Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles Book 5) (8 page)

Being this near the fort made me feel closer to Jack. Excitement welled inside me as I ran my fingers over the ribbon in my pocket.

When Sol got his first good look at the fort, his lips thinned with disgust.
“
Pedazo de mierda
. What is this piece-of-shit place?”

I had my hand wrapped around his neck so fast, my claws dripping. “This is a place where people dreamed of having a better life. While you were holed up in your coliseum stronghold, others were out in the Ash fighting and scrapping for everything they got.”

“I-I’m sorry, Empress.”

I released him with a glare. “You’re like the Hermit Card—you crawled into a ready-made shell. It cost you
nothing
.” Choking back my fury, I commanded, “Drive around that stretch of dirt.”

At the edge of the minefield, a rutted trail meandered this way and that. Tire tracks. As if from a mass retreat. “Follow those ruts.
Carefully
. There are mines everywhere.”

He swallowed, and drove along the trail. As the truck closed in on the fort’s outer wall, we passed chunks of some charred animal. A huge one with frizzy black fur. “Oh, my God.” Cyclops. Or half of him.

“What was that?” Sol’s eyes went wide. “A giant dog?”

I muttered, “Something like that.”

Tracks and furrows led away from the legs and tail, as if the wolf had dragged itself from its severed hindquarters. Why was his pelt riddled with bullet holes?

Who would’ve shot him?

Though a favorite of mine, he’d remained here to help Finn reunite with Lark once the Magician had healed enough to make the journey.

I reminded myself that the wolf couldn’t die. Not as long as Lark lived. Cyclops could be holed up in the neighboring rock forest, regenerating. He might even pick up my scent, and then Lark would know I’d survived.

I told Sol, “Drive up to the entrance and park.”

As we neared the gates, I replayed my memory of Jack riding through them with his chin up, his bearing proud. All the army soldiers had respected the legendary
Hunter
, as he’d been known. They’d made him their general. So many of those men had died.

Not permanently.
Not if I can help it.

Sol had just turned off the ignition when the gates swung open, wind battering them against the wall. No one manned them. The metal groaned like a Bagman’s wail.

“Come with me,” I said, climbing from the cab. When Sol joined me on the ground, I stretched the stalks circling his wrists to bind his ankles as well.

“Is this really necessary,
pequeña
?”

“Really is, Sol.” As I approached the wall, I cried, “Hello! Is someone here? Please answer me!”
Aric! Finn! Tess!

I half expected to find Aric waiting here for me. Would I hear his horse nickering in the stable? Had Thanatos survived the flood?

Had Aric?

Of course, he would have.
So where is he?

Inside, I swept my gaze around and found a ghost town. No fires, no animals, no voices. Just the blustery winds and desolation.

This place was a shell. Fort Arcana had . . . died.

Crates of supplies had been abandoned. The fort’s inhabitants must’ve thought the Emperor would continue his path of hell straight for them.

Maybe some Azey South survivors were camped across the river? I hopped onto a plankway and ran to the tower. Sol hobbled after me, but I couldn’t wait for him.

I climbed the stairs, then peeked from the lookout, hoping to spy a campfire, any sign of life.

Nothing.

I turned back to the fort. In one corner, I saw the orange tree I’d grown for Tess. Without sun, its leaves had already begun to brown.

Beside the tree was a mound of dirt. Was that a . . . grave? Whose? A horrible idea arose—no.
No.
I quashed it as I raced down the stairs and lurched past Sol.

I tripped over another plankway, blundering around empty animal pens. I passed Jack’s tent and imagined I heard his deep voice saying, “
Ma fille aux yeux bleus
.” My blue-eyed girl.

Heart in my throat, I slowed when the mound came into sight. The ground was trampled as if someone had been buried in a hurry. A single staff jutted from the dirt to mark the grave.

Tess’s staff.

A cry slipped from my lips. No, no, that didn’t mean Tess was buried here! Her death was my nightmare scenario: the one that couldn’t possibly be.

The one in which Jack had been burned alive by a monster—and I could do nothing to save him.

Someone had just wanted to mark a burial, and her staff had been handy. She had left it behind on occasion. Only one way to be sure.

Sol had hobbled closer. Uncaring of his gaze on me, I knelt and started digging, stabbing my claws through the icy soil in a frenzy.

One foot down; two feet down. Three. Four.

I reached cloth and pulled on it. More dirt gave way to reveal . . .

A husk wrapped in a sheet.

Choking back bile, I peeled away the material and found what had once been a sweet girl named Tess.

Her body was like this fort—a shell of her former self. Without life inside.

My nightmare. One look at her wasted body, and I knew how she’d died. She had
already
tried to reverse time. To save Jack, Selena, and the army . . .

Tess had tried so hard that she’d lost control of her incomprehensible powers.
Lass likes to help.
She’d killed herself to bring others back. And she’d still failed.

Jack is dead.

I cradled what was left of Tess in my arms and mindlessly rocked her body like a doll.

From a distance, Sol watched grief destroy me.

I was covered in mud and out of breath, my muscles knotted. But I neared the top of that peak.

The one I’d stood upon while witnessing a massacre.

When I’d last journeyed to this vantage I’d been filled with hope, riding a hard-working mare that I’d never even named. Her remains must’ve been washed away in the flood.

What would I find atop the peak now? Having no idea, I trudged upward.

I’d remembered more of the Emperor’s attack, and every detail confirmed that Jack had died. But I’d also told him I would never underestimate him again. Maybe I could find some clue, some hint that there’d been survivors.

At the very least, I had to see for myself his . . . final resting place.

And so I gritted my teeth and climbed. Circe’s flood had gouged this slope, making it much steeper.

