Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles #4)(37)

“I don’t follow.” She blinked at me, as if I’d just asked, “Hey, can I borrow your credit card and pop over to the mall?”

“I know others have tried to stop it before.”

“Some players united, making a big show of peace. But in the end, all those alliances failed. Arcana are born to kill. They only delayed the inevitable.”

“Why is it inevitable?”

“The gods decreed this game,” she said. “They set these events into motion eons ago. Someone has to win. No matter what, someone will win. Say the last two cards allied for a couple of decades: they would both age. Once one died, the other would walk the earth—older, weaker. Disadvantaged in the next game.”

When he’d sought a future with me, clever Aric had already come up with a solution to this problem. He and I would live our lives together, with Lark tagging along. We would somehow predecease her (that part had been vague), and she would endure for centuries, forced to play the next game against Arcana young enough to be her grandkids. Yet she’d volunteered for it!

Being with Aric had seemed so complicated, so loaded with intrigues.

When I’d chosen Jack, I’d also been choosing the future he represented: building Acadiana, far from the game, repurposing my abilities to help others.

Gran said, “Not that the Minor Arcana would allow such a union anyway.”

My eyes widened. “They exist?” In any Tarot deck, there were fifty-six Minor Arcana cards, divided into four suits: cups, pentacles or rings, wands, and swords.

Such as the eerie ten of swords card. I couldn’t imagine that one as a person.

Gran’s gray brows drew together. “Of course,” she said, as if she was telling me something I should already know. “They can be as dangerous as Major Arcana. Especially the court cards.”

“Where are they?” Did they converge too? “How do you find them?”

“You don’t,” she said. “Best avoid them. Let’s hope the Knight of Swords perished in the Flash. The Queen of Cups too. Truly, a good dozen of them are walking nightmares.”

“Aric said he sees evidence of them everywhere in some games; other games, no sign at all. He also said that some believe Tarasovas are Minors.”

Gran crossed her arms over her chest. “Bull manure. I’m no Minor. They have their own functions—to hide evidence of the Major Arcana, to hasten the game, and then to rebuild the civilization afterward. My function is to make sure you win.”

Why hadn’t Matthew told me about them? Or had he? The last time I’d seen him, he’d said there were now five obstacles to beware: Bagmen, slavers, militia, cannibals, and . . . Minors. “The Fool told me the Minors watch us, plotting against us. I thought he was talking about miners, with an e.” How many times had I misunderstood his decoder-ring talk? Sometimes I could have sworn he’d confused me on purpose. “Why would they plot?”

“They’ll want the earth righted as soon as possible. Minors like to see dead Majors—because catastrophes end with the close of the game.”

I’d made promises over my mother’s body to find Gran and see if we could fix all that the apocalypse had broken. Was dying the most helpful thing I could do to further that end?

“Once you’ve collected all the icons, the earth should come back,” Gran said. “The sun as well.”

“Should come back?”

“There’s never been a disaster like this. I can’t say for certain.” She rubbed her temples, like I did whenever my head was hurting. “When you were a girl, I knew you would be important to the future of humanity, but I didn’t know how. Maybe you’re supposed to reseed the planet.”

Yet I couldn’t do that permanently until the game ended and daylight came back—if I even won. For that to happen, I’d have to lose Aric, Lark, Circe, Finn, Joules, and Gabriel. In other words, I’d be insane.

Now Gran had just confirmed a new threat—to all of them. I’d have to think about the Minors later. Put ’em on the list. “When the Empress won before, what did she do until the next game?”

Aric had revealed how he’d spent his solitary centuries: “I wander the earth and see men age before my eyes. I read any book or paper I can get my hands on. I watch the stars in the sky; over my lifetime some dim, some brighten. I sleep for weeks at a time and chase the dragon.”

When he’d made that confession, I’d thanked God I hadn’t been cursed to that. His horse looks sick, and he has no friends. Why would he have made friends? Just to watch them die, over and over?

Gran frowned. “What did the Empress do? She was immortal.”

“But how did she spend her time? What was her life like?” My life.

“I don’t know,” she said, clearly stumped. “Chroniclers only document the games. She probably ruled over men as a goddess. And relived her most glorious victories.”

So the Empress had spent centuries gazing at the twenty-one icons on the backs of her hands. I’ll pass. The more I thought about the game, the more I saw my battle against Richter as a one-way ticket. I didn’t expect to walk away unscathed from a murderer who leveled mountains and bled lava.

And I’d never stop until he was dead. “Gran, would you rather that I live happily for a few months or be miserable for hundreds of years?”