Dead of Winter (36 page)

Rest. All I wanted was to drop facedown and starfish my cot. But I was itching to check on Matthew.

Plus, my decision. I gazed at Jack, then Death.

After the Flash, life was so precarious that time seemed to pass differently. A day, much less a week, was an eternity. I couldn't string this along. In any case, the army was leaving tomorrow a.m.

Jack would need to know if he was setting out with them—or heading to North Carolina with me.

Aric had waited long enough.

He alighted from his saddle to help me from mine. On the ground, I turned from him, from the question burning in his amber eyes.

Yes, I needed to give them an answer. I just wished I had one.

I faced Finn. “Where is everyone? Where's Matthew?” I hadn't heard any calls. But then, I'd been asleep in the saddle all the way up to the minefield.

“Joules and company vamoosed a couple of mornings ago. They
smoked out the remaining traitors and exiled them. According to Joules, they were ‘big feckers.' ”

“Gabriel was okay with leaving?” He'd been so worried about Selena.

Finn sliced a glance at Death. “With you guys all heading home, and the Priestess hanging around, Matthew warned about convergence, was kinda stern about it.”

Circe remained? On the way back here, whenever I'd passed a stream, memories of the High Priestess arose. In one, she and I had laughed so hard we'd cried. We would finally stop, look at each other, only to burst out laughing again. . . .

“Joules & Crew told me they'd check back in over the winter,” Finn said. “Maybe spend the holidays with us.”

Did holidays still exist? Okay, sure. “Is Matthew in bed?”

Finn's excited demeanor dimmed. “Uh. He kind of . . . split, too. Rode out the other day. I don't know where to.”

“What do you mean by
split 
?” My glyphs began to glow.

“Hold it, blondie, Matto's a grown dude, and there was no stopping him.”

I shoved my hair from my face, my gaze darting. “He's got a huge head start.” He'd already been on the road when he'd visited me in that vision! Had he been telling me good-bye, for
good 
? “I have no idea how to find him.”

“Don't,” Aric said quietly.

“Excuse me?”

“The Fool knows this game and this world better than anyone. He can take care of himself.”

“But he can't see his own future! And he was so sick.” I glanced at Jack and Selena. Both looked torn.

“Matto was doing tons better than before,” Finn assured me.

“
Sievā
, he'll travel with another person, reading his companion's future to safeguard his own. You know his weaknesses, but you ignore his strengths.”

“What does that mean?”

His blond brows drew together. “Again, Empress, let him
rest
.”

Could I? I ached to make sure he was okay. But I didn't want to be part of the problem. “Wh-when will he come back? Will I ever see him again?”

Aric's eyes were grave. “He'll find you when you least expect it. . . .”

In Finn and Selena's tent, I dropped onto a spare cot, still numb over Matthew's disappearance.

Jack and Aric followed me inside. They both stood so tall and built, seeming to soak up all the oxygen in the area.

“
Coo-yôn
will be okay,” Jack said. “He sometimes went off by himself.”

Even if I accepted that Matthew wasn't in danger, I couldn't accept that he'd gone out on the road alone. Months ago, I'd left Finn's by myself, and I had never known such loneliness. For the first time in my life, I'd had no friends or family to talk to, no one expecting me.

Kind of like Aric Domīnija's life for the last two millennia.

My couple of days versus his eons.

Too much to process. “Can we please talk in the morning?” I fell back on my old argument: no one could make me choose before I was ready. “Is there an extra tent where Aric can stay?”

“Ouais.”
Jack rubbed his hand over his black stubble. “But, Evie, before you make a decision, you need to consider something.”

“What?”

He turned to Aric with an almost guilty expression on his face. “You saved my life, DomÄ«nija. You've done me right. But I can't lose my girl again.”

Aric clenched his fists—as if he knew what Jack was going to say.

Jack faced me. “What if you can't stop the game? It spools on as long as more than one player lives, all the Arcana aging. Which means the Reaper's got to have a patsy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He's goan to kill every Arcana that's a threat. If you're the last two left, one of you
will
die first, leaving the ‘winner' to walk the earth as an immortal. What if you get to be eighty by the time he dies? It doan matter if you're Arcana—at that age, you'll hurt, you might be sick—and you'll stay like that for centuries. How're you goan to fight in the next game?”

I swallowed. I'd been horrified by the idea of living so long—more so if I was forever cursed to be sick, to be in pain.

I gazed at Aric; he stared back at me as if his world was crumbling around him—and he could do nothing but
let it
.

“He's smart enough to have figured out all of the angles,” Jack continued. “He woan condemn either of you to that, so he'll keep one other Arcana alive to take that fall, to be the winner.”

I'd never thought of this. Jack with his tricky mind. “Aric, how had you planned to get around this?”

“We intend to end the game. But if we can't, the odds are exceedingly slim that we'll live to be eighty in this world.”

“Answer the question.”

His shoulders rose and fell. “Lark volunteered. She doesn't need youth or strength as long as she has her creatures. She wants to repopulate their numbers.”

My jaw slackened. “You should've told me. Once again, you mapped out my existence without mentioning your plans to me.”

