Dead of Winter (The Arcana Chronicles #3)(72)

“I’m keen to get to my translating.” He ushered me to the fire across from Jack.

I sat cross-legged, raising my waterlogged hands to the flames. I could feel Milo’s hateful gaze—two pale eyes surrounded by bruises. He twisted his bound hands, as if he longed to strangle me. Good luck with all those broken fingers.

“Obviously, you don’t know this, Empress”—his swollen lips and missing teeth distorted his speech—“but you ride with the very one who killed you in the last game! He’s played you false!”

“Nope, I knew. He decapitated me. Blah.” I sounded blasé. I was anything but about our history.

“Then you’re even stupider than I thought.”

Like a blur, Aric was in front of him. “Now, Milo, we talked about this. Remember? You do not speak to her unless you’d like to be castrated by horse hoof.”

“She’s about to know agony as never . . .”

Death slowly shook his head with such menace that the man swallowed. That got Milo to shut up—at least to me. The moment Aric left him, the man turned to Jack. “It doesn’t matter how many explosives you stole from me, you’ll never breach the Shrine.”

“Non? You sure sound confident for a man who spent the day hog-tied over a saddle.”

Back at the encampment, the Azey had been delighted to see their former leader trussed up in such a humiliating position. Well, except for the bound loyalists who’d been on their way out to endure their own set of difficulties.

The horse Jack had chosen for Milo was one of the finest the army had to offer. He planned for Selena to use it on the way back.

How confident Jack was that we could rescue her—that she’d be able to ride. Whenever my mind turned to what the twins might be doing to her, I had to shut those thoughts down. . . .

Aric took the chronicles from that waterproof sleeve. He sat near me, leaning against a wall. With a look of anticipation, he cracked open the pages.

“Thief!” Milo’s beaten face grew an alarming shade of red. “You’ve stolen what doesn’t belong to you! You have no right!”

Milo truly believed he was the innocent party. Aric was a thief; I was a treacherous bitch who’d wronged generations; Jack was an insurrectionist.

When the man got zero response from Aric, he said, “Save yourself the trouble—you’ll never read them.”

Aric flipped a page without looking up. “Won’t I?”

“It’s written in ancient Romanian.” Somehow Milo’s expression was both frenzied and smug.

“I speak ancient Hungarian, which shares roots with that language.” Another turned page.

Milo’s smugness faltered. “You want to know the contents? It’s a revenge contract from one generation to the next. We’ve renewed our hatred of the Empress over and over.”

“I look forward to a little light reading, then,” Aric said. “Know that I’ll translate every word of this scrawl eventually.”

“Eventually? You won’t live past tomorrow. My children will reclaim our chronicles off your corpse.”

Jack smirked. “So we are headed in the right direction then?”

“It doesn’t matter that I told you the Lovers’ location. You can’t breach it.”

“Popping open a bunker woan be as easy as, say, stealing your entire army from you. But we’ll figure it out. Tomorrow, we’re goan to eat good off your stores, and drink too. I already stole the whiskey from your desk.” He pulled a bottle from his bug-out bag, keeping it at the ready. “Twenty-five years old? Um, um, um.”

“Enjoy it, hunter! Tonight’s your last one on this earth.” Veins stuck out in the man’s forehead as he grew more frustrated. He was used to terrifying people; I think I’d yawned at him a couple of times in the last hour. “Tomorrow you die.”

“I’ve never heard that before,” Aric drawled. “And yet . . .”

Jack returned to his explosives inspection, eyeing a serious-looking detonator. “Seems you like to bluster, Milo. The weak ones always do.”

Aric glanced up. “I’ve seen that trait over and over throughout the years. I remember Philip the Second once wrote to the Spartans, saying, ‘If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta.’ Do you know what they wrote back? One word: If.”

Jack paused at that, cocking his head. I’d bet he was committing that story to memory.

“My children will reign over this world as immortal champions. Unlike you, Reaper!” Milo spat a mouthful of watery blood. “What did you do as champion of the Arcana?”

“Hmm.” Amusement. A flipped page. “What should I have done?”

“The entire world could have worshipped death. Cults of it, to pay homage to your deity.”

“Historically, Arcana who reveal their secret gifts fare ill. Even so, I haven’t done too shabbily. Everyone has heard of the Grim Reaper. And cults of death? People pray before tombs and crypts every day. Cemeteries are hallowed. Look outside these very doors. What’s left standing? Monuments to death.”

“You could have conquered so much more. Ruled over man as a god. Enriched your relatives’ line. You could have sown fear as my twins will sow destruction.”

“And in your imaginings, when your spawn win, what would mankind worship?”