Page 84 of War

And it wasn’t.

Pestilence surfaced five years after that. Fiveyears. And now it’s been well over a decade since the horseman’s initial arrival. Why the wait? What are we missing?

I remember the sight of my three surviving attackers, all waiting to die. I remember looking at those men, being so sure they would hurt someone again if they were freed. I didn’twantto believe it—I still don’t—but I thought it all the same.

Somehow we’re all supposed to redeem ourselves. I’m just not sure we’re all willing to.

And so we’re slated to die.

We pass throughGaza, the entire strip of it. No one remains. It’s just as abandoned as Ashdod and Ashkelon. Bodies rot under the summer sun, and the deep, foreboding hum of swarming flies raises the hair on the back of my neck.

Jabalia, Khan Yunis—all the cities within the strip look the same.

Dead.

“What have you done?” I whisper as I take it all in.

“I couldn’t leave you,” War says.

I glance over at him.

“When you were injured,” he clarifies.

Horror dawns on me. While he stayed at my side and mended me, he was still killing.

War meets my gaze, and there’s no remorse in his pitiless expression. He’ll have it all—me and the end of the world. It’s his birthrighttotake it all.

I look away. To think I was fantasizing about him only a day ago …

My attention returns to the ruins of this civilization. I didn’t even know the army raided this far from their basecamp.

Only, the more I look at the carnage and the more I think about it, the more I come to believe that War’s armydidn’tmove this far south. There are no smoldering buildings, there are no fallen soldiers. There’s nothing to indicate man met man on the battlefield and each fought the other to the death.

But there are piles of bones. Lots and lots of bones.

“You used the dead?” I ask.

His only response is to meet my eyes and say again, “I couldn’t leave you.”

I don’t speakto War after that. Not for hours and hours.

Unfortunately, he seems perfectly fine with that arrangement.

It’s not until the sun is setting and War is steering his steed off the road and towards a deserted outpost that he says, “I know you’re angry with me.”

I shake my head. “I’m not angry with you,” I say. I can feel his gaze on me. “I’m angry at myself.”

War swings himself off Deimos and takes the reins of my own horse, leading the creature to a set of troughs filled with old feed and murky water.

I glance around. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Truly. Outpost aside, there’s nothing here but road and barren, sun-bleached earth.

“A week ago, your people brutalized you,” he says, “and still you think they should be spared?”

I ignore him, sliding off Lady Godiva and wincing at my aching legs.

He ties my horse’s reins and returns to my side.

“Answer me,” he demands. For once his eyes are angry, and I get the impression he’s remembering the night I was attacked.