Before he could reach it, his limbs failed him, and he collapsed on the mattress. He managed to turn his head toward me, his hands balling into fists. “And still . . . I should have expected this. Your poison kiss. Again.” His expression was devastated. “You’d kill me before you ever accepted me.”
“Kill you? You’re just going to sleep!” I stood, squaring my shoulders. “After all we’ve been through, murder is your first conclusion? And your first reaction is to stab me?” I waved at his sword, my heart breaking.
Clearly things hadn’t changed between us as much as I’d thought. “I vowed I would never hurt you, Aric. Other Arcana promised to save Jack if I took your life, but I refused.”
Once more he tried to reach for his weapon, seeming to will his muscles to move. Would he even now take my head if he had the chance? He’d done it twice before.
“So help me gods, sievā, you . . . will . . . pay. . . .” His lids slid shut, concealing his anguished eyes. His spellbinding face was free of tension, his body defenseless.
Fresh from his bed, I disbelieved my own sight. He couldn’t have been reaching for his sword. He’d never hurt me. But if I left him when he was so vulnerable and someone else got to him, I’d be responsible. His guard dog was dead. The wolves remained with Lark. Anyone could steal into the castle.
A sense of protectiveness surged inside me. I dressed, then started to barricade his bedroom door, planning to climb from his second-story window.
I rationalized with each of my actions. He’s always a target for other Arcana. I dragged over practice swords. He wouldn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t! I lugged over armor. He was reaching for something else. I wedged a shield under the door handle. He loves me.
So why had he tried to coerce me? Why had he vowed to make me pay?
My protectiveness faded, the red witch rising. So much for your soul-deep connection, she whispered. He’s worth FIVE icons.
Rule of thumb: if a man has beheaded you on more than one occasion and he reaches for his sword . . .
Now he’d come for me, to make me pay. A knighted grim reaper.
I stared in awe, marveling that I’d had the strength to leave him, to poison him. When I hadn’t heard from him in days, I’d worried that I’d given him too much, had hurt him. Worry for nothing.
Soldiers stopped and gaped. In the last two hours, both Aric and Jack had ridden through those gates. Where Jack had commanded respect, Death elicited pure fear.
I spied the outline of a giant wolf beside Death’s armored warhorse. Cyclops padded along, his maw filled with body parts from the stone forest.
That beast had led Death through the minefield! Or Lark had. She hadn’t sent me extra protection because she cared about me. She’d dispatched a spy.
Still gazing at me, Death drew one of his swords. No!
The scent of roses flooded the air as my vines tensed and grew. My claws dripped poison, my barbs at the ready.
But he could cut through my vines, and his armor repelled most of my other powers. If he wanted me dead, I was about to be. Unless . . .
Three other Arcana hastened into the foggy courtyard.
“The bloody Reaper!” Joules cried, just as Jack bellowed from behind me, “Evie!”
Then all hell broke loose.
18
“I’ll fry you!” Joules yelled.
Gabriel sped past me toward some target? Jack?
Cyclops sprang in front of Aric, crouching at the ready.
Ashen and shaking, Matthew muttered Tredici over and over. Tess ducked behind him and began to cry. Soldiers scurried from the fray.
Joules’s skin sparked in the mist as he hefted one of his javelins.
My gaze darted back to Death. The knight’s armored shoulders rose and fell, a weary exhalation. For him, this was just another day, another icon to harvest from an Arcana. Or from several of us.
When the Tower hurled his spear, Aric turned his helmeted head from me. Faster than lightning his sword flashed out. Metal on metal clanged, and the javelin sailed over the fort’s walls. Lightning forked out and an explosion sounded in the distance.
Joules howled with frustration.
“Who the fuck let him in?” Jack yelled. Gabriel had intercepted him, holding him back from certain death. “Evie, get the hell away from him!”
“Why have you come, Aric?”
Again, Death turned to me. “To do what I always end up doing with you.”
He always ended up . . . killing me.
He reached up and removed that menacing helmet. As ever, the Endless Knight was hypnotically beautiful, with his collar-length blond hair framing chiseled features and radiant amber eyes.
In his deep raspy voice, he said, “I always end up forgiving you.”
My lips parted. What?
“Choke on this, Reaper!” Joules hurled another spear.
Aric deflected it, this time without gazing away from me—as if his starry eyes were greedy for the sight of me.
“Forgive?” I finally managed to say. “You promised to make me pay!”
“I intend to, Empress, but not in the way you’re thinking.” His accented words were loaded with innuendo.
“How can I believe that? Right before I knocked you out, you went for your sword!”
His blond brows drew together. “I was reaching for a vial of antitoxin. I’d had it formulated before the Flash, in the hope of neutralizing your poisons. I’ve always wondered if it would work.”
Antitoxin? Confusion rocked me. “B-but we’ve fought each other so many times. And you . . . you always win.”
Another javelin; another sword parry.
“Evie, you get away from him!” Jack bellowed.
“You know well that I would never be able to harm you,” Aric chided, “even should I have wanted to. Just as you refuse to hurt me. Twice now you could’ve killed me. This last time, you took pains to protect me.”
“But you . . . and then . . . your sword?”
He gazed at me with infinite patience. “Never again, sievā.”
I stared into his eyes, that soul-deep sense of connection sweeping over me. Oh, dear gods, I . . . believed him.
I had to defuse this situation before anyone got hurt. The trues! But Matthew couldn’t paint his blood on Death’s lethal skin. Could I use the Gamekeeper’s blood? I ran to Matthew.
He was already slashing his arm. “True-hearted,” he whispered. “For now.”