I thought I was a goner then, too. I swear I came so close to Death I could touch him.
I set the water on the bedside table next to me. That’s when I notice the small sculpture of Our Lady of Aparecida resting just behind the pitcher.
I draw in a breath. I’m not sure the horseman believes in signs, but I think I might.
“Famine,” I say, and my voice sounds all wrong.
There are things I need to tell him. Now, before I lose the chance.
His back stiffens. “Don’t,” he says, his eyes flashing. “Don’t,” he repeats. “I already told you, you’re not dying.”
Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. It feels like I might be.
I take a deep breath and finally admit to him what I haven’t even fully admitted to myself.
“I love you.” My heart is hammering away. “I don’t know when I began to, and I’m really, really upset that I do—”
“Stop, Ana,” Famine says fiercely. There are unshed tears in his eyes.
“But I love you. So much. And I always will. I want you to know that,” I say, “in case—”
“Stop.” Famine looks angry that he can’t make words wither away like he can plants. “I will kill the whole goddamn world if you don’t stop.”
I press my chapped lips together.
Once he sees that I’m not going to continue, the Reaper exhales, leaning his head back against his chair to stare up at the ceiling, one of his legs jiggling.
“When I told you I liked stories,” he says out of nowhere, “there was one in particular that I never told you.”
I give him a confused look. Fever and exhaustion are tugging me towards sleep, but I force my eyes to stay open.
“The night you saved me,” Famine says, looking back down at me, “when you fell asleep, you spoke.
“You said an Angelic word, one you should have been unable to pronounce.”
“Angelic?” I echo. “Is that your native language?”
He nods.
“What was the word?” I say, curious. I have no memory of this at all.
“Gipiwawewut.”
I close my eyes as I feel that word wash over me, drawing out goosebumps. For a moment, I don’t simply hear it, I feel it.
Forgiveness.
“Forgive me, Ana,” he says. “I know I have wronged you. Your family, your friends, your life—I took that from you. I didn’t understand, but I’m beginning to, and I’m sorry, so sorry.
“Please, forgive me.”
I give him a small smile. “I do,” I say softly. “I love you and I forgive you …”
I swear for a moment he looks petrified. Scary, merciless Famine, petrified.
I settle back against the bed and close my eyes, taking a deep breath as sleep begins to tug me under.
Here’s to hoping I’ll wake up again.
Famine
There was a moment of peace in Ana’s eyes when I spoke in Angelic. So as soon as she falls asleep, I clasp her clammy hand in mine and begin speaking to her in my natural tongue.
“I never could’ve imagined that I would love the slope of your nose or the space between your eyes. I know you are considered lovely by human standards, but I don’t have human standards, and Ana, you are the most exquisite thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. Even when you sleep with your mouth open. Even when you yell at me—especially then because I love seeing your fire.”
I bring her hand to my lips and press a kiss to her knuckles.
“You were made from the earth,” I whisper to her skin, “I can feel the universe moving through you, and yet you are something else unto yourself.
“I never wanted to love a human. I fought you with everything I had. You were everything I shouldn’t want. But then, your compassion pierced me deeper than any blade.
“I have felt the earth move, I have felt the grinding of rock as mountains shift and the world changes shape. None of it could prepare me for you.”
“I love you. Maybe more than all of what I am. And I don’t understand why, but I do. I love you.”
As I speak, her features smooth and the softest smile touches her lips. Even still, I can feel her slipping away. With horror, I realize the taste of heaven that I’m giving her is drawing her in like a moth to flame.
At once I stop speaking. She has made me selfless—to a point—but I’m still the same bastard at my core, and if the choice right now is giving Ana a comfortable death or giving her an uncomfortable life, I’m choosing the latter.
“You vexing woman, you are not leaving me.”
I stand, the chair scraping back.
Need to fix this.
I stare down at Ana. I don’t want to leave her—I promised her as much earlier—but I won’t wait to watch her die. From, of all things, a fucking wound I could’ve cleaned.
Instead I made love to her.
Such a fucking bastard.
Making a decision, I storm out of the room and hunt down that doctor. I find her in the kitchen, grinding up something with a mortar and pestle.
“Heal her,” I demand.
She raises her eyebrows. “I have been doing my best,” she says.
“It’s not good enough.” She’s slipping away. I bite back those last words.
“You didn’t give me much to work with.” As she speaks, she continues to grind her herbs. Not moving. Not even looking up.
Slowly, I cross the room. When I get to her, I slap that damn mortar and pestle away. The stone instruments careen off the table, and herbs scatter everywhere.
“Heal. Her.”
Now the doctor glances up, meeting my gaze, not cowed by my presence.
“Like I told you earlier, we can clean and dress the wound,” she says, “but the infection has already progressed too far,” the woman says, like that’s any sort of answer.
Too far?
“Heal her,” I repeat.
Her back straightens. The look she gives me is withering. “I cannot. Maybe before you horsemen showed up we could’ve saved her, but that technology is gone—you destroyed it.” She pauses to let that sink it.