Brows drawn, he admitted, “Yes.”

My head started to pound again. I rubbed my temples, wondering how I'd gotten myself into this situation. No answers came to me; my mind limped along. “W-we'll talk in the morning. Just, both of you, give me time to think.”

Jack opened his mouth to say more, then closed it. At the tent flap, he murmured, “
Peekôn
, it'll always be Evie and Jack.” Then he was gone.

Aric crossed the tent, kneeling before me. In a low tone, he said, “I had something I was going to offer you that would guarantee you chose
me. But you would accuse me of strategizing, of coercion.”

This explained the recent doubt in his expression. “The trick up your sleeve. Your ‘gift.' I've dreaded this.”

“You see me in such a harsh light.” He exhaled wearily. “And it's all my own doing. Fear not, I won't play it.”

“Tell me what you were going to give me.”

He shook his head. “I'm doomed either way. If I win you like that, it would be as good as losing.” He removed a gauntlet. Eyes aglow, he laid his hand against my face, savoring the touch as if it would be his last. “Empress, I
have
learned about you in these days. I've realized that I can't compel you to go with me—or it's meaningless. And that I should tell you everything that affects your future. I've learned,
sievā
, but have I learned too late?”

I didn't reply, refusing to commit to anything.

“If you choose me, I want it to be because you love me in turn,” he rasped, “so I offer you nothing this night. Just my hope.”

Even in the face of my anger and confusion, Aric pulled at my heart. “It means a lot for you to say this.”

“But does it mean
enough
?”

This man was a part of me, had been for epochs. I felt our soul-deep bond, could almost hear that endless wave along the shore. Still I had to whisper, “I don't know.”

I'd been dozing on my borrowed cot when the Magician returned with Cyclops.

Finn maneuvered himself on his own cot, propping his leg up. “Can't sleep, blondie?” The wolf lolled on the floor beside him.
Thump, thump, thump
went his massive tail.

I shook my head. “Where's Selena?”

“Talking to Jack. Pep talking him, if I had to guess. You got a choice to make, huh? Whole fort's speculating about it. Seems like you'll be getting scarce tomorrow either way.”

“Yep.” I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

“So which bachelor will it be?”

“I know who you would pick for me.”

He nodded. “The Cajun's a class act. Death allied with Ogen, who flattened a mountain—while I was inside it. Ergo . . .”

“Death also helped us rescue Selena, and he saved Jack's life.”

Finn scratched behind one of the wolf's scarred ears. “I get it. Things change. People change. We just have to keep up with the program.”

“Like with Lark?”

“You think I should give it a shot with her?”

“I do. I know that she's got a good heart, and she cared for you.”

Cyclops's tail thumped harder. So Lark was listening in?

“Yeah, I figure my chickie's worth some couple's therapy. Hey, I hope it's cool, but the wolf is staying here with me. As soon as I can ride, Cyclops will guide me to Lark.”

“It's cool. I feel better knowing you have a plan.”

If I chose Jack, I'd never see Finn or Lark again.

Aric.

Matthew? “Finn, what was Matthew like before he left? Did he bring supplies with him? Food?” He was always hungry.

“A metric shit ton of food.”

“Did he tell you good-bye before leaving?”

“Kinda. You know Matto. He said a bunch of weird stuff.”

“Like what?” Weird stuff from him could be critical.

Finn peered at the tent roof. “He told me, ‘I see far' and ‘the gods mark us all.' And something like ‘All is not what it seems.' I thought he was kind of joking around, but he didn't laugh.”

“Anything else?”

Finn snapped his fingers. “Oh, oh, and right before he rode out, he caught my eye and said, ‘I've made peace with it.' ”

With
what 
?

Long after Finn had passed out, I remained awake, listening to the rhythm of his breathing, his sleepy murmurs.

Sometimes he talked about surfing: “Sickest curl ever.” Most times, he talked about his parents. “They coulda made it. Cali would be safe. Cali's always the best.”

Strangely, Selena never returned to the tent. Where would she be this late?

I was still concerned about her, and I'd gotten used to having her around. As these hours crawled by, I wouldn't have minded some company. I was half tempted to go call on Circe.

Instead, I mused over my choices, readying to make the most important decision of my life.

I called to mind Aric's face. He was connected to me, a soul mate.
Leaving him to wallow in misery went against everything in me. He did have a shit fate. But it didn't have to be.

When I imagined him pacing the lonely halls of his home, forever alone, my eyes pricked with tears. But a future with him would be filled with difficulties.

Immortality. Intrigues. Plotting.

I did believe he was learning how to treat me and would change even more—because he was
trying
to be a better man for me, a trait I'd always admired in Jack.

How hard Aric had fought to save his rival's life. For me. . . .

I pictured Jack's face. He was my first love, and we'd claimed each other in more ways than one. But he had so much going for him, so many things to distract him from me. He'd taken control of armies and had become a respected man—as he'd obviously craved since boyhood.

If I chose him, I'd have to find a way to trust him. I'd have to accept that he would never share his secrets. I'd have to throw all in and hope that he didn't disappoint me.