He will help me after all.

“I will even allow you to strip yourself of your immortality and your duty,” he continues, “because you so love humanity.”

I hadn’t asked for his permission when I first tried to cleave away my immortality, and I didn’t ask for it now, but I’ll—begrudgingly—take it all the same. This is what Death does, after all—he can strip men’s souls from their bones, and he can strip my immortality and purpose from mine.

“But—” Death adds.

But.

That single word steals my breath, and I feel the weight of his tithe.

“—but your mortality comes at a price.”

Not many things shake me, but this does. What other hells must I endure?

“I thought the price was steep enough as it is,” I say. Thanatos himself had been the one to say this was an unworthy trade.

“You’re in the land of humans. There is no fairness here,” my brother replies.

Damn him, but I cannot disagree.

“You want mortality?” he continues. His hand moves to Ana’s shoulder once more. He squeezes it. “Then your female comes with me.”

To the afterlife, he means.

“What?” I take a step forward, alarmed, just as Ana bites her lip, a couple more tears silently slipping from her eyes.

“Ah, ah,” Thanatos says, his black wings unfurling. They come around Ana, further isolating her from me. I stiffen at the sight of her in Death’s embrace. “That’s not how this works, brother.”

I try not to panic. It would be effortless for him to take her from me. Worse, he’d consider it a mercy to deliver her from this world.

“Fuck you, Thanatos,” I say, “That is no trade.”

The only reason I want to rid myself of my immortality is so that I can live and die alongside Ana. What would be the point if she were already dead and gone?

“But I thought you wanted to save humanity?” Death says, his eyes gleaming.

To hell with humanity. I don’t much care about all the other humans out there.

My brother’s eyes narrow. “I see. You wouldn’t save humanity if this woman couldn’t be saved, too,” he says, echoing my thoughts.

“Does it matter what my reasons are?” I say.

“Of course it does,” Death says. “You are the bearer of the scales. You know better than I do that motives are everything.”

I take a step closer. The last of my reasonableness is burning itself away. I’ve stayed my hand, I’ve been more goddamn civil than should be expected of me.

Now the heavens open up. Rain begins to pelt down, and the sky flashes.

BA-BOOM!

The thunder rattles above me.

“Listen closely, brother,” I say. “The woman you’re holding is the only thing that matters to me. If you hurt her at all, we will have a problem, Thanatos. Your duty won’t mean shit in the face of my wrath.”

Death looks sad. “You have lost sight of who and what you are, Famine, to so easily turn your back on your task,” he says.

A bolt of lightning strikes a nearby tree—

BOOM!

The trunk explodes, fire and sparks bursting from the wet wood, and the small clearing we’re in lights up.

The corner of my mouth lifts into a smile.

“Have I now?” I say, gripping my scythe tighter as rain comes down in torrents. “And you would know, wouldn’t you?” I say, as my anger mounts. “You, who have not felt my pain or my anger or lived through—”

“Every human feels pain,” Death says. “I don’t need to know yours—”

“I suffered here for years, brother,” I say, cutting him off. “Years. Where were you then? Why didn’t you slay my oppressors and save me so that I could return to my task?”

Death is quiet.

I point to Ana with my scythe. “It was this woman with her pleasing enough form—”

Ana—God bless her vanity—frowns at that.

“—who saved me,” I say. “So, you and your offensive trade can fuck—right—off.”

I will find another way to be mortal—or I won’t. Perhaps I’ll keep my immortality right up until Ana’s death, and then I’ll make the trade.

Thanatos’s fingers dig into Ana’s shoulder. She glances up, giving my brother a look that would shrivel the balls off a lesser man, and tries to jerk her shoulder free. It doesn’t get her anywhere, but I admire her all the same. The knot of worry that sits in the pit of my stomach loosens just a little.

“Do you really think I’m going to let the two of you just walk away to continue on as you were?” Death says, raising his eyebrows. “Whatever 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.