Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109540 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109540 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
But wasn’t it always? Time was a thief. Even with Aric’s unending existence, an end had finally come.
I found heaven with you, the bargain well struck, but now I have left you in pain, which I cannot bear. I truly didn’t believe you could grieve me as I would grieve you. Had I known, I would have separated myself from you.
But then we wouldn’t have Tee. A person could go mad ruminating possibilities. . . .
Still, I hope you are angry with me. I hope it tempers your grief.
It didn’t. I felt no anger toward him, would’ve made the same decisions he had. And more, my feelings toward Matthew changed as well. All he’d done was provide information; Aric had acted on it.
I couldn’t blame Matthew for his death.
And though I have harmed you with my selfishness, I am not above asking ever more from you.
Please give these chronicles and my letter to Tee on his sixteenth birthday, the age I first entered this game. And tell him I could not possibly love him more than I do every second of every day.
Evie, your innate strength will see you through any adversity. You, Jack, and Tee will make it. I rest easy, confident in that. I believe in you.
Know that you and I will see each other again. I will search through the ether of eternity until we reunite.
You have my love, my dearest Evie. It’s given. Wholly entrusted to you. And you had such care with it.
ARIC (who was not forever alone)
I imagined him at this desk writing these words, and sobs threatened. Tears should be pouring. But the tourniquet and the castle kept my tenuous sanity in place. I merely sat in a bewildered daze as the sun descended across the sky—still an astounding sight.
Sometime in the late afternoon, I managed to stand to join the living downstairs. They awaited me in the kitchen.
“Tee’s down for a nap.” Jack scanned my face. “How are you doing?”
“I’m hanging in there”—on the precipice—“for now.”
“What did he say?”
“He wanted us to go start Acadiana. But I don’t think I can leave. I need all of you too much.”
Jack glanced at Circe and back. “That’s okay, peekôn, we have some time.” She opened her mouth as if to argue, but he said firmly, “Waiting a little woan kill anybody.”
46
The Empress
Day 14 N.D.
“You’re going away, aren’t you?” I asked Circe down by the riverfront. She’d taken a moment to dip her toes in the water and enjoy a sunny spring day. The birds chirped loudly, as if to make up for their forced vacation.
She patted the grass for me to sit beside her, and her arm scales shimmered in the light. “How did you know?”
I took off my shoes and sat beside her on the bank. “You went from letting Jack do all the heavy lifting with the baby to swinging your elbows to spend more time with Tee. And you look at the river with longing.” Not five feet away from us, a large fish breached the surface to snag a bug then dove back in. “Where will you go? You said you can never return to your temple.” I grew dandelions in the grass, then began braiding the stems into two crowns.
“No, I can’t journey all the way to my abyss. But the shore calls to me. I intend to found a port settlement on the coast near Jubilee.”
“Looking for atonement?”
The water grew choppier with her emotions. “Aren’t you? Our work helping humankind isn’t over.” She inhaled a breath, and the surface smoothed once more. “And besides, Haven is waiting for you to return.”
I whispered, “Can I?” Circe knew how crippling grief could be; would she understand my fears? “Sometimes I feel like I’ll never see Aric again, that this castle is my only link to him.”
“What about the next game?”
“By refusing to fight and removing the curse, we had to have pissed off the gods. They might punish us.”
Straight-shooting Circe didn’t dismiss my worries. “They might. We’re in new territory here, and only time will tell. But if I had to say, I believe you will see him again.”
I wanted to believe it too. “If we do all return in the future, will your spell work?” So many variables . . .
She raised her brows. “Oh, it will work. But even if it doesn’t and your reunion with Death is uncertain, you still must leave this place. Don’t forget the lesson: you must rise and walk—despite the ten swords in your back.”
“I’m stabbed through. I don’t know if rising is possible, especially if you leave. I’m not ready to let you go.” I turned to face her more fully. “You said we were sisters.”
“We are. But you’re more resilient than you know, Evie Greene Domīnija. In any case, it’s best if the remaining Arcana separate. Any one of us could succumb to the heat of battle.”