"That good, huh? I know you and Jack think you're going to talk me out of challenging him, but you won't. We don't have a choice. You feel how cold it is tonight. I don't plan on giving birth in this cave."
"Instead you plan on risking our son in an Arcana battle."
"Those who threaten my kid don't live long." I kept saying my kid. It didn't feel right to include Aric by saying our. And didn't Jack have as much claim? Without him, there'd be no kid. "If I'm in enough jeopardy"--and enraged enough--"the red witch should rise." The trick was sticking to the shallow end.
"Should? Should?" Aric stood, beginning to pace.
"She took me over completely in the battle with the Cups. It was like an out-of-body experience."
He slowed. "Ah, that is what the mortal hesitated to tell me."
"In fact, I don't recommend lowering your guard around me. When I knocked you out last time, the witch wanted to kill you. What if I lost control again? I could poison you in your sleep."
"You've unleashed her before and returned to normal."
"The return gets dicier each time." Rage was a type of madness, and I had enough on tap to lose my mind a thousand times over. "I'm coming to believe I'll eventually turn into her for good, just as I always have before. Only a matter of time. I'm her, and she's me."
"I don't believe that. You've come so far. And you won't harm me. Even in self-defense, you hesitated to strike against me."
My gaze lit on those cursed cat-food cans. The sight ratcheted up my fury even more. "I didn't have this much rage in me before. Facing off against you made me understand it better than I ever have. When you attacked, your eyes were filled with it."
"I had no control of myself!"
"What about when you first abducted me away from Jack all those months ago? Or when you stabbed my picture? You hated me back then, and it had nothing to do with Paul!"
"Sieva, I am so--"
"Evie!" I shot to my feet. "My name is Evie. But you don't call me that, because I'm interchangeable with the other Empresses, right? The names change, but the evil bitch remains the same? Then watch this evil bitch go take care of business."
"I call you wife. I am proud and humbled to do so."
"And I liked that, but can't I be more than either a wife or an enemy? Because right now I'm not fitting into either box you want to stuff me into!"
"I do not wish to do that." In a voice laden with regret, he said, "I only wish to make amends, to make things right between us once more."
His patience just stoked my fury. My God, pregnancy emotions were crazy. I couldn't catch my breath, felt like I was spinning around on Tess's carousel. Faster. Faster. Until I'd be flung out into nothing. "Amends? What if you can't make up for what's happened? What if we've lost too much?" Why hadn't Tee moved again? I clutched my stomach. Damn it, kid, do something. "I can't handle this! I just can't--"
"Hey, now." Jack hurried inside, striding between us. "Let's save some fight for the days ahead."
"Being in this place makes me remember things. Like licking an empty cat-food can while talking to him." I pointed accusingly at Aric. "Or Kentarch trying to feed me his blood. I should've tried to drink it. If not for me, then for . . ." My voice cracked.
Was I even expecting a kid anymore? Just like that, I burst into tears.
Jack pulled me into his arms. I could feel him waving Death away behind my back.
In a rasp, Aric said, "Please forgive me." His spurs were silent as he left the cave.
45
Death
I paced outside, sucking in lungfuls of air. The weight of a meteor rested on my chest. It must be that--my heart couldn't pain me this much otherwise.
I could hear my wife sobbing in the mortal's arms. Yet I could do nothing to comfort her. When we'd spoken on the phone, she'd predicted that the guilt would torture me.
It does.
I heard Deveaux murmur, "Shh, I got you."
Fists clenched, I stared at the sky. She'd once told me that he used to say that to her. Jealousy warred with despondency.
"Bebe," he continued in a hushed tone, "you might've caught a touch of PTSD. Not surprising, non? But remember, there's nothing we can't get through as long as we're together."
I flinched at that, cursing my enhanced hearing.
"Just breathe," he told her. "That's it, ma bonne fille."
"I-I can't do this anymore."
"If you can't be here, then let's go. I'll take you anywhere you want." I half expected Deveaux to walk out and tell me the two of them were setting off: Au revoir, Reaper.
