Page 216 of War

I don’t expect my throat to tighten and my gut to twist at the sight of it all. I am used to dismemberment. I am not used to caring about the creature dismembered. But I always have with her. Her injuries always made me feel odd. Crazed and helpless and human. So very, disturbingly human.

She can’t be dead.

“Miriam,” I beg, tilting her head back. It flops to the side.

A thousand upon a thousand years and so many countless deaths. None of it had cost me anything.

But this one—

She’snotdead. She can’t be dead. Not her and not …

My eyes slip down to what remains of her torso. A third of it is simply gone, along with all the hopes and dreams it carried.

“No,” I sob. “No, no, no …” I cradle her against me.

Desperate, I press a hand to her skin, willing her wounds to heal. But the flesh won’t stitch back together. It won’t evenattemptit. It’s stopped functioning altogether.

For one mad moment, I consider raising her like any other undead. But my heart crumples at the thought. It wouldn’t be her. I’ve reanimated enough bodies to know I’m working with a vessel and nothing more. What made MiriamMiriamis gone. Long gone.

I begin to weep in earnest, clutching her tightly to me.

Why, wife?

Why?

I glance around us at the sand and dust that coats our bodies. At the partially caved in wall near my feet. It takes a bit longer to see the few bits of metal scattered about and the charred remains of Miriam’s clothing.

They obviously buried me with the same damn explosives that kept going off when they were trying to kill me. And Miriam … Miriam must have seen them as well.

Which means my wife came for me despite their presence. Was it suicide? She had an unhealthy leaning towards death. Or had she tried to retrieve me?

My gaze goes back to her throat.

Surrender. The word mocks me now.

I feel mortal and powerless.

That thought alone pulls me from my grief. I straighten my shoulders.

I wasneverpowerless. Not when I first woke and not now.

There is still one path that might be open to me, one possibility left.

I hold Miriam’s body to me and I begin to chant in Angelic.

This is my last hope. Myonlyhope.

I close my eyes and the world disappears.

When I open them again, I am somewhere else.

Chapter 61

War

Thanatos stands infront of me like he’s been waiting. He looks unsurprised but vaguely disappointed.

“No,” he says.