’t bother asking.”
I pursed my lips. “Will you tell me what you do between games? Please?”
Leaning forward aggressively, he said, “I wander the earth and see men age before my eyes. I read any book or paper I can get my hands on. I watch the stars in the sky; over my lifetime some dim, some brighten. I sleep for weeks at a time and chase the dragon.” When I frowned, he explained, “Opium.”
Made from poppy, one of the Empress’s symbolic plants. Their red blooms adorned my card.
“I take it any way I can ingest it.” He seemed to be daring me to say something about that, which I would never do.
I couldn’t imagine how harrowing his existence must be, thanking God—or the gods—that it hadn’t been my fate. Was that why I’d pitied him when I was younger? When I’d gazed at his card with fascination, I must have sensed something about this man. His horse looks sick, and he has no friends.
“On the cusp of a new game,” he continued, “the anticipation is like fire in my veins. I endeavor to locate other cards. To shepherd them, or mark them for elimination. I prepare for all different catastrophes. This is what I’ve done for millennia.”
“I see. If you’re looking for judgment, you won’t find it here,” I said. “All I want is to learn more about you. Will you tell me about growing up?” Maybe he had happy memories like I did. “Where are you from?”
He gave me an accusing look. “Why should I tell you? You won’t remember it anyway.”
“That really bugs you, that I can’t recall the previous games.”
Instead of answering, he stood and crossed to a wall safe. Withdrawing something glittering, he handed a jeweled piece to me, his forefinger briefly brushing my wrist. “Perhaps this will assist you.”
My gaze narrowed on the stunning emerald necklace. “You gave this to me once.” He must have taken it off my corpse. After he’d killed me last time. “I’m surprised you were able to get my blood off it.”
He scowled, turning toward the window. Lightning forked down in the distance.
“Why show me this?” I set it away on the desk, not wanting to touch it any longer. Though I was amazed that he’d kept it this long, the piece reminded me of a bloody and violent death. “Why not just tell me what you want me to remember?”
“Because relating our past won’t have the same impact. Because you won’t trust what I say.”
“Fair enough. In the meantime, you can at least tell me about yourself. I know you were born three games before this one. What was your boyhood like? Will you finally tell me your name?”
“My name?” Staring out into the night, he murmured, “I was called Aric. It means a ruler, forever alone.” Harsh laugh. “How prophetic of my parents.”
Aric. At last, he’d told me. When I’d first arrived here, he’d said, “Death is all I’ll ever be to you.”
No longer. “Go on.”
“When I was a boy, I was well aware that I’d been blessed with fortune. My father was a warlord who ruled a fortified settlement, a great trading center in what’s now Latvia.”
So that was his accent.
He returned to his seat. “We were the wealthiest family in the land, and my parents loved each other very deeply. Wanting what they had, I agreed when my father urged me to marry. I’d just turned sixteen, and it was time for me to start a family of my own.”
Had Death—or rather, Aric—been married? I’d never imagined it was even possible. I felt a surprising flare of jealousy. “But your touch . . .”
“I wasn’t born with my curse.” Shot, refill. “My father held a dance for me to choose a wife. I danced with many. The next day, they were all plagued with illness—just from holding my hand. Yet at the time, no one had reason to believe I was the cause. It wasn’t until my curse grew in strength, until my touch killed in seconds, that I knew I was responsible. Two of my last accidental victims were my parents.”
Even after all this time, the guilt in his expression was raw.
“Crazed with grief, I left my home, stumbling blindly into the game. In time, I began to comprehend what I was. I was damned to win, to be immortal for all time, to be alone.” He exhaled a weary breath. “And then I met you.”
Was he finally going to reveal what had happened between us?
“I’d gone more than a year without contact by this time. It doesn’t sound like much, but imagine that long without a single handshake or a relative’s embrace. Without so much as a brush of skin as coin changes hands.”
Even here, I’d had contact. I roughhoused with Lark, and I’d had those fleeting contacts with Death. His existence must’ve been a living nightmare.
“I stroked your face, intending to end you. Yet you never fell ill. I can still remember how shockingly soft your skin was. How warm.” He seemed to get lost in the memory. Voice gone hoarse, he said, “I shuddered to feel it against mine.” He glanced up sharply, clearing his throat. “You were as stunned as I was.”
“Did we . . . ?”
He gave a curt shake of his head, eyes beginning to glow—this time with fury.
Heedless of his anger, I pressed on. “Then if we haven’t slept together, have you ever?” I wasn’t a virgin, but he might be.
His glass shattered in his fist.
“I-I guess not. But you’d intended to with me?” To my bed, Empress.
“Until you betrayed me.”
“How?” When he gave a pointed glance at the necklace, I said, “What if I never can remember? I need to know!”
He grated, “I told you, creature. You folded first.”
“The two of us had called a truce before?”
He rose with a disgusted expression—but I didn’t think it was directed toward me. He looked disgusted with himself, as if this encounter had just gone sideways.
