Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles Book 5) (18 page)

Coo-yôn
was loading
me
? Up was down. He dumped me on the floor behind the pilot seat. The world spun.
Stay conscious or die.
“You doan know how to operate this thing!” I had only a general idea. Back when I’d plotted my escape, I’d studied the drivers and how they handled these loaders down on the slave level. “You’ve never even driven a car,
non
? I gotta get behind the wheel, me. Is it automatic?” No way I could use this leg for the clutch.

“Not automatic.”

Damn it! “You got any idea how to drive a stick?”

“In theory!”

If I could somehow talk him through this, we might—
might
—have a shot at breaking out through the vehicle bay. “Battery switches . . . outside in a box. Flip every one.”
Please doan let the box be locked.

He set off. A minute later, lights in the cab blazed on.

More shouts, still in the distance. They didn’t know where we were. For now.

When Matthew climbed behind the wheel, I said, “I’m goan to help you drive this thing.” I tried to sit up. Bad move. Definitely about to black out. I collapsed back. But this meant I couldn’t see anything above the dash. “Look for an engine ignition.”

Coo-yôn
started pushing every button and yanking every lever. The heavy-duty hauler bed groaned as it chugged higher and lower. Belts hummed. Blinking lights flashed.

“Damn it, you just let ’em know where we’re at. You didn’t see that coming?”

“Told you. Power. Empty.”

“Find the ignition, and lay off the buttons!”

Too late; bullets riddled the truck door. Men yelled for backup.

“Ignition?” Matthew asked. The engine rumbled to life.

My eyes went wide. “Hell yeah, now take off the brake!” Between gulps of air, I coached him how to work the pedals, how to work the gearshift to one.

Grinding. Metal on metal. Cogs sounded like they were about to buckle. Then . . .

We were moving!

Backward?

BOOM!

We’d collided with a giant pillar. A
support
pillar. “Work the gearshift opposite of
R
!” I heard rock cracking. “Fast, fast!”

Grinding again. We were moving . . . forward. “That’s it, boy!” We had to be headed toward the vehicle bay! By now the slavers would be lining up trucks to block us in.

As we picked up speed, we bounced off the mine walls like a pinball,
coo-yôn
overadjusting the steering wheel.

“Try
NOT
to hit the sides!”

He craned his head back and cast me a grin.

“Eyes forward!” We scraped another wall. “Doan try to shift. Keep it this speed.”

The lights grew brighter in the mine. Shouts got louder. More gunshots. We had to be getting close.

“They parked a line of trucks,” he said. “Blocking the bay doors.”

“Is there a load in the back of this hauler?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Yes.”

“Get up some more speed!” Maybe with the size of this truck and the weight of a full bed, we could bust through. “Aim for the space between the two smallest trucks, but hit it head on. Doan angle it, and do not let off that gas—you hear me?” I braced my good leg against the side of the cab. “Faster! Redline this engine!”

“Hold on!” He laid on the horn—

BOOM!

We rammed the blockade. I barely kept myself from slamming into the back of Matthew’s seat.

His head snapped forward, face smacking the steering wheel. Had he let up on the gas? “We’re stuck between trucks, Hunter.”

Bullets pinged the door. Shattered the windshield. The hauler heaved, made like it’d stall. “Drop the hammer! More gas!” Metal shrieked. The engine strained. The cab vibrated till my teeth felt like they’d rattle out of my head. “Pedal down!” More straining. More bullets. Engine about to blow.

I heard a couple of men yelling, latching on to the hauler, climbing to the cab. “
Coo-yôn
, find the lever that raised the bed!”

He reached forward. “This one?”

The hydraulics engaged. “Rev that one too!” Shafts spun. Pistons pumped. The bed rose faster, dumping salt.

Then . . . the resistance gave way! We were grinding forward between trucks, scraping off men and spewing tons of salt.

“Hunter, hold on. We’re about to hit the—”

CRASH!

“—doors.”

Fighting off more dizziness, I said, “Try for the next gear.”

Grind, grind.
The transmission shifted, and the hauler rumbled along, still dragging something that screeched.

“The salt buried their trucks on our way out!”
Coo-yôn
peered back at me again. “All clear.” Blood welled from his forehead, coursing down his face, a crimson mask.

Again my blurred vision made out another face. Matthew was like a
sosie
, an evil double.

“All clear,” he repeated, but I didn’t feel that way at all.

My head grew light, consciousness fading. “You goan to get me to Evie?” My life was in the hands of somebody I didn’t recognize. “Tell her I’m coming.”

“If you make it. Fifty-fifty.”

I couldn’t fight off the blackness anymore.

I banged on the door to Aric’s study. After rereading the Fool’s betrayal for what must’ve been the hundredth time, I’d realized something.

This murder might be the secret Aric had kept for Matthew.

I’d slammed the book shut and announced that I was heading down to talk to Death. As I’d limped out of the room, Gran had called, “Remember not to kill him yet!”

Now Aric muttered from inside his study, “Leave me in peace.”

“Open it, Reaper.” As I’d hobbled down here, the lingering pain in my legs and head had ratcheted up my irritation. “Or I’ll use a claw to jimmy the lock.”

After a while, he opened the door.

I sidled past him and took my customary seat.

He didn’t offer me a shot of vodka, but he poured himself a glass—from the bottle already on his desk. His hair was disheveled, his amber eyes bleary.

Despite everything, concern for him welled, muting some of my anger. I felt as much tenderness toward him as ever. Maybe more. “Aric, why are you drinking so much?”

He scowled at me.

When he’d searched for me and watched over my recovery, had he buried his feelings about my choice? Maybe he’d been too numb to react. Until now. I didn’t want him to hurt, but I didn’t know what to do to ease this pain.

