Page 180 of Famine

“I have felt the earth move, I have felt the grinding of rock as mountains shift and the world changes shape. None of it could prepare me for you.”

“I love you. Maybe more than all of what I am. And I don’t understand why, but I do. I love you.”

As I speak, her features smooth and the softest smile touches her lips. Even still, I can feel her slipping away. With horror, I realize the taste of heaven that I’m giving her is drawing her in like a moth to flame.

At once I stop speaking. She has made me selfless—to a point—but I’m still the same bastard at my core, and if the choice right now is giving Ana a comfortable death or giving her an uncomfortable life,I’m choosing the latter.

“You vexing woman, you arenotleaving me.”

I stand, the chair scraping back.

Need to fix this.

I stare down at Ana. I don’t want to leave her—I promised her as much earlier—but I won’t wait to watch her die. From, of all things, a fucking wound I could’ve cleaned.

Instead I made love to her.

Such a fucking bastard.

Making a decision, I storm out of the room and hunt down that doctor. I find her in the kitchen, grinding up something with a mortar and pestle.

“Heal her,” I demand.

She raises her eyebrows. “I have been doing my best,” she says.

“It’s not good enough.”She’s slipping away.I bite back those last words.

“You didn’t give me much to work with.” As she speaks, she continues to grind her herbs. Not moving. Not even looking up.

Slowly, I cross the room. When I get to her, I slap that damn mortar and pestle away. The stone instruments careen off the table, and herbs scatter everywhere.

“Heal. Her.”

Now the doctor glances up, meeting my gaze, not cowed by my presence.

“Like I told you earlier, we can clean and dress the wound,” she says, “but the infection has already progressed too far,” the woman says, like that’s any sort of answer.

Too far?

“Heal her,” I repeat.

Her back straightens. The look she gives me is withering. “Icannot. Maybe before you horsemen showed up we could’ve saved her, but that technology is gone—you destroyed it.” She pauses to let that sink it.

And it does.

Her gaze is unwavering. “It is up to your God at this point.”But don’t expect much from him, her look seems to add.

I step in close to her. “Damn you,” I whisper.

Without even fully meaning to, my power lashes out, wiping out crops in an instant. It skips the people, but only because killing humans takes slightly more effort and focus.

The worst part is that I don’t evenwantto kill. I’m perversely grateful for these filthy humans’ help, and I get no joy from taking their livelihoods from them.

The doctor stares at me, like she knows I’ve done something terrible.

I stalk back to Ana’s room before I can hurt anything else. There’s this dreadful, yawning hole inside me.

I kneel at Ana’s side. She’s too still, though her chest is rising and falling fast.