Chapter 79
“I will never let you have it,” I say, seething, hatred oozing from every pore.
I reach for the Star clutched in Arina’s trembling hand. The sight of Ravin has her frozen in place. Her lips part for short, shaky breaths. Just when my fingertips graze the edge of the card, there’s a flash of gold in my periphery.
Stop. Do nothing, Cael’s voice echoes in my mind.
I don’t so much hear the command as I feel it. And in an instant, my body heeds it. I freeze in place. My muscles strain as I try to reach for the card, but I can’t. My body has been turned into living stone.
Being frozen as King Naethor finishes stalking toward us has the contents of my stomach threatening to upturn. Arina’s horrified gaze darts between us. She goes to turn, and there’s a flash of golden light again.
A Major that allows one to control another: the Emperor. Not suggest or influence. Full control.
Okay, now I know what I’m dealing with, but how do I fight a foe who can make my body betray me and render my own internal commands useless? All the while fending off two other deadly individuals, possibly three, depending on what Judgment might do…Did the Hierophant get him on our side or not?
I continue to strain for control of my body. I can feel Cael’s hold breaking. My head turns with agonizing slowness to Naethor, who approaches with the calm of a predator enjoying his ensnared prey.
“I knew if I indulged my son’s fantasies just enough, let you get close to him—with precautions, of course—you’d do all the work for me.
Or, for him, I should say.” His voice is as smooth as his movement toward Arina.
She trembles violently. A silent scream is locked behind her lips but loud in her eyes.
Naethor speaks again, this time mostly to himself: “With this, her wishes will finally be complete…”
I struggle to move, to stop him, to do anything.
Naethor tears the Star from Arina’s rigid grasp.
“Don’t,” I force through clenched teeth, a hard-fought victory.
He turns to me next, amusement alight in his eyes. No, more than that. Sheer delight.
Naethor reaches for the vessel and halts, dark brows furrowing. With anger and…sorrow? It’s sorrow that fills his eyes, vanishing as they drag back to mine.
“He gave you her stone.” The words are cold and detached. Like a different man from a different time is saying them. “He does love you.”
The sentiment is so tender it’s jarring. Seeing those warring emotions play out on the battlefield of his face has me reeling.
“Listen to me.” His voice drops, and the king steps directly in front of me.
He has the same towering form as his son, but is far more muscular.
The harsh lines of his face lend extra severity to his words.
“The blood of Revisan was cursed. Nothing could expunge it, no matter what I tried, and it claimed his mother.”
“You…killed…her,” I barely manage to snarl.
He leans away, angry yet wounded. “I did what must be done—what she asked for. I tried to rid him of the curse. But my wish wasn’t enough then. It merely sealed the evil within him. And that monster fights to escape; surely you’ve seen it.”
I strain. He’s so close, I could punch him.
“Give me this wish, and we can save him, together. You will not be queen, but you will live with him. Let me have this so I can save my son.”
“Never.” As if I could ever believe a word of this. My muscles spasm violently. The hold Cael has on me is loosening further. I’m so close to having freedom of movement again. But not close enough. I can’t even summon a card.
Naethor reaches into my pocket with a sigh, as though he can sense where I stashed the golden cards.
“Get rid of them,” Naethor commands like he wasn’t just trying to win me over with lies. I’m vindicated in my not believing him. As Naethor goes to place the Majors into their slots, Ravin starts toward me. Then—
There is a shift, a change in the very currents of nature and magic themselves.
“I will never let you take something from me again, Father.” Kaelis moves like a nightmare, swirling mists curling around his hands as he launches a card in his brother’s direction. Ravin dodges. But the power was never intended for him.
It strikes Arina and me in the chest. We’re left gasping, but we’re mobile once more. As though Kaelis’s magic burned away the Emperor’s hold upon us.
“Arina, go!” I command.
“He’s mine!” She launches herself at Ravin, eyes burning with the kind of raw and feral fury that could unravel worlds.
I can’t argue with that. I turn to Naethor. Ten of the golden cards have been placed into their slots.
“Kaelis, get Cael!” I shout back, then launch myself toward Naethor. We’ll never get the upper hand as long as there is someone here who can turn us into puppets on strings.
I’m only two steps closer to the king when my body freezes.
Don’t attack, Cael commands.
Naethor abandons putting cards in their slots long enough to turn to me.
Fine.
I dart backward from Naethor’s swing and cast the Eight of Wands and Nine of Wands, enhancing my speed and dulling any pain.
If I can’t attack, I’ll defend myself and keep him busy until I can retaliate.
I cast a Seven of Wands toward Arina, creating a shield just in time to block one of Ravin’s attacks.
My sister is a scrappy little thing. She’s fighting tooth and nail, with eyes so filled with bloodlust they nearly bulge from her head.
Get him! Fucking tear him apart! I silently cheer her on, wishing I wasn’t panting so hard and so focused on Naethor that I could actually shout it.
The king takes advantage of my momentary distraction, closing the gap between us. “If you won’t help me further, then you are now expendable.”
Don’t move.
My body freezes at Cael’s command as Naethor’s sword is about to come down on me. But Kaelis must be getting the upper hand with Cael, because this time, he didn’t word the command well enough. I can’t move but that doesn’t stop me from casting a card. I use a Seven of Wands on myself—my last.
By the time Naethor has hacked through all seven spears of flame guarding me, I’ve broken free of Cael’s command.
A scream jerks my head in his direction. Cael falls—shadow and violet fire consumes him just as it did Emilia and the Stellis. Good, one less thing to worry about. Judgment seems to have no interest in joining the fray.
Naethor is on me again, blade flashing.
This time, I respond in kind, the Five of Swords giving me my own weapon of choice—a lighter, faster rapier.
