War (The Four Horsemen #2) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,147

the future is one great, looming uncertainty.

“Wife, we will live just as millions of others have—in love until a ripe old age.”

There’s only one problem with that. “But you’re immortal, and I’m not.”

“That means nothing.” Still, War frowns, and I know he’s thinking about it all the same.

“It will,” I insist.

I’m twenty-two now, but I won’t always be. Eventually my youth will bleed away into brittle bones and sagging skin. Meanwhile, what will War look like? Will he remain unchanged, his body still muscular and virile? I can’t imagine him any other way.

And if he didn’t age, what then? What would happen when I was elderly and my husband was still this raw, masculine force of nature? Would we still be together? Could we still be together?

And even if we were—

“Eventually I would die,” I say, “and you wouldn’t.”

What then would happen to War? And what would happen to the world? The horseman’s vow might end with my death. Would he then return to his old ways and pick up where he left off?

“You spoke once of faith,” War says, interrupting my thoughts. “Perhaps now is the time to have faith in me. All will be alright, Miriam. I vow it.”

By the time I wake the next morning, War is gone.

A chill moves over me. The horseman has left early before, but that was back when he plotted with his men. He doesn’t do that so much anymore.

I get dressed and force down a little food—my morning sickness actually seems to be going away—and then I leave the tent. Already the sounds of the living are filling the campsite.

I wander around until I spot War. He stands on the edge of camp, petting Deimos along his muzzle. The horseman’s dark hair flutters in the desert wind.

He doesn’t notice me until I come right up to his side. When he does eventually see me, he smiles. His expression is so free of violence that he could almost pass for a man.

You rip bits of his otherness away and then he becomes like the rest of us.

I don’t know if I want him to become like the rest of us. I like his strangeness.

But maybe I get to still have that strangeness, just without the bloodshed.

War continues to pet Deimos. The horse butts his owner’s hand away and takes several steps towards me, until the steed has buried his face in my chest.

The horseman turns and watches the two of us. Just when I think he’s going to say something about me and Deimos making a cute couple (we so do), he says, “We’re leaving Zara and the rest of camp behind.”

The world is quiet for several seconds after that as I continue to pet his horse.

His words aren’t computing. I won’t let them.

“Everyone but the phobos riders,” he adds.

Eventually, I glance up at War. “What do you mean we’re leaving them behind?”

“At the next city we will leave them behind. I’m dismantling camp.”

Now it’s starting to sink in.

“What? Why?” My heart begins to race. “Are you planning on killing them?” Because I won’t let that happen. Not to Zara or Mamoon—and not to the others either.

War’s eyebrows come together. “I didn’t say that. I said I am leaving them.”

“So, they’ll live?” I ask.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. But that will be up to their own fortune and luck.”

Now I’m trying to wrap my mind around this—that for the first time ever, War will free his captive army. They may be far from their homes—we’re now in Sudan, after all—but at least they’ll no longer be under War’s yoke.

I can’t seem to catch my breath. There are too many warring emotions inside me. Pain, that I’ll have to let my friend go; disbelief, that this might actually happen; wonder, that War is actually considering this. And then there’s a strange, niggling worry that creeps up on me.

This is a part of war that I’ve seen only once before. The end. The part where you withdraw your troops, you decommission your weapons, you decrease your standing army. I saw it when my country’s civil war ended.

Now it’s happening again.

Zara and Mamoon will get to live a real life—somewhere not full of death and sadness. For that matter, the rest of camp will get to live some semblance of a normal life. It won’t be the same as it was before, nothing can go back to the way it was, but they’ll get another shot at life, which is more than anyone else in this camp