“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 proper 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.