What will I find at the top?

I’d told Sol to wait in the truck. Had I tied him down? I was so numb with grief that I couldn’t remember.

As I searched for a handhold, I recalled the vision Matthew had given me before he’d disappeared. He’d shown me ten swords in my back—like the ten of swords Tarot card—vowing that the darkest days were ahead. He’d told me, “Matthew knows best.”

On the way back from the Lovers’ lair, I’d asked Selena what she made of his message. Her brusque answer: “That he’s a freaking nutjob?” At my disapproving expression, she’d added, “I know that the ten of swords card means that somebody’s about to be crushed by a merciless power—with no warning. I mean,
totaled
. It’s supposed to represent rock bottom, when you can’t sink any lower.” Her dark eyes had grown serious. “Doesn’t sound good, Evie.”

Matthew had been preparing me for Jack’s death. Or trying to.

The Fool had no idea. There was
no
preparing to have one’s heart destroyed. Those ten swords had stabbed me through, piercing it.

He’d asked me what I would sacrifice. I hadn’t been able to answer then, but I could now.

Not Jack.

I pulled myself higher.
What will I find at the top of this rise?

The Fool had also begged me never to hate him. I would give him as much mercy as he’d shown me. He could have prevented Jack’s and Selena’s deaths, the entire army’s.

All of those people had set off, filled with hope about a place called Acadiana. Jack would’ve made good on his promise of a refuge.

Matthew knows best?
He’d ridden away like a coward before the Emperor attacked, telling Finn one last cryptic statement:
I’ve made peace with it.

With letting my Jack die.

I blamed Matthew as much as Richter. One of those ten swords had been the Fool’s.
He
had stabbed me in the back.

What will I find at the top . . . ?

I blamed myself as well. It should have been me.
I
had been fated to die.

At the very least, if I had listened to Circe’s advice—leaving Selena in the hands of the Lovers—Jack and all those people might’ve been spared. Selena had died anyway.

I’d made those choices—I’d pretended to be a leader—so those deaths were on my head. Tess’s was as well.

Last night, after I’d reburied her body, I’d run down to the shore outside the fort, where Circe and I had once talked. I’d yelled to the river, “I know you’re here, Circe! Show yourself!” Nothing. “Have you seen Aric?”

She hadn’t given me even a ripple on the surface. “You were right about taking out the Emperor!”

When she’d still refused to answer me, I’d waded into the river and kicked the water to provoke her. “Damn you! Why won’t you appear?”

Silence. Even as my tears had spilled into her domain. . . .

Finally, I reached the top. Gasping for breath, I levered myself up on my feet—and stared in shock.

The peak was no longer a peak. Circe’s tidal wave must have flash-cooled Richter’s lava because a sea of smooth black stone stretched from the top of this mountain to a distant one, across what used to be a valley. The drizzle made the surface shine.

“Mark this image,” Aric had told me as he’d pointed to the cauldron of bubbling lava. “
Where
will you search for him?”

A sob burst from my chest. I’d watched Jack’s murder.

No, I refused this! There must’ve been a way for him to escape. I fought to clear my dazed mind, to recall what I’d seen before the attack.

The long line of the army’s caravan had inched across that valley, a glowworm in the dark. Cars and trucks had sprawled for about a mile, a fraction of the valley’s length. Jack and Selena would have been riding at the forefront, but had turned back toward me when I’d radioed.

Jack and I had marveled at the snow. At tiny drifts of white. He’d marveled that I’d chosen him.

He and Selena might have ridden a mile or two at most before Richter had struck. Lava had buried the line of trucks from front to back—as well as this entire valley and several rises all around.

Even if Jack and Selena had covered ten miles, they still would’ve been in the middle.

Selena, the girl who’d just endured the Lovers’ hell, had died. Part of me had
sensed
that kill. Other Arcana had as well, and Matthew, in his own way, had confirmed it.

She’d had superhuman speed, agility, and senses, yet she’d perished. And she’d been right beside Jack.

He’s dead.

No one could have survived this.

That battle had left behind a vast gravestone. Buried beneath it were hundreds of victims. My Jack was buried there.

Why had I made the decision not to fight in this game? Maybe the game was punishing me for daring to challenge it. Or the gods were.

By trying to reverse time and bring back Jack, I’d challenged fate as well. And I’d failed.

Did that mean I
always
would? Could a fate ever be changed?

In a daze, I trudged across the stone. Roughly halfway across, I stopped. Here the wind blew even harder, the rain stinging.

With a sob, I dropped to my knees to mark Jack’s and Selena’s graves. How could I sum up their lives in a few short lines? They’d been so much more.

Flaring my claws, I began to engrave the rock, starting with Selena.

Then . . . Jack. Sweating, bleeding, hyperventilating, I carved. Time passed. Who knew how long? Night rolled over into more night.

When I finished, I’d worn my bloody fingertips to the bone, and insanity beckoned as seductively as a blossom. I collapsed onto my back and lay between the two memorials, dripping blood on them.

I grew friendship ivy for Selena.

And honeysuckle for Jack.

I wondered if grief could be so strong it was fatal. My heart hurt so badly it must be bleeding out inside my chest.
I
must be bleeding to death.
Ten swords pierced me through.

But something else was competing with my heartache, a thread of fury.

After Jack and I had watched the smoke plume from my mother’s funeral pyre, he’d told me, “She died in grace. I only hope to go out so clean.”

He hadn’t. Because of the Emperor. Richter had laughed as he’d murdered Jack and all those people.

Richter would die. The red witch would annihilate him. Hatred made me rise. Hatred forced one foot in front of the other as I staggered away from the graves.