I glanced away. “I can’t control it.”

“If you could, I’d demand to know how. I’ve experienced jealousy all my life. Of men whose skin doesn’t kill. Of men who can cherish a wife and start a family with her. I have never known it like I do when I think of you and Deveaux together.”

“If it’s any consolation, I pictured you kissing someone else and felt just as jealous.”

Though my words seemed to please him, he said, “But there will be no one else.”

“By some quirk of fate it’s me you can touch. It could just as easily have been Selena or even Tess.”

“You think that’s all I see in you? I told you I was raised to be a warrior scholar; my match must be one as well. Quintessence might read alongside me, but she’s no warrior. Selena is all warrior, but no scholar.” His thumb stroked my cheekbone. “I didn’t want to fall in love with you, equating it to my own doom. I resisted with everything in me but was no match for your fierce courage and keen mind.”

“Fierce? I’m the one who doesn’t want to fight anymore.”

“But when forced to, you fight to win. When I captured you, you devised a brilliant impromptu plan to destroy me and my allies.”

“I lost.”

“Three Arcana narrowly won. I admired you then. Perhaps more than admired. Still I resisted, until one night in our study.”

I found myself leaning my face into his palm. So warm. Comforting. “What happened then?”

His amber irises lightened. “You were entranced with knowledge. You’ve a greedy intellect that must be fed. It called to my own, and I conceded defeat.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Can you truly imagine Selena reading with me? Or Quintessence taking off her thumb so she could take my head?”

Sweet, good-natured Tess would’ve bawled in that conflict. The Archer would’ve chafed in Death’s study, tossing her book away, demanding to go do shit.

Maybe Aric and I were perfect together.

Wait . . . “What’s this about my intellect?” I stepped back, narrowing my eyes up at him. “I thought you found my musings ‘banal and tedious.’”

He continued on, muttering, “Only when they were about Deveaux.”

“Do it now,” Selena bit out.

Jack glanced from her to the bowie knife he heated in a fire. Earlier, as they’d ridden together, he’d told her what he’d done to his own brand, and she would not be put off.

So we’d made camp in the same church, building a fire out of another pew.

Death and I sat on the other side of the flames. Selena had refused to look at him, acting as if he didn’t exist. With a shrug, he’d taken out those chronicles again.

All night, he’d remained close to me. In our search of the Shrine, we’d found medical supplies, more food stores, fuel, weapons and ammo. A Prepper’s wet dream. But no survivors.

Afterward he’d helped me wash in the rain, rinsing the blood from my hair and checking my healing injuries.

My body had mended, but my mind raced. And my emotions were going haywire.

Jealousy and guilt warred inside me. . . .

“The pain’s even worse than the first time,” Jack warned Selena, but I knew she’d still go through with it.

She’d been like a blank-eyed zombie—until she’d learned of a way to get rid of that brand. “I don’t give a shit. I might have to wear their icon”—she’d used her injured hand to claw at it—“but I don’t ever have to see this brand again.” She tugged down her shirt for Jack, baring her ravaged skin with her typical stoicism.

“All right, then.” He withdrew the blade from the flames, then knelt before her. Again, his position looked romantic. Again, I flushed with guilt that my thoughts had gone there.

Death paused his reading. —They’ve been through tortures that we will never know and can never understand.—

Jack and Selena had already been ideal for each other. Now they’d bonded in this. Both had survived the Lovers; both would wear matching scars.

With one hand, Jack brought the red-hot blade closer. He clamped his other hand over her shoulder. She never took her dark gaze from his as he scalded her, marking her forever. Binding the two of them for life.

Under his voice, Aric said, “Look at them, Empress.”

As if I could look at anything else.

In the three months I’d been away, Jack had changed so much. His heart could change. He wasn’t twenty yet! With me out of the picture, he could love the Archer.

By choosing Jack, I would doom not only Aric, but Selena as well.

41

DAY 381 A.F.

“This is blowing my ever-loving mind,” Selena muttered as we watched Death and Jack riding point together.

The four of us were heading south on horseback, along the slavers’ alternate route, a shortcut recently discovered and mapped by the Azey.

The “day” was cold and black, with spates of drizzle. Every now and then, I thought I spied a snowflake—like the sole one I’d seen at Aric’s—but it always turned out to be a bit of ash.

“If someone had told me a week ago that I’d be riding with Death,” Selena continued, “I would’ve shoved his head up his ass.”

The four of us could’ve taken a truck, trailering the horses, but we all had reasons to ride instead.

Selena wanted to heal more before she faced everyone at Fort Arcana. Her accelerated regeneration was erasing her bruises, mending her new burn wound and her hand. She thought she’d be able to draw her cherished bow soon. She’d been stuffing herself, already gaining weight. But she scratched at that icon so much, she’d taken to wearing gloves at all times.

Jack had voted for horseback because he burned to roust out any other slavers that had set up in Azey territory. No takers so far.

I’d been desperate for time to come to a decision. We were due back at the outpost tonight, and I still hadn’t made my choice.

Death had laughed at the idea of trailering his horse. Which was understandable, considering what that stallion had done to those chronicle-seeking clones.

Thanatos bench pressed three eighty and left us a pile of carnate chum. . . .

Selena steered her mount closer to mine. “You didn’t hear—because your senses are like a rock’s—but those two were talking earlier.”

“About what?” Deepening my voice, I imitated a guy, “You fought well, worthy foe.”

“I know, right? So J.D. goes, ‘I’m Jackson Deveaux. We’ve been in battle together. You goan to give me your real name, or what?’ The Reaper was all stumped, like he’s not used to being asked that.”