Page 125 of War

The horseman comes back to me and reaches out a hand. “Come, wife. It’s late and I want to feel your warm flesh against mine.”

That same uncomfortable feeling rises in me. Right now it’s giddiness and a thrill that comes with giving in to the horseman. We’re either all or nothing, enemies or lovers. It’s dizzying. Our bodies get along much better than our mouths.

I take War’s hand and let him lead me to the pallet he made us. There’s just one bed tonight. My abs clench at the sight.

The horseman reels me in close, his hands going to my dark hair as he leans in and kisses me. And the kiss is all it takes to break me wide open.

I’ve shored up all my desire for him during the long day, but now I gasp as his heavy hand moves down my neck and along my collar bone. My own hands find his abs, and God wasclearlybiased when he made this man because War is perfect. Every hard ridge, every sloping muscle and lean edge—perfect, perfect, perfect.

As he strips me down, I try not to think about the fact that I’m so very obviouslynotperfect. I have scars from that long ago accident, I have scars from all the skirmishes I’ve fought in since, and I have scars from all the nicks and cuts I’ve given myself for my job. And then there are all the imperfections that I was simply born with.

I’m crudely fashioned compared to this horseman.

But as War lowers me down, removing the last of my clothing, his hands and lips move over me like I am perfect. The horseman slips between my thighs, and as I stare up at the stars, a stupid, awful tear slips out. Because I feel so cherished. So cherished and so goddamnedperfect.

It shouldn’t be this way. Itshouldn’t.

But it is.

After the twoof us have exhausted ourselves, I lay with War on his pallet. Our pallet, I guess—if I’m being honest with myself.

I don’t bother telling the horseman that this feels right. That his ridiculous body somehow fits mine like a puzzle piece.

War runs his fingers through my hair. “Tell me about yourself,” he says.

“What do you want to know?” I ask, glancing over at him. I wish I could see his face in the darkness.

“What makes you love being a human? What are your favorite things? I want to know it all.”

“I like art,” I say carefully, turning back to gaze at the sky. “I like repurposing junk into beautiful objects.”

“You mean your weapons,” he says.

I stretch myself out along his body. In response, War pulls me in close to him.

“That’s just how I was able to make money off of my art,” I say. “But yeah, my weapons are part of it.”

“And why do you enjoy art?” War asks.

I lift a shoulder. “It’s cathartic for me. I don’t know.”

“Tell me something else,” War says.

“I miss the taste of my mother’s Shakshuka,” I admit. I never learned how to cook her exact version of the spicy breakfast dish. There are so many small, simple things like that, that I lost when I lost her.

“What else?”

“My sister Lia wanted to be a singer.” I know War is asking me about myself, but this is who I am—a lonely girl carrying around the ghosts of her family. “I don’t know where she even got her voice from,” I continue. “The rest of us couldn’t carry a tune, but she could. She used to sing when she couldn’t fall asleep at night, and I used to hate it—we shared a room,” I add. “But then at some point, it became soothing, and I’d often drift off to her songs.”

That might’ve been the worst part of all of it when I came back. The silence. There were so many nights where I’d lay there, on my old mattress, my sister’s bed across from mine, and I’d wait for the song that never came.

After a while, I started sleeping in her bed, like I could somehow suck out the marrow of her from her old sheets. It never worked. Not even when I then moved to my mother’s bed to try to draw some small comfort there.

“Sometimes I carve music notes into my bows and arrows,” I admit to War. “I don’t even know what the notes stand for, or if they’re even accurately drawn, but they remind me of Lia.”

The horseman runs an idle hand down my arm, and I’m reminded about how intimate this whole situation is.

“Do you carve anything else onto your weapons?” he asks.