Day Zero (The Arcana Chronicles #3.5) - Kresley Cole Page 0,2

gold band with an oval of inlaid amber.

In two out of the last three games, I almost gifted this ring to the Empress. When I married her millennia ago, it had been in safekeeping hundreds of miles away, and I never had the opportunity to retrieve it. In the game after that, the Emperor killed her before I could reach her. In the last game, she’d tried to poison me before I could slip it on her finger.

I take the ring from its case, and the metal warms against my skin. I give a harsh laugh. The ring doesn’t know my touch is lethal. It reacts to me as it would to anyone.

So did the Empress’s skin.

I recall my last few encounters with her from the previous game—not that I need anything to harden my resolve against her.

All those years ago, I shadowed her, observing her battles, trying to determine whether she was as treacherous as she’d been the last time I’d seen her, when she’d intended to kill me on our wedding night.

She’d been even worse. . . .

“You’ve stalked me long enough, Reaper. Shall we fight at last?” she asks, looking as if she burns for the battle. Her swirling glyphs glow.

We begin to circle each other.

She cants her head. “The fall sun shines. Chaff spreads on the winds. So much birdsong, music fit for murder. Which one of us will it be?” She is stalling. Her roots are likely spreading beneath me, her serpents at the ready.

But I am invulnerable to them in my armor. “I don’t wish to fight today. I only want to converse with you.”

“Converse?” She narrows her green eyes. “If that were true, then why are you covered in metal?”

Taking a calculated risk, I remove my helmet, but keep it in hand. “Better?”

Her gaze sweeps from my sword to my helmet. She’s assessing her odds. She knows I can cut through her vines with my inhuman speed. Then she studies my face.

I make my expression blank, refusing to show my yearning for a wife, a companion.

“You’re a handsome man. Very handsome.” Observing how the sunlight strikes my gaze, she murmurs, “With spellbinding eyes.”

I stifle my ridiculous flare of pleasure.

“Yet so grim. Is it because you’re untouched? Or perhaps a male like you has no wish to be caressed?”

I would do murder for it! But I say nothing. We continue circling each other.

“Fitting that we—life and death—should meet in a time of pestilence and famine.” She tilts her head, her red locks swaying over a pale shoulder. “Why do you follow me throughout this game, Reaper?”

“To determine your character.”

“You’ve seen me make many kills.”

She’d defeated the Lovers before I could reach her, but I’d watched her annihilate humans in a bloodbath, taunting them all the while. At the time, I hadn’t known why she’d lashed out at them. “You attacked those men because they attempted to burn you at the stake. I did not know you sought retribution.”

“They blamed me for their starvation.” She shrugs. “They have no idea that I lament the famine as well.” It weakens her powers. Each plant is a potential weapon for her. “When I smelled my flesh cooking like a savory leg of venison, I bayed for their blood.” Still we circle. “Between the humans and the Arcana, I’ve been quite busy. And the Emperor must be nearing soon.”

“In the last game, he killed you. Gruesomely.”

“Unlike when you killed me—cleanly.” Her tone is amused.

I incline my head.

“If I recall my chronicles, you defeated the Emperor last,” she says, “but in contrast to all the rest of your kills, you tortured him. Why?”

Because he destroyed you before I could get to you. Because I’ll never know what might have been. “What would you say if I told you I did it for you?”

She smiles, and it fills me with wariness and lust. “I would say do it again, my Grim Reaper.”

_______________

“After disappearing for weeks, you are back again?” The Empress’s tone is teasing. “Perhaps to converse more?”

I don’t remove my helmet this time. I have heard through the Arcana calls that she betrayed one of her staunch allies. “You murdered Fauna in cold blood.” Upon the Empress’s hand are three icons, those of the Lovers, the Magician, and Fauna.

“No, I defended myself. She and the Magician plotted against me. She attacked with her lions . . . one creature seized my leg in its fangs.” She pulls up her skirt to reveal her thigh. “Oh, thank the gods, I