Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,152

you’ve been doing in this corner of the world, it ends today.”

Rain is coming down in torrents and the wind howls through the forest. More lighting flashes, hitting neighboring trees and setting the lumbering plants on fire before the rain douses them out.

I can no longer tell if Ana is crying, but her eyes are agonized.

It was too good to be true, her face seems to say.

I want to prove her wrong, but Death is one entity I cannot so easily vanquish.

“You heard my first offer,” he says.

I scowl at him, squeezing my scythe so tightly that my knuckles are turning white.

“Here is my second: Resume your task. Ride with your—” his upper lip twitches with distaste, “woman. Use your powers as they were meant to be used.”

Even as he speaks, the memory of the wind in my hair and the pound of my steed’s galloping body is so sharp it feels as though I could reach out and touch it. Most of me aches for that wild freedom.

Thanatos continues, “I will ensure that your female is one of the last humans to go. All you must do is take up your task once more. Let’s finish what we’ve started, brother.”

As if on cue, Death’s horse trots into the tiny clearing, followed by my own steed.

I can see it now: The three of us riding to the ends of the world. Thanatos would take humans right where they stood, and I’d blight the crops of any individuals who escaped his attention. We’d cut down humanity one city at a time.

Even now I can feel the oily urge to mount my steed and do just that. Domesticity was never a natural state for me.

Ana would be with me. It would be alright, for a time—

“Famine,” Ana says.

My gaze moves to her, still in Death’s grip. Around us the thunder has quieted, and the rain has lightened up to a thoughtful drizzle. I stare into her eyes.

“Don’t,” she says.

I can tell it takes a lot for her to say that. Her will to live has always been a dominant force.

I take a deep breath.

If I take what Thanatos offers, she would survive. But if I drove my steed across the world and made Ana watch death after death … well, that’s not without its own consequences.

She might live, but she might also come to hate me. I would make her into something terrible. I’m not sure either of us could survive that.

And even if—by some miracle—I didn’t lose Ana’s love, eventually the world would still end—maybe in one year, maybe in ten, maybe in fifty—and Death would kill her then, before her time was up. He would kill all his brothers’ wives. Death would finish the task that the rest of us turned our backs on and take our women at the end of it. They might be the last humans to go, but they would still go.

“Remember what you told me,” Ana says, her voice wavering, forcing me to turn my attention back to her. “Forgive. That’s what you’re meant to do. Even if—” She chokes on her next word, and has to restart again. “Even if it kills me.”

She would sacrifice herself. She broke me once, and she’s breaking me all over again.

But if we break, we break together.

My attention moves to Death. “I don’t want either of your offers.”

My brother holds my gaze for a long moment. “So be it,” he finally says.

I feel a shift in the air. Then, under Thanatos’s touch, Ana’s eyes roll back in her head. Her body sways, then collapses on the ground.

Dead.

Chapter 54

Famine

“Ana!” My voice sounds so far away.

I feel like the earth is disintegrating around me, that I am in free fall.

Can’t breathe.

Can’t think.

In an instant I close the distance between me and Ana. I fall to her side, my arms slipping under her torso. I cradle her in my arms.

There’s no pulse, no sense of life left in her.

“What have you done?” I say to my brother, my gaze pinned on Ana’s face.

I choke on my breath, unable to process—to accept—what I’m seeing.

“Ana,” I say, shaking her like an idiot. I cup her cheek. “Ana.” A tear slips out, hitting her chin.

I press my lips to hers, trying to breathe life back into her. Nothing within her stirs. I could make her body grow, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s simply that the soul residing in it is now gone.

I am being unmade.

Distantly, I’m aware of the gusting winds and

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