“
I stood on a rise, overlooking the plague valley. Matthew was beside me.
The last thing I remembered was crawling into my sleeping bag after the whiskey had hit me like a two-by-four to the face. Now my friend was here with me. “I’ve missed you. Are you feeling better?” How much was this vision taking out of him?
“Better.” He didn’t appear as pale. He wore a heavy coat, open over a space camp T-shirt.
“I’m so relieved to hear that, sweetheart. Why would you bring us here?”
“Power is your burden.”
I surveyed all the bodies. “I felt the weight of it when I killed these people.”
“Obstacles multiply.”
“Which ones?” A breeze soughed over the valley. “Bagmen, slavers, militia, or cannibals?”
He held up the fingers of one hand. “There are now five. The miners watch us. Plotting.”
“But miners are the same as cannibals, right?”
He shuffled his boots with irritation. “Miners, Empress.”
“Okay, okay.” I rubbed his arm. “Are you and Finn being safe?”
His brows drew together as he gazed out. “Smite and fall, mad and struck.”
I looked with him, like we were viewing a sunset, a beautiful vista. Not plague and death. “You’ve told me those words before.”
“So much for you to learn, Empress. Beware the inactivated card.”
One Arcana’s powers lay dormant—until he or she killed another player. “Who is it?”
“Don’t ask, if you ever want to know.”
Naturally, I started to ask, but he cut me off. “Do you believe I see far?” He peered down at me. “Do you believe I see an unbroken line that stretches on through eternity? Centuries ago, I told an Empress that a future incarnation of hers would live in a world of ash where nothing grew. She never believed me.”
I could imagine Phyta or the May Queen surveying verdant fields and crops, doubting the Fool.
“Now I tell you that dark days are ahead. Will you believe me?”
“I will. I do. Please tell me what will happen. How dark?”
“Darkest. Power is your burden; knowing is mine.” His expression turned pleading, his soft brown eyes imploring. “Never hate me.”
I raised my hands, cradling his face. “Even when I was so mad at you, I never hated you.”
“Remember. Matthew knows best.” He sounded like his mom—when she’d tried to drown him: Mother knows best, son.
I dropped my hands. “It scares me when you say that.”
“Do you know what you really want? I see it. I feel it. Think, Empress. See far.”
I was trying! “Help me, then. I’m ready. Help me see far!”
“All is not as it seems. What would you sacrifice? What would you endure?”
“To end the game?”
His voice grew thick as he said, “Things will happen beyond your wildest imaginings.”
“Good things?”
His eyes watered. “Good, bad, good, bad, good, good, bad, bad, good-bye. You are my friend.
”
”