Yes, of humans.

“Why do you think we’re here?” War says.

I stare back at him. “Why don’t you tell me?” He’s the one with all the answers.

“Your kind has not been made wrong,” War says cryptically, “but you have all collectively chosen wrong.”

I’m trying to follow War’s words and how they tie into judgment, but I don’t really know what he’s trying to say. That human nature itself is fine, we just turned evil somewhere along the way? And now he has to punish us for it?

“And so we’re all to die?” I say.

“You’re being called home.”

What he means is that humankind is being swept up into God’s trashcan like bad leftovers.

“And there’s nothing you can do about it?” I ask. I don’t know why I bother. War hasn’t shown one iota of interest in actually saving humankind. He’s completely fine annihilating us.

“Miriam, it isn’t for me to do anything. Men are the ones who must change. I merely judge their hearts along the way.”

I run a hand through my dark brown hair. “How can you even judge us if you’re too busy hacking away at us all?”

War’s face is grim. “There’s an order to what I and my brothers do.”

“What does that even mean?” He’s dancing around my questions.

“Four calamities, four chances.”

An unwelcome tingle of fear slips down my spine. “Four chances for what?”

His eyes fall heavily on me. “Redemption.”

Chapter 23

Redemption. That word weighs heavy on me that night as I stare up at the sky. Humankind has been so dead-set on stopping the horsemen that we’ve overlooked one simple truth: maybe it’s not the horsemen that need to be stopped.

Maybe it’s us.

Not our lives—though War would insist differently—but our actions. Technology was stopped in its tracks the day the horsemen arrived. But if it was the things we created that were wrong, that single, obliterating act should’ve been it.

And it wasn’t.

Pestilence surfaced five years after that. Five years. And now it’s been well over a decade since the horseman’s initial arrival. Why the wait? What are we missing?

I remember the sight of my three surviving attackers, all waiting to die. I remember looking at those men, being so sure they would hurt someone again if they were freed. I didn’t want to believe it—I still don’t—but I thought it all the same.

Somehow we’re all supposed to redeem ourselves. I’m just not sure we’re all willing to.

And so we’re slated to die.

We pass through Gaza, the entire strip of it. No one remains. It’s just as abandoned as Ashdod and Ashkelon. Bodies rot under the summer sun, and the deep, foreboding hum of swarming flies raises the hair on the back of my neck.

Jabalia, Khan Yunis—all the cities within the strip look the same.

Dead.

“What have you done?” I whisper as I take it all in.

“I couldn’t leave you,” War says.

I glance over at him.

“When you were injured,” he clarifies.

Horror dawns on me. While he stayed at my side and mended me, he was still killing.

War meets my gaze, and there’s no remorse in his pitiless expression. He’ll have it all—me and the end of the world. It’s his birthright to take it all.

I look away. To think I was fantasizing about him only a day ago …

My attention returns to the ruins of this civilization. I didn’t even know the army raided this far from their basecamp.

Only, the more I look at the carnage and the more I think about it, the more I come to believe that War’s army didn’t move this far south. There are no smoldering buildings, there are no fallen soldiers. There’s nothing to indicate man met man on the battlefield and each fought the other to the death.

But there are piles of bones. Lots and lots of bones.

“You used the dead?” I ask.

His only response is to meet my eyes and say again, “I couldn’t leave you.”

I don’t speak to War after that. Not for hours and hours.

Unfortunately, he seems perfectly fine with that arrangement.

It’s not until the sun is setting and War is steering his steed off the road and towards a deserted outpost that he says, “I know you’re angry with me.”

I shake my head. “I’m not angry with you,” I say. I can feel his gaze on me. “I’m angry at myself.”

War swings himself off Deimos and takes the reins of my own horse, leading the creature to a set of troughs filled with old feed and murky water.

I glance around. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Truly. Outpost aside, there’s nothing here but road and barren, sun-bleached earth.

“A week ago, your people brutalized you,” he says, “and still you think they should be spared?”

I ignore him, sliding off Lady Godiva and wincing at my aching legs.

He ties my horse’s reins and returns to my side.

“Answer me,” he demands. For once his eyes are angry, and I get the impression he’s remembering the night I was attacked.

“Why?” I say. “Reasoning with you accomplishes nothing.”

War steps in close. “And if it did?” he asks softly. “If I listened to you and tried to change, what then?”

I search his face. Everything about him is brutal—brutal beauty, brutal power, brutal personality.

“I think you know what would happen if you tried to change,” I say, lifting my chin a little.

I’m having a difficult enough time keeping my hands off War as it is. If he did give me a reason to believe he was capable of changing for the better, I might be tempted to sully his good name right here, right now.

The horseman’s gaze drops to my lips and his eyes noticeably heat. “And if I did this, if I … changed—would that make you less ashamed of the fact that the world hates me yet you are mine?”

“I am not yours.” There’s a very big difference between wanting to fuck a pretty man versus being his.

The corners of War’s sinful lips curve upwards. “You are mine. You knew it the moment you stared up at my face that day in Jerusalem. Just as I knew you were mine then too.” His gaze drops to the hollow of my throat, where my scar is.

War steps in closer, drawn by my old wound. “Mine by violence. Mine by might. Mine by divine proclamation.”

I think he might kiss me. He has that intense look on his face like he wants to, and he’s made it perfectly clear that he believes I am his in every sense of the word.

But instead of leaning down and pressing his lips to mine, he brushes past me and begins to set up camp.

I stare at his back as he works. Why doesn’t he just seal the deal? He’s strong enough, and he has no problem overpowering innocent humans on the battlefield. Why draw the line when it comes to his unwilling “wife”?

“What would you change about me?” he asks over his shoulder, interrupting my thoughts.

Whatever it is that drives you.

“Stop killing people,” I say.

He pauses in his work. “You would have me surrender my purpose?”