Page 83 of War

“Even Pestilence?” I press. War had mentioned that the first horseman had been stopped.

The horseman curls his upper lip a little. His silence has my heart speeding up. “Where he is, is no concern of mine. His purpose has been served.”

I think … I think that’s War’s evasive way of saying his brothers really can be stopped.

Now I need to figure outhow.

“When will Famine come?” I ask.

“When it is his time.”

“And … when is that?”

War shakes his head, squinting off in the distance. “After I have made my final judgment.”

“Your final judgment?” I say. “Of what?Humans?” I raise my eyebrows.

War turns his head and gives me a long look.

Yes, of humans.

“Why do you think we’re here?” War says.

I stare back at him. “Why don’t you tell me?” He’s the one with all the answers.

“Your kind has not been made wrong,” War says cryptically, “but you have all collectivelychosenwrong.”

I’m trying to follow War’s words and how they tie into judgment, but I don’t really know what he’s trying to say. That human nature itself is fine, we just turned evil somewhere along the way? And now he has to punish us for it?

“And so we’re all to die?” I say.

“You’re being called home.”

What he means is that humankind is being swept up into God’s trashcan like bad leftovers.

“And there’s nothing you can do about it?” I ask. I don’t know why I bother. War hasn’t shown one iota of interest in actuallysavinghumankind. He’s completely fine annihilating us.

“Miriam, it isn’t for metodo anything. Men are the ones who must change. I merely judge their hearts along the way.”

I run a hand through my dark brown hair. “How can you even judge us if you’re too busy hacking away at us all?”

War’s face is grim. “There’s an order to what I and my brothers do.”

“What does that evenmean?” He’s dancing around my questions.

“Four calamities, four chances.”

An unwelcome tingle of fear slips down my spine. “Four chances forwhat?”

His eyes fall heavily on me. “Redemption.”

Chapter 23

Redemption.That wordweighs heavy on me that night as I stare up at the sky. Humankind has been so dead-set on stopping the horsemen that we’ve overlooked one simple truth: maybe it’s not the horsemen that need to be stopped.

Maybe it’sus.

Not our lives—though War would insist differently—but ouractions. Technology was stopped in its tracks the day the horsemen arrived. But if it was the things we created that were wrong, that single, obliterating act should’ve been it.