43
" David Greene was kind, and he had a sense of humor. He made your mother laugh.”
That was all Gran could muster up? “Did you not like him?”
“He wasn’t a big believer in Tarot. Humor aside, he was a very practical man. From New England,” she added, as if that explained everything. “I’d been wearing Karen down about the Arcana—until she met him. Before I knew it, your mother was pregnant. Even then, I sensed you were the Empress.”
“He didn’t want us to live up north?”
“David planned to move there.” Her gaze went distant. “To move you—the great Empress—away from her Haven.” That must have gone over well. “In the end, I convinced them not to go.”
......
I opened up the family albums. As I scrolled through them, her eyes appeared dazed, as if she wasn’t seeing the images. Yet then she stared at a large picture of my father.
I said, “I wish I could remember him.”
“David used to carry you around the farm on his shoulders,” she said. “He read to you every night and took you to the river to skip stones. He drove you around to pet every baby animal born in a ten-mile radius. Lambs, kittens, puppies.” She drew a labored breath. “He brought you to the crops and the gardens. Even then, you would pet the bark of an oak and kiss a rose bloom. If the cane was sighing that day, you’d fall asleep in his arms.”
I imagined it all: the sugarcane, the farm, the majestic oaks, the lazy river that always had fish jumping. My roots were there, but I knew I would never go back. Jack’s dream had been to return and rebuild Haven. A dream we’d shared. I would feel like a traitor going home without him. Plus, it’d be too painful. Everything would remind me of the love I’d lost.
“David’s death was so needless,” she said. “Don’t know what he was doing near that cane crusher.”
“David’s death was so needless,” she said. “Don’t know what he was doing near that cane crusher.”
I snapped my gaze to her. “What do you mean? He disappeared on a fishing trip in the Basin.”
She frowned at me. “He did. Of course.”
Chills crept up my spine. Was she lying? Why would she, unless . . . "
― Kresley Cole , Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles, #4)
46
" Afterward, we lay on our sides facing each other. I murmured, "I know it couldn't possibly be worth the wait for you, but was it-"
"By all gods, it was worth the wait." He cupped my face, had to clear his throat before he could say, "Do you understand how precious you are to me? Not because I can touch you - that merely allowed me to recognize you." I laid my hand over his heart. For two thousand years, it'd been one way. Now it was changed. His brows drew together, as if he was trying to sort through chaotic thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then tried again: "That wild storm was a tiny fraction of what was going on inside of me. I look at you...and I soar. I make love to you, and everything is new; I feel...so much. I'm certain my chest will explode from it...Gods, I make no sense, do I?" Color tinged his broad cheekbones. "Tonight has boggled my mind. You have boggled my mind." He held my gaze with his own. "Sieva, I am a planet off its axis." I lost myself in his eyes. "I love you too, Aric." The corner of his lips curled. "
― Kresley Cole , Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles, #4)
51
" Death told me the Fool showed you a vision with ten swords in your back.”
I nodded. “The ten of swords card indicates that a devastating catastrophe is headed one’s way and will strike without warning. Bingo, Matthew.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?”
“That card is also about letting go and accepting one’s current circumstances.”
Accepting that you can’t change fate. As my mom had done with my dad. “Should I let go of Jack? Like you let go of the man you lost?”
She lifted one slim shoulder. “You’d already fallen for another.”
“I swore revenge on Richter. How can I think of surrendering that need?” Richter, I’m . . . not coming for you? “Do you know what I fear more than marching off to die fighting him? That I might have to live with what he did.”
“No one’s suggesting you give up your revenge. But what if we can’t find him for half a year? Two years? Will you cease living till then? Will you force Death to stop as well? He yearns to be a normal man. Even if just for a day. Will you not give that to him?”
“I made the point to him about our limited time,” I said, still cringing at my clumsiness. “All I did was insult him.”
“He wanted a wife. Not a buddy.”
Was she listening to everything in the castle? “I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t know what to do.”
She pinned my gaze with her own. “Therein lies the lesson of the card, Evie Greene. The lesson of life. When you can’t change your situation, you must change yourself. You must rise and walk—despite the ten swords in your back.”
What was harder than dying? Living a nightmare.
Mom had learned to live without Dad. I had learned to live without Mom. Could I go on without Jack? “I shouldn’t even be thinking about Aric. I disobeyed the dictates of the game, and I got Jack killed. What if I do the same to Aric?”
Circe made a sound of amusement. “You always did think highly of yourself. Do you believe you had something to do with that massacre? Think logically. Richter could have reversed the order of his attacks—targeting Fort Arcana earlier, vaporizing the Magician, one of Fauna’s wolves, and the stronghold of his enemies. He could have shot at the army by helicopter afterward. Instead he targeted mortals and one player. The Moon.”
My lips parted. “Because she was more of a threat to him.”
“She was the only one in the area who could slay him from a distance. Richter will target the Tower as well, since Joules shares that ability,” she said. “So if we should blame any card for your mortal’s death, blame the Moon.”
“I’ll never blame her.”
“Yet you’ll blame yourself?” Circe shook her head, and the river swirled. “I say we blame the Emperor.” Could it be that easy?
Had Richter always had Selena in his sights? If fate couldn’t be changed—then she’d been doomed to die the second we’d saved her from the Lovers. "
― Kresley Cole , Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles, #4)
54
" A rat, Evie,” she murmured. “A rat on my table . . . gnaws the threads . . . the salamander stares at me from the shadows . . . the serpent coils around the tree . . . and chokes its roots.”
How had she gotten so much worse in such a short time?
Her gaze darted. “Spite couldn’t spit . . . and the Devil knew his verses. The cups see the future . . . in a chalice of blood.” ...“Only you can bring us back. You must win . . . the earth depends on it. Cards know it . . . beware the Fool . . . dark dealings. The dark calling, the calling dark.”
When she started on another rant, I touched her arm. “What about the Fool?”
“The wild card! The game keeper.”... “You have to kill Death. He will turn on you—they all will. Death is poisoning me!”
I read until her chest no longer rose and fell. My grandmother was at peace.
For some reason, I turned to the last page. Gran had updated the chronicles. The first entry:
The cunning Empress has beguiled Death, until all he can see is her. He reunites an Arcana with her Tarasova, courting his own destruction.
Another entry:
They are murdering me, but the Empress turns a blind eye. Though they have tricked her, I see clearly. She won’t do what’s necessary, so I have put the end into motion.
She can never be with him. She has no idea what Life and Death become. . . .
What had she meant by that? And what “necessary” thing had she put into motion?
I left you clues, Evie. Nothing is as it seems. Midnight serpents choke the roots. The Agent. The ro— "
― Kresley Cole , Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles, #4)