Then I recalled Matthew’s deal, and my irritation rekindled. “Why stop with vodka? You could smoke opium again.”

Smirk. “The thought has occurred.”

I sliced my thumb and grew a poppy plant straight into his desk.

He exhaled. “I liked this desk.”

“Then you should smoke it, Reaper.”

His smirk deepened. “And to what do I owe this pique?”

“Why didn’t you tell me the Fool killed me?”

“That happened quite a while ago.” He shot his glass and poured another. “Ah, I’ll wager your cunning grandmother has chronicles, hasn’t she? I’d wondered why she wouldn’t relinquish her bag. I’d suspected she carried a pistol to use against me. Perhaps your chronicles will prove more dangerous?”

“Answer the question.”

“Keeping that secret was the price I had to pay to hear your thoughts and see your life.”

I knew it! Matthew had said,
I’m in Death’s pocket, so he’s in my eyes.
“So to prevent me from finding out his murderous past, Matthew gave you access to my mind?”

Aric hiked his shoulders. “I warned you not to underestimate him.”

“You’re just as much at fault! You made that deal with him. Like the deal you made with Lark? To make her win the entire game?”

“Yes,” he said, honest as ever—which made it difficult to stay mad at him. “Obviously both were ill-advised.”

“How could the Fool have decapitated me? I’d been powerful in that game.”

At the rim of his glass, Aric muttered, “You must not remember how he fights.” He knocked back his drink.

“Matthew doesn’t have a violent bone in his body.” Or I’d
thought
he didn’t.

“I told you he was the most intelligent Arcana ever to play, but you continued to see him as a bumbling schoolboy.”

No longer.

Aric poured another shot. “On the subject of secrets, you didn’t tell me your line had chronicles.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Why would the Tarasova not tell you?”

I rubbed my forehead. When would the headaches end? “I was young when we were separated. Things in my mind got . . . confused.” At best. At worst, my grandmother was playing her own game.

For all Aric’s power plays—and despite our history—he was the only one on earth that I could truly trust. Which, again, made it hard to stay pissed at him.

His eyes flicked over me, assessing. “You didn’t
remember
. I suppose I should be glad of that.” After a hesitation, he said, “You have the answer to your question, so begone.”

“You’re kicking me out?” Now that I’d reined in my temper, I thought we could talk.

He sank back in his seat. “You might be back here, but things will never be the same as they were.”

In the weeks before I’d fled the castle, I’d been happy with him, falling for him more each day. “I know that. But I can still miss the way we were.”

Tension stole over him, his fists clenching. “Do you miss those nights?” He wasn’t asking only about the nights when we’d read and drank and talked in this study.
My last night at the castle. And that night on the way to the Lovers.
“Do you ever think about how we were then?”

Aric never lied to me; I wouldn’t to him. “Yes.”

“And yet . . .” He exhaled. “Not only did you choose another man, you sought to reverse time for him.”

“Not just for him. For all those people, and for Selena, and for
you
.”

“Why for me?”

“We couldn’t communicate, so I feared you were injured.” I swallowed. “Or . . . drowned. You were wearing armor—in a flood! I imagined awful stuff happening to you. When I thought I’d lost both you and Jack, I nearly lost my mind.” The love of my life
and
my soul mate.

Aric looked like he wanted to believe me, but didn’t quite. Because Arcana lied. “Leave me, Empress.”

Though his dismissal stung, I stayed. Even if our relationship had been broken by my choice, we still had an enemy to defeat. “What are you working on?” Papers and books were strewn everywhere. “What happened to the Lovers’ chronicles? Is there anything about the Emperor?”

“I’m still translating them.”

“As usual, you know more than you’re telling me.”

He shot his glass, then slammed it down on his desk. “I’ve been too preoccupied to translate—because I’ve been living in the goddamned nursery for weeks while urging you to live.”

He was right. I parted my lips to apologize, but he said, “Your grandmother is already sowing her seeds of discord. Perhaps I should be on my guard against you once more. Tell me, Empress, was our truce only temporary?”

Ugh! “You
know
I would never hurt you. I had the chance to inject poison into your neck, but I didn’t. I could have killed you with my kiss, but instead I made sure you were protected. At the first sign of trouble with my grandmother, I came to warn you. So why say things like that? To punish me for my choice? That shouldn’t have undone the trust we established.”

Staring into his empty glass, he said, “Maybe I am punishing you.”

As if he hadn’t done that enough in this life? “Then you should break out your favorite torture tool: the cilice.” I’d never forget the pain of that barbed cuff and the frustration of having no powers. Then cutting the thing off . . . “I’ll bet it still has pieces of my skin on it.”

He raised his face, an unsettling resentment in his eyes. “Perhaps I’ve made a
choice
to be cruel to you. If you don’t like it, you should stay away from me.”

I rose and turned to go. Over my shoulder, I said, “Go to hell, Aric.”

“Already here,
wife
.”

I lay in bed replaying my entire weird day, but especially my interaction with Aric. After leaving his study, I’d curled up under the covers, hating that he was in pain. I hated that we’d fought.

Most women and men who shared a romantic history had difficulties to contend with. Sometimes an ugly breakup. Possibly lies. Maybe a betrayal.

He and I had millennia of bad blood—and murder.

Even if I didn’t dance on the razor’s edge over Jack’s death, I didn’t see how Aric and I could overcome so much to mend the connection we’d once shared.

Or that we even should.
The game demands blood.
Would I get him killed as well?

Uneasy and alone, I finally drifted off to sleep . . . into a dream so vivid, I knew it was a memory from a previous life. I was the Empress known as Phyta.