And it does.
Her gaze is unwavering. “It is up to your God at this point.” But don’t expect much from him, her look seems to add.
I step in close to her. “Damn you,” I whisper.
Without even fully meaning to, my power lashes out, wiping out crops in an instant. It skips the people, but only because killing humans takes slightly more effort and focus.
The worst part is that I don’t even want to kill. I’m perversely grateful for these filthy humans’ help, and I get no joy from taking their livelihoods from them.
The doctor stares at me, like she knows I’ve done something terrible.
I stalk back to Ana’s room before I can hurt anything else. There’s this dreadful, yawning hole inside me.
I kneel at Ana’s side. She’s too still, though her chest is rising and falling fast.
Pitiful, useless human bodies. Of course they would turn frail the moment I actually want one of them around.
I suck in a breath as I stare at Ana’s sleeping face, realization coming to me.
I’ve seen this trick before.
This was the choice forced upon War and Pestilence. I hadn’t understood it then, when I slept deep within the ground, but I understand it now.
All of us brothers were given the choice to love as humans do, with all of the complications that entails.
One of those complications being death.
Pestilence gave up nothing in return for his love’s life; War had to give up his purpose, his power and immortality stripped from him.
I expect Death would outright refuse me.
Reaching out, I trail my fingers over Ana’s cheek, then trace her lips, my heart aching in a way it never has before. This is what it must feel like to truly be alive, every emotion so sharp it’s almost painful. I’ve spent so long lording my unending existence over finite things that I have never given them the prope
r respect. Not until now.
I exhale, and even that hurts. For the life of me it feels like I’m the one getting squeezed to death by my plants. I can’t breathe around this tightness in my chest.
A drop of water hits Ana’s face. Then another. It takes me a second to realize they’re tears. I’ve never cried over one of these creatures before. Not even Ana.
Ana, who’s dying …
Leaning forward, I press a kiss to her forehead, my lips lingering against her clammy skin.
“You can’t go, little flower.” My voice shakes as I speak. “This is one more order you’re going to have to listen to.”
I don’t need to give up my power to get her back. She’s not even dead yet.
Fuck mortal doctors and fuck Thanatos, I never needed any of their help anyways.
Carefully, I place my hand over Ana’s wound. I’ve forsaken this part of me for so long I’ve almost forgotten that I can do this—
Revive.
I’ve stirred the skies and drawn life from the ground, but turning my power towards a human—peering inside a fleshy body and trying to make sense of what’s there—it’s like tasting food for the first time. Shocking and strange.
My power is really quite simple—I can make things grow and I can make things die. It’s not quite War’s ability to heal, and it’s not quite Death’s ability to give life, but somewhere in the murky waters between the two.
The infection that’s racking Ana’s body is just one more living thing that’s doing a really, really good job of surviving. It just so happens to be killing its host in the process.
I close my eyes and allow myself to expand.
I can feel the life moving all around me; it’s everywhere—in the air, on the ground, in the ground. The earth is teeming with living things.
Turning my attention from the array of life surrounding me, I focus on Ana. Sick, weak Ana. Immediately I sense how much closer to death she is than life, but I knew that before. I set the fear aside so I can make things right.
I hone my focus not just on Ana, but in her. Immediately, I sense the bacteria overwhelming her system. It’s entered her bloodstream and is busy invading every little corner of her body. Not that the bacteria is all to blame. My little flower’s immune system is wreaking havoc in its attempt to fight the infection.
I take a moment to appreciate the sheer magnitude of this infection. All because of a single swipe of a knife.
My moment of appreciation passes, and just like every other time I’ve encountered a hated lifeform, I begin to destroy it.
Ana once asked me why I was so good at dancing. The truth is that while killing is easy, miracle-working is a more complicated process. The human body is a symphony of actions and reactions all tangled together, and right now, my job is to listen to her body’s symphony and move in time with it.
And that’s exactly what I do.
It feels like it takes a lifetime to heal her, but it must only take mere minutes. And then it’s done.
And I bring Ana back to me.
Chapter 45
Ana
When I wake, I’m alone.
I glance around me at the room, which is bare save for the sculpture of Our Lady of Aparecida and the glass and pitcher of water resting on the bedside table.
I sit up, feeling weak and hungry, but otherwise … not too bad. After a moment, I reach for my neck. It’s covered in soft gauze, which I pry away.
Last I remember, this cut had been badly infected.
The bandages and poultice fall away, and I begin to probe around my wound. It doesn’t feel swollen and angry. In fact, it feels … it feels mostly healed.
How is that possible?
I take in my surroundings again. Vaguely I remember Famine carrying me into this place, and then there was that fun pee incident outside, but everything else seems like a hazy fever dream. I think I made some pretty proclamations because I’d been sure I was going to die.
My lips are chapped and gummy, and discreetly I wipe them off before grabbing the glass of water next to me. In five deep swallows, I finish the thing off.
