Chapter 21
Glowing hands emerged from the blood red river, grasping at the white dress that trailed through the water, but The Devil wouldn’t let him take her.
His face was no longer hidden in shadows like it had been in this dream before.
It was Riot, with his dark hair and stormy expression.
Black leathery bat wings stretched wide behind him and curled goat horns emerged from his head, at odds with his messy black hair.
In his arms was my pretty little Fool. Our pretty little Fool.
Unlike The Devil, her features were clear. Smooth brown skin, long black hair that curled at the ends, opal-colored eyes filled with uncertainty, framed by long thick lashes.
A white rose dangled from her fingers, and a golden crown sat on her head—a distorted, sloping thing, shaped like a jester’s hat.
I watched them cross, struggling through the river filled with snatching hands ready to rip her away, my feet frozen in place on the riverbank. There was no skin on my face. My body was hidden by thick black armor, but I could feel the smooth skeletal bones of my skull.
A skeleton alone on the banks of the river, I waited.
If I looked over my shoulder and skyward, I could make out two more figures on the looming cliff behind me. One standing in a chariot on an unreachable ledge, dressed as a warrior in armor decorated with crescent moons. His face was also hidden in shadows, his posture tall and proud.
The journey to him would be difficult. No one could be carried up that cliff face. She would have to climb alongside us.
There was an easy path from The Chariot to the final figure at the top of the cliff, standing on the divide of the known and unknown.
The World. His body, wrapped in a purple toga, faced the unknown, but his shadowy face looked down over the river below, watching The Devil’s struggle to safely guide The Fool through treacherous waters.
“It is time,” the Goddess whispered.
And then I woke up, slumped over the table, surrounded by the cards I’d been reading right before I’d passed out, smiling from ear to ear.
Amazing Grace.
The love of my life, the person I knew better than anyone, who I’d visited every night without fail. The woman who owned my soul for however many days I had left on this earth.
The woman who didn’t know me at all.
It didn’t matter. It was time. She was coming.