Dead of Winter (38 page)

BOOM! BOOM!

Explosions, one after another, rocked that snowy valley. A split second later . . .

The white ground turned black in an outward surge. A blast of heat.

A scorching shockwave slammed me, seared my face. Flung me off the horse. I hurtled through the air. Landed on the back of the rise.

I plummeted down the slope, clutching the radio, screaming for Jack.

How far had he ridden? A rock sliced my head. Was he outside the blast? The air turned to sulfur. How far?

I crashed face-first into a boulder. Bone snapped. The radio shattered. Quakes hammered the ground.

Blood sprayed from my mouth as I screamed,
“Jack!”
I struggled to my hands and knees. I crawled up the shuddering hill.

My vision was blurred . . . sight couldn't be right. Smoke rose in a mushroom plume, as if from a nuclear bomb.

Had he escaped? I shrieked,
“JACK!”

I made the rise. Sheer will to stand. I gazed into the valley.

At hell.

Flumes of lava spewed from the ground. Flames so hot they consumed rock. From the two mountain peaks, more lava poured, filling that valley. A seething red pool where the army used to be.

Fighting realization: Jack was down there. “No,
NO
!” Vines sprang from the ground, following me as I ran toward the firestorm. The heat blistered me even from this distance.

Just before I reached a curtain of red, an arm seized me around my waist.

Death stood behind me? He'd ridden after me?

Between heaving breaths, Aric said, “You can't . . . save the mortal. The Emperor . . . advances. We leave—
now
.”

“NO! I have to get to Jack!” I fought, but Aric snatched me against his chest. I clawed at his armor, at the scalding metal. “Let me go to him! Let me GO!” Nothing would keep me from Jack. My vines coiled around Death, trying to pry loose his viselike hold on me.

“Flames will kill you!”

“I don't care, don't care! You want Jack dead! You want me not to save him! I can find him!”

Death gripped my shoulders, shaking me till my head rolled. He twisted me around toward the valley. “Do you see any signs of life? No human could've survived this!”

“Don't ever underestimate him! Everyone does and he ALWAYS surprises them. He's alive!”

“Look upon this sight, Empress!” The valley floor was blanketed in lava, had to be thirty feet deep. Waves of it lapped at this rise. “Mark this image.
Where
will you search for him?”

I didn't know, just knew I wanted to be with Jack. As Aric dragged me away, I fought him even harder.

The Arcana clamored.

—The Emperor struck.—

—Took out the Archer.—

—The Moon sets. The Moon rises . . . no more.—

Was that last one
Matthew
's voice?

MATTHEW, I NEED YOU! Where is Jack?

Silence.

ANSWER ME!

Selena had been riding directly beside Jack, watching his six. If she were dead . . .

“AHHHHHHH!”
I screamed my pain, my fury. The earth trembled again—from me.

“You'll share a grave with him!”

“
Good!
Let me go!” Death kept taking me farther from Jack. I stretched my arms out, fingers splayed toward the heat. “He can't be dead.” I sobbed. “Can't.
NO, NO, NOOOO!”

“You want to follow the mortal? Get your revenge first. The Emperor mocks your pain.”

I could hear that fiend in my head—laughing.

The red witch exploded inside me, a force that could
never
be contained. I shrieked, “You will
PAY  
!”

As the Emperor laughed and laughed, Death murmured in my ear, “I have your grandmother,
sievā
. That was the gift I spoke of. We'll teach you how to kill the Emperor. You'll avenge Deveaux.”

“Don't you understand? Jack's not
DEAD
!” I screamed that over and over. “He's alive!”

With my mind teetering on the brink, I spied something in the skies above us. I gaped, disbelieving.

Real?
Un
real? Just before oblivion took me down, a mountain of water curled over our heads, racing toward that hell of flames. . . .

ALSO IN THE ARCANA CHRONICLES

Poison Princess

Endless Knight

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

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www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 by Kresley Cole

Jacket art direction by Krista Vossen

Jacket photograph of clouds copyright © 2015 by Shutterstock/Paolo Sartorio;

photograph of trees and snow copyright © 2015 by Thinkstock/iStock/MarianCabanski;

back jacket photograph of people copyright © 2015 by Aaron Goodman

Jacket title lettering by The Black Rabbit

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is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Book design by Krista Vossen

The text for this book is set in Bulmer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cole, Kresley.

Dead of winter / Kresley Cole. — First edition.

pages cm. — (The Arcana chronicles ; [3])

Summary: In order to protect Jack from two of the most horrific Arcana, The Lovers, and the vast army they command, Evie leaves the comfort offered by Death and joins her allies in a frozen and perilous post-apocalyptic wasteland, but for her battle plan to succeed, she must persuade Death and Jack to work together.

ISBN 978-1-4814-2345-8 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4814-2347-2 (eBook)

[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Ability—Fiction. 3. Prophecies—Fiction. 4. Tarot—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.C673494De 2015

[Fic]—dc23

2014040500