Our fighting styles couldn’t be more different.
The king wields a monstrosity of a blade.
Parrying would be useless, so instead I dodge, using my speed and size to my advantage.
We trade cards and blows. He’s one of the best I’ve ever gone up against, and for the first time, I worry I’ve met an opponent who I can’t beat.
Then Arina’s scream splits the air. I whip around, my blood turning to ice. Ravin has her pinned.
“Kaelis!” I shout. He’d been on his way to me, but he diverts.
She thrashes beneath Ravin, clawing and biting. His grin widens in stomach-churning delight at the sight of her panic. My gaze swings back to the king, whose eyes gleam with nothing but satisfaction, golden cards still in his possession. Naethor moves back to the statue.
Once more, fate presents me with a choice.
Once more, I choose my family. As I will every time, in every world.
“Did you really think you could best me, little girl?” Ravin almost coos, shoving both of her wrists into the stone. She thrashes more violently. “After all we’ve been through? I made you who you are. I’ll put you back in my little playpen.”
I get to Ravin a second before Kaelis and drive my knee into his ribs, dragging him off Arina. He rolls and tries to spring up, but I bring my foot into his face as hard as I can. Blood explodes from his nose, and I collapse onto him.
Fuck magic. Fuck the cards. I want to feel his bones crunch under my fists. I want to feel his blood splattering on my face as I pulverize him like the beasts he’s turned my sister and me into.
“You think you can kill me?” He laughs, more like rasps, licking blood from his lips. “I am Death.”
“And I’m more powerful than death. I am fate.
” The Ten of Wands crushes down upon him even as I still have him pinned with my knees.
We’re illuminated in the Ten’s fiery glow as I begin to pummel him, over and over.
Every blow I strike is for my sister. One for every day she was alone and subject to his torture.
He tries to claw at me, and I let him. My body means nothing.
“Clara!” Arina catches my hand as I rear back. Her eyes are wild, burning. “He’s mine, and you have other things to focus on.”
That’s when I notice the magic beginning to shimmer elsewhere in the room. Kaelis and Naethor are going toe-to-toe. Even with Kaelis’s reversed magic, Naethor is able to fend him off. Naethor doesn’t need to win, he just needs to stall. The king has placed nearly every Major in its slot.
“Fucking die, Kaelis Revisan,” Ravin wheezes, more like pleads, as he looks toward his father and brother. I glance down to see Death disappearing.
I move away from Ravin’s bruised and broken form as Arina summons a shortsword.
She doesn’t speak, nor gloat. The only sounds I hear are the blade sinking into his chest followed by a wet gurgle. Silence, and then a whisper of laughter, thin and crazed, from her lips.
My attention is already back on Naethor, just in time to see the ghostly outline of a skeleton. But it isn’t Naethor it’s looming over. It’s Kaelis.
“No!” I scream. I cast as many cards as I can think of. I don’t even consider what they are. It doesn’t matter.
In a second, I see everything I could’ve had. Everything we could’ve been. It all hangs in the curve of the scythe the skeleton wields.
I’m running, as fast as I can.
And the scythe swings straight through Kaelis.
He falls.
My feet pound against the stone, and I skid to him. My whole body explodes with pain, as if I were the one who was struck. I grab his jacket with both fists and shake him. Screaming, “Wake up. Wake up.”
Just like Gregor, he’s so still. Tears fall over my cheeks, splattering across my hands and his chest. Everything else is falling through my fingers. Not this, too…
“Don’t you dare do this. You were my rock. My stability. My everything.”
Without warning, a gasp. His eyes jolt open, pupils ringed in the same violet power that burned away Cael’s hold on us, and his chest heaves. “Wh—” I can’t even form the word. My eyes dart to Judgment. He hasn’t moved.
“Clara?” Kaelis whispers.
“Clara!” Arina shouts.
“It’s so potent now,” Naethor barely murmurs, staring down at us. “No. It doesn’t matter…My son, it will all be over soon. I will save you, and our world.” He draws all our eyes as he places the final golden Major into its slot.
The power of the twenty cards hums in unison. Golden magic surges, and we’re all blown backward. The room illuminates as it collects into the figure holding the world expectantly.
I don’t think; I act. I cast the King of Swords, summoning a maelstrom that howls so violently, all our ears pop. The golden cards are fixed in place, as if fused with the stone. But the vessel Naethor was lifting aloft is ripped from his fingers.
All our eyes turn to the vessel at once as it dances in the wind. We move, trying to follow it. Magic and blows are traded.
Then it lands.
We lunge.
Kaelis shouts in agony, unleashing purple flames and shadows that hold back his father. Arina darts to Judgment, but he has yet to move. Clearly, Judgment holds little love for his sire.
So I’m the one who makes it; my fingers close around the vessel, and I lift it up to the statue as it leans forward.
A power beyond comprehension pulls free from the statue as golden threads and crashes into the card I’m holding with such force that my fingers nearly snap back.
I strain against the endless pressure that holds all the joy and loss of the world.
All the hope and sorrow. They all converge on me. Within me.
“Do it, Clara!” Kaelis shouts, but he seems distant, as though he’s shouting through a tunnel in the folds of reality itself.
I close my eyes, suck in a breath, and make my wish. Hasty. Half formed. Desperate. But it’s the only thing I can think of with little time.
I’m sorry, Kaelis, that I wasn’t able to tell you my wish, I think.
Arina warned me of misfortune if we continued as we were. So I deviate from the wish I had so carefully planned. I don’t wish for my beautiful new world as I’ve been thinking of for months. I wish for the first thing that comes into my mind and hope it’ll be enough to avoid misfortune:
Make the world as it should have been—before Naethor made his wish.
Everything goes white.