Page 196 of War

War helps me fit the bracelet on my wrist, right next to my other one.

I stare at the two pieces of jewelry the horseman gave me today, and I almost say it.

I love you.

My eyes move up to War.

I love you.

He would be thrilled to hear those words.

I part my lips. “What will happen to us?” I say instead, chickening out at the last minute.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the future.Ourfuture. Not just what will happen in the next week or month, but where we’ll be years into the future.

“What do you mean?” War asks.

“Where do you see our lives going?” Now that there’s a baby and War’s ways are changing, the future is one great, looming uncertainty.

“Wife, we will live just as millions of others have—in love until a ripe old age.”

There’s only one problem with that. “But you’re immortal, and I’m not.”

“That means nothing.” Still, War frowns, and I know he’s thinking about it all the same.

“Itwill,” I insist.

I’m twenty-two now, but I won’t always be. Eventually my youth will bleed away into brittle bones and sagging skin. Meanwhile, what will War look like? Will he remain unchanged, his body still muscular and virile? I can’t imagine him any other way.

And if he didn’t age, what then? What would happen when I was elderly and my husband was still this raw, masculine force of nature? Would we still be together?Couldwe still be together?

And even if we were—

“Eventually I would die,” I say, “and you wouldn’t.”

What then would happen to War? And what would happen to the world? The horseman’s vow might end with my death. Would he then return to his old ways and pick up where he left off?

“You spoke once of faith,” War says, interrupting my thoughts. “Perhaps now is the time to have faith in me. All will be alright, Miriam. I vow it.”

By the timeI wake the next morning, War is gone.

A chill moves over me. The horseman has left early before, but that was back when he plotted with his men. He doesn’t do that so much anymore.

I get dressed and force down a little food—my morning sickness actually seems to be going away—and then I leave the tent. Already the sounds of the living are filling the campsite.

I wander around until I spot War. He stands on the edge of camp, petting Deimos along his muzzle. The horseman’s dark hair flutters in the desert wind.

He doesn’t notice me until I come right up to his side. When he does eventually see me, he smiles. His expression is so free of violence that he could almost pass for a man.

You rip bits of his otherness away and then he becomes like the rest of us.

I don’t know if I want him to become like the rest of us. I like his strangeness.

But maybe I get to still have that strangeness, just without the bloodshed.

War continues to pet Deimos. The horse butts his owner’s hand away and takes several steps towards me, until the steed has buried his face in my chest.

The horseman turns and watches the two of us. Just when I think he’s going to say something about me and Deimos making a cute couple (we so do), he says, “We’re leaving Zara and the rest of camp behind.”