She cried, "Y-you know where I want to go. To confront Paul. You t-told me if I could show you some powers, you would support me. I killed all the Cups." She cried harder at that.
How much more violence and grief could she be expected to suffer? I'd concluded that she'd been through too much trauma even before the Hanged Man had woven his insidious web.
He was my kill to make. And yet, I couldn't. After being in control for millennia, I could do nothing but endure this misery, lest I get taken in by that sphere once more.
The mortal was right--I was the biggest threat to them.
"Shh, shh, calme-toi. You got to breathe."
After all her trials, being near me while in that cave had pushed her past some limit that I'd never known existed.
She'd sent me awash in the scent of her deadly roses. Maybe she would poison me in my sleep. I deserved nothing less.
The day she'd fled the castle, I'd taken all of my rage combined through the ages, and I'd afflicted her with it.
Of my many past sins, that pained me most--and I'd been a murderous son. I put my head in my hands and squeezed.
So many sins. I'd left her unprotected against Ogen, her powers bound by the cilice. She'd nearly died in the grip of that devil--my ally! I'd kept Paul in the castle, despite her doubts, despite her pregnancy. While Deveaux kept trying to shoulder every burden for her, I'd let her grandmother's killer live in our home.
I hadn't trusted my wife's judgment when she'd needed me most.
I gazed back at the cave where she'd nearly starved. On the phone, she'd pleaded with me to come home, and I'd laughed. Home? Do you mean my castle?
If Deveaux hadn't come along, my wife and son would be dead. The babe might be even now. And how could she weather that? With me as a reminder of our bloody history? Or with Deveaux's understanding?
What right did I have to her? What if this had always been her story with Jackson Deveaux, and I truly was the villain?
46
The Emp
ress
Day 585 A.F.
A blur of movement outside of the truck caught my eye just as Jack and Aric both tensed. I straightened in my seat between them. "What was that?"
We'd been riding in silence since we'd left the cave. I was mortified by my breakdown. I usually handled my business better than that. And what was the point of my fury? I couldn't possibly punish Aric more than he was punishing himself.
He frowned, his eyes bloodshot. "A Bagman in a hurry." I wondered when Aric had last slept.
Last night, even the fire hadn't been enough to keep me warm, so Jack had climbed into my sleeping bag. I'd been dozing off when Aric had finally returned, hours after he'd left. Though nothing had happened between me and Jack, Aric had sat on the other side of the fire and met my gaze with pure anguish in his expression.
"Up ahead." Jack grabbed his bow from the backseat. "Three o'clock."
When Aric braked, I squinted into the snowy dark. Dozens of Bagmen swarmed along the roadside. Why had they gathered?
"My gods," Aric muttered, just as I caught sight of their meal.
A white horse. Thanatos.
He lay on his side in the bloody snow--but was still moving!
Aric slammed the truck into park, then leaped out. He drew his swords with a yell. Metal flashed in the headlights; Bagger heads and entrails went flying.
Once Aric had cleared the way and we saw what remained, Jack breathed, "Jesus."
I put my hand over my mouth. Thanatos's red eyes were crazed with fear and pain, his legs nothing more than bloody stumps pawing the air. His black armor had been torn away, chunks of skin missing from his flesh. Bite marks told a horror story--hours of torment.
"Is that horse immortal like Dominija?"
"No. Any horse that he claims as his own is mystically connected to him, but not immortal." Still, Thanatos had survived so much that I'd thought of him as deathless. "Aric's going to have to put him down."
"Stay here." Jack hurried from the truck to join Aric.
Ignoring him, I followed.
Aric had dropped to his knees beside Thanatos. "Whoa, stallion. Rest easy." His gaze held Thanatos's, which seemed to calm the horse, easing its wild-eyed movements. "I'm here. I will make the pain end." As he soothingly stroked a narrow swath of unbitten flesh, Aric clenched his other fist.
I sidled closer to them. "What about Lark? You could use her powers," I said, even as I pictured how vacant-eyed that sparrow had looked.