Dead of Winter (The Arcana Chronicles #3)(83)

Enduring shit like this.

He tugged on his shirt collar again. “Survivors chase whispers of sanctuary, roaming the ash. But the joke’s on them. There’s nothing out there.”

There could be a Haven.

Maybe the point was to hope against hope—and stay decent. “You and your family could’ve done so much good in the world. But you chose to become nightmares instead.”

“As opposed to you? Face it, Empress, you’re evil. All the cards are.”

“That’s not true. Death isn’t evil.”

“If you believe that, then you don’t know him very well.”

“I’ve known him over lifetimes,” I said vaguely, that blood pool calling my attention. Firelight reflected off it, triggering glimmers of a memory.

A summer dawn.

The overwhelming scent of roses.

I’d asked someone, “How fares my flower?”

The memory faded as fingers broke the surface of the blood. I sucked in a breath at the ghastly sight. A carnate was arising!

As if from a grave.

A hand emerged, but blood didn’t stick to its porcelain skin. A tattoo appeared, black lettering in that same Goth script. Was it a number? Like a serial number? That couldn’t be the accurate tally.

Selena didn’t respond even to this . . . birth.

The carnate continued to float up, another hand budding. When I could yank my gaze away, I noticed that Vincent’s deadened eyes had grown darker again. Watching the fight? Did that mean he was blind to his own surroundings?

Aric hadn’t checked in for a while.

“This battle should be very interesting. Now that Death has realized you’re gone, he’ll take out the hunter, thinking you won’t see.”

“Death wouldn’t do that to Jack. He has honor. Face it, Vincent, you’re going to have to accept that some cards are good. . . .” My gaze slid back to the blood pool. To the Violet creature emerging.

The memory of my past with the Lovers fluttered so close to the surface. I recalled hills of roses, with thorns as big as daggers, and Violet’s blood dripping from a height. I’d caught it in my cupped hands like rain.

Why had she been raised above me?

I gasped as the full scene hit me. The room seemed to shrink down on me, my lungs contracting. I’d bound Violet in vine, trapping her to . . . the blade of a windmill, the fabric-covered sail. Her blood had saturated the white material, dripping down for me to catch.

The structure had groaned under the weight of rose stalks, the Lovers’ lands invaded by them. By me.

I’d ordered vines to burrow under her skin—while keeping her alive. As she’d spun round and round, her agonized screams had carried.

She’d looked younger than I was now. My stomach pitched.

The Army grinds on, a windmill spins. I’d believed Matthew had been warning me of the Azey’s approach.

Oh, he had been—just not in the way I’d thought.

I’d kept Violet trapped like that for days. Until Vincent had come for her, sacrificing himself.

Come, join her, pay the price. There is no shame in surrender, Lover. I’d parted those thorns, calling him closer. How artfully we beckon. How perfectly we punish.

I’d sliced him to ribbons. I’d choked them both in vine. I’d clawed out their eyes and seeded sprouts in the sockets.

The twins hadn’t necessarily been monsters in that life, but I had been, as evil as an invoked red witch.

And Aric wanted me to give her free rein? How could I say I knew Death—when I didn’t even know myself?

“You’re remembering!” Vincent blinked to clear his eyes. “At least you kept your promise to dispatch us together. But then you desecrated our remains. When my line’s chroniclers found us, your hideous roses were flourishing inside our bodies!”

My breaths shallowed until I was on the verge of hyperventilating. Once I got us free of this place, I would take my memories like penance. For now, I had to help Selena.

Vincent said, “In this life, Vi and I will never be parted—never again.”

Then where in this hellhole was she?

His eyes flared once more. “We’ve decided one of your lovers should die today. And it should be your choice. The Reaper? Or the hunter?”

I shook my head hard. “You can’t make me choose.”

“Then we’ll decide for you.” He tapped his chin. “The hunter will fall. Our carnates turn on him now.”

Aric! Help Jack, please!

—A merry chase, wife.—

Had Selena stiffened? The desperate need to protect Jack filled me; was she feeling it too? Enough to shake this daze?

If anything could break through to her . . .

For Jack, Selena Lua could do anything.

In a taunting tone, Vincent said, “My children never make clean kills. The thieving hunter is about to die—badly.”

Okay, Selena had definitely twitched.

When Vincent grew distracted—between creating a clone and communing with the ones fighting—I whispered to her, “J.D. is in danger, Selena. Do you think he knows why you don’t have his six?” My God, I was sick. “All your strength and speed, just sitting on the bench while he’s under attack.”

Beneath that collar, her pulse point fluttered faster.

“What are you saying to her?” Vincent blinked rapidly.