“I ready for my departure,” he said dismissively, striding toward an adjoining door.
I scrambled to follow. He muttered a curse when I barreled through the doorway behind him.
I gaped at his firelit room. The ceiling and walls were solid black, the floor veined black marble. His jet-black armor hung on a stand, as if another man were in the room with us. The sole piece of furniture was a carved sleigh bed. His sheets were twisted.
Did he suffer from wicked dreams as well?
He scowled around his room, clearly regretting that I’d seen his most personal space.
“Do you know what I think, Death?” When I perched on the edge of his bed, he turned away with a sharp inhalation. “I think you missed me this morning in the gym.”
Jaw clenched, he crossed to his armor.
“And I think you’re going to miss me when you leave. Whenever you’re out there by yourself, does that gut-wrenching loneliness come creeping back?”
He stiffened.
“You hate this existence, and I think you secretly hope I can help you find another one.”
“It doesn’t matter what I hope. Because I can’t trust you.”
“If you could, would you want more with me? Would you want to be with me?”
“This was a mistake. You need to leave.” With hasty movements, he buckled a layer of metal over his right leg, another over his left. “You are forbidden from this part of the manor from now on.”
I gasped. “You do want to be with me.” As soon as I said the words, I accepted that I might want my life to be here with him as well. “Please don’t go yet. Just talk to me, Aric.”
He tensed at the use of his name, as if I’d struck him. “Leave now. If I recollect your betrayal, I might kill you. If I recollect how you’ve betrayed me already in this life . . .”
I shot to my feet. “What have I done to you?” He’d captured me, imprisoned me. When I’d attacked him and his alliance, I’d only been defending myself.
“I am warning you—leave me.” Turning away, he yanked off his shirt to don his breastplate. Even in the midst of this discord, I gazed longingly at his back flexing.
He shoved on his gauntlets and turned, seeming surprised to see that I was still there. Did no one else disobey him?
“Any woman with sense would’ve heeded my warning.” He strapped on his sword belt.
Yes, he had warned me, but I’d already learned more about him than ever before, and I sensed he was on the verge of confiding even more. Or, well, killing me. I squared my shoulders. “I’m staying.”
He reached for his helmet, tucking it under one arm, then stalked up to me, a fearsome sight. At that moment, I completely believed some death god had chosen this man to be his knight. When we were toe to toe, I craned my head up.
Emotions sped over his face, too many to latch on to just one. “Then I’m going.” He stalked around me and left the room.
I trailed him down the corridor to the outer doors. “Damn it, Aric, can your trip not wait?”
Without another word, he charged out into a blustery storm. From the doorway, I watched, feeling like I’d just missed my one opportunity for . . . something.
Keeping him here suddenly felt crucial.
When he rode from the stable at a blistering speed, I ran out into the rain to intercept him. His mount reared, red eyes wild as its sharpened hooves pawed the air.
“You’ve lost your mind!” He yanked off his helmet, revealing his anguished glowing eyes. “What are you thinking?”
I hurried to the side of his horse, yelling over the downpour, “How have I betrayed you in this life?” When I rested my hand on his armored leg, he flinched. “I have to know.”
He dismounted, his movements deliberate, almost sinister. My heart raced as I backed up a few steps. Had he reached his limit with me?
Once he stood just before me, I had the impulse to run away. Too close, too much, too intense. But I had to know. . . .
He reached down to clamp my nape in his punishing grip. Between clenched teeth, he grated, “You weren’t meant for him.” Rain spiked his lashes. “That you allowed the mortal to have you—it makes me crazed! You gave him everything.”
“You’ve hated me for two thousand years. Tell me why you care who I was with.”
His hand shook. “I care.”
“Why?!”
He tenderly grasped my face with his lethal gauntlet. His touch might be tender, but his expression . . .
Filled with lust and longing and other feelings too seething for me to read.
This had been building inside me for weeks; it might have been building inside him for centuries.
Then his lips were on mine, scalding in the rain, covering, claiming. His tongue swept in, demanding more, more. For someone so out of practice, his kiss was perfection—but savage too, as if it was the last one he would ever have. Surrendering to it, I threw my arms around his neck. Just like in my dream.
Better than.
Incredibly hotter.
Over the rain, I could hear my moans, his groans. He looped his free arm around my torso, squeezing me so tightly against his armor, but I loved it.
As he slanted his lips over mine again and again, I dimly noticed my feet weren’t touching the ground. I clung to him as if I’d never let go, fingers clutching at his hair.
I wanted this kiss to last forever.
Yet he drew back, leaving me dazed, breathless. “Aric?” My lips were bruised, cold without his against them.
Between heaving breaths, he rasped, “I care because . . . because you were my wife. You still are.”
My legs went weak with shock.
“You took vows, then tried to kill me on our wedding night.” Voice gone raw, he said, “You forced me to murder my bride.” The pain in his starry eyes . . .
He released me to mount his horse. With a last burning look, he rode away, leaving me to collapse to my knees.