For a good few minutes, I sort of just sit there and let my mind catch up.
I didn’t die.
Can’t kill this cockroach.
I take a dainty whiff of my formerly clean dress and cringe. This outfit is the thing that needs to die.
Kicking off the damp bedsheets, I slide out of bed. My legs are shaky and honestly, I feel a little woozy, but I power forward anyway, slipping out of the room. A man passes by the hallway, and he gasps when he sees me, making the sign of the cross.
“Is this your house?” I ask.
He nods. “My wife treated you.”
I give him a soft smile. “Thank you both for the care and the bed.”
Still giving me a strange look, he nods.
I point towards the back of the house. “Is this the way out?”
Again, he gives a shaky nod.
“Thanks.” I leave the startled man there, a little unnerved by his reaction.
Outside, the sky is full of big, billowy clouds. I breathe in the wet, earthen smell of the land. Something innate pulls me past the scattered buildings and towards the fields beyond.
The sugarcane here is a bright, blinding green. And there, right in the middle of it, is the horseman.
I’ve seen this before, in my dreams. Famine stands among the crops, scythe in hand, and it’s like a premonition.
This is where he unmakes the world, one blade of grass at a time.
As though he senses me behind him, the horseman turns.
Right now, I see clearly that Famine is a what rather than a who. He doesn’t look human. Not even a little bit. He’s painfully, achingly beautiful, but he’s no mortal man.
“You know,” he says softly, “this entire field was dead only hours ago.”
I don’t bother looking at the crop in question.
“I can’t bring people back from the dead,” he continues. “Not without Death’s help—or God’s.” He reaches out a hand to touch the green stalks near him. “However, I can control the flow of life and death in all things, like this sugarcane.”
I move towards him, picking my way through the shrubs that brush my ankles.
“Did you … do something to me?” I ask.
I don’t know how I know, but I feel like maybe he did. The wound is too healed, and then there was that older man’s reaction back at the house; he looked at me as though I should’ve been dead.
I come right up to Famine, gazing at his face, trying to read his features. At first, he won’t meet my eyes, but when he eventually does, I go still.
He’s looking at me like I’m his one weakness.
“Did you?” I ask again. “Heal me?”
He takes a deep, audible breath as he stares down at me, like he’s drawing the life back into himself. He lets go of his scythe, letting it fall to the earth.
Famine cups my face, searching my gaze. “Yes,” he says simply.
In the next instant, his lips are on mine. The kiss is fierce, almost desperate in its intensity. I kiss him back, even as I let his words sink in.
Famine healed me.
Famine, the horseman who hates humans. Famine, who loves killing and suffering. He is responsible for me being alive right now.
He places a hand against my cheek, bringing my forehead to his.
“I love you,” he says.
I stare at him for a long moment, my point forgotten.
I love you.
Those words are ringing in my ears. I’m sure I’ve misheard him.
Famine looks just as wide-eyed as I know I must look.
“What?” I breathe.
“I love you, you foolish little flower.”
My heart begins to hammer against my ribcage.
“It’s rather an unfortunate realization,” he says, his breath fanning across my cheeks, “but despite every one of my convictions, I do.”
He l
oves me.
He loves me. Me.
Only now is it really starting to sink in.
Famine’s green eyes, which I once found so unnerving, now stare intensely at me.
“I love you,” he repeats. No longer does he seem shocked by those words. That driving certainty that rules him is back.
He leans in to kiss me again.
At the last moment I bring my fingers to his lips. “Wait.”
His eyes focus on me.
I smile, first at his mouth, then up at his eyes.
“I love you too,” I say softly. My grin widens, even as his eyebrows lift. I drop my hand. “Just thought you should hear that when I’m not running a fever,” I whisper.
And then I let Famine kiss me.
Chapter 46
Several hours later, the two of us are back on Famine’s steed.
I’m still reeling from the Reaper’s admission that he loves me. I feel lighter than air. Has anything ever made me this happy before?
Not to mention that he healed me.
Famine holds me close in the saddle, and his lips keep brushing my temple, as though he were trying to press his adoration into my very skin. Honestly, I can’t get enough of it.
Not a half hour ago I thanked and said goodbye to our hosts—who, mercy of all mercies, Famine left alive. And now, by the looks of it, he’s left the rest of the city alive as well.
The two of us move through the streets of what I learn is Taubaté. Like most other Brazilian cities, this one has adapted to life after the apocalypse. Many of the old skyscrapers and highrises are abandoned, or have fallen into disrepair—if they haven’t been cleared away altogether—and the majority of the population seems to have shifted the city center to what must’ve once been the outskirts of town.
Here the streets are lined with stalls selling everything from street food to baskets, blankets, jewelry, shoes, dinnerware, and on and on. There are restaurants that spill out of the buildings and musicians playing along the street corners.
Whatever sort of city Taubaté once was, it looks like it’s remade itself into something new.
Famine (The Four Horsemen Book 3) Page 34
