Arcana Rising
Page 67

Aric had found her down there—directly after I’d tried to poison him. He’d saved her life, earning her loyalty.
I bit my lip. “Maybe she’ll only target me.” Had my countdown feeling been about Circe? Maybe I shouldn’t be waiting for the other shoe to drop; I should be waiting for the wave to crest.
“Siev, targeting you is targeting me.”
Some beast roared in the night. The animal calls and cries were a constant reminder of Lark’s growing arsenal.
“The longer the game stretches on, the stronger we each become.”
Except me. “Does Richter?”
“Yes,” Aric said quietly. “And Fortune and the Sun.”
“Sol said he would be able to light up the entire world, controlling millions of Baggers. Could he?”
“Possibly. But if Fortune alone realizes her full powers, then she has already defeated us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her luck-energy manipulation,” he said. “She could blindly affect a battle—before it even started. Her ability could guarantee that her alliance would win any conflict.”
“The odds would always be fixed in their favor?”
He shook his head. “Not odds. Fixed outcomes. We would have no odds.”
Maybe she was the root of what I’d sensed. Damn it, something was coming! I grabbed Aric’s shoulder. “I want you to wear your armor as much as possible. Please. If you died . . .”
He clasped my face. “I need you to understand something. No matter what happens in the future, no matter what this game brings, these months with you have been worth all my loneliness and pain.” He gave me brief, hard kiss. “I would repeat those millennia, just for this taste of life with you.”
“Again, I love you too, Aric. Now, wear your fucking armor.”
His thumb brushed over my cheekbone. “I’m likely to fall in battle.”
“You haven’t in two thousand years.” Then I frowned. “Do you no longer expect us to have a life together?”
“A long one?” He shook his head. “I told you the odds of us both living to eighty in this world was exceedingly slim, especially if the game toils on. We’re soldiers, and we’re at war. But we will return.”
“Where will players come from in the future?” I asked. “Most of us have no family left.”
“But every Arcana has a closest relative somewhere in the world. That person will continue the line.”
Digesting everything he’d told me, I said, “If we’re soldiers at war, then let’s go out in a blaze of glory—together.”
“Should both of us lose, how will we know not to kill each other in the future? The mere idea that I might hurt you again . . .” His eyes flickered with emotion. “We could write to our next incarnations, but who will deliver such a missive?”
“When you asked me to be with you months ago, how had you planned for this?”
“I would have trusted Lark to carry letters on,” he said. “Now we each have a target on our back.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do another seven-century stint.” He’d told me and Jack that immortality was the utterest hell. “But I couldn’t handle it either. I’m not built to be alone. Aric, if something happened to you . . . I couldn’t . . .” Losing them both? There was no tourniquet tight enough. “Winning the game would be my absolute worst nightmare.”
Voice gone gruff, he said, “You truly mean that.”
I nodded. “We need to figure out another way to preserve our memories.”
“We could bargain with the Fool—”
“Out of the question.” I inhale a breath, then softened my tone. “What about Circe? Maybe we could ask her to cast a spell.”
“Though we might not even trust her not to kill us?”
Good point. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“We’ll talk to her.” He reached for me, pulling me closer. “Come here.”
I went into his arms, and for a time, I didn’t have to think at all. . . .
44
Day 511 A.F.
“The unclean one!” Lark called when I stopped by her room. She was sitting on her bed, in the middle of a pile of animals.
Aric was finishing up some other translations, so I’d told him I would go check in with Lark. Secretly I wanted to make sure she wasn’t planning our murders with all her animals and such. “Are you taking a break?”
“A few minutes. Just to rest my wings. I mean, my falcon’s wings.” She waved to the bed. “Cop a squat.”
I waded through animals, then scooted a grumpy badger family out of the way so I could sit beside Lark.
“You’re making the boss happy,” she said. “Like a thousand times more happy than when you two hit it off before. I heard the man whistling the other morning. For real?”
“For real.” I reached over and plucked feathers from her hair.
With an irritated growl, she shook her mane out.
I insistently tucked her hair behind her ears. “Your ears are getting pointed.”
She slapped her claw-tipped fingers over them and hissed at me.
“I think they’re adorable.”
With a wary expression, she lowered her hands. “Whatever.” Fretting her lip with a fang, she said, “Do you think Finn’ll be cool with my changes?”