The horseman cups my face, his gaze searching mine. “Death always comes between humans. I won’t let it happen to us.”

I see his age then, in his eyes. Thousands upon thousands of years of wars. So many lives and so many deaths. It’s moments like these when I remember that he was never born and he can never die.

I sense that all those years of battle have worn War down. That beneath his violence, he’s held onto a spark of something that doesn’t seem very War-like: peace, connection, love. I see that longing in his eyes.

And now I’ve begun to make the mistake I was never supposed to make. I’ve started to forget that War is a jackal set on devouring the world. I’ve started to see him as someone worth caring about.

As someone I do care about.

The next week is a blur of touching and sex. War extends our time at camp simply so that he can relegate some days to staying in bed and nothing else. And there’s no more mention of raising the dead—my undead guards aside.

And if I thought this brief, sex-filled blip would end the moment we packed up camp, I thought wrong. War stops several times on the road so that he can fit himself inside me, and the nights during our travels are largely sleepless.

Even when we make camp in the next settlement, it doesn’t end. He seems more ravenous for me than ever.

War fucks like he fights. He’s brutal, deliberate, and full of raw masculine energy. He takes me like it’s the one thing he was made for, like this is the last time he’ll ever be in me. Like he’s reaching, reaching, reaching for something he can’t quite grasp.

I was right the first time I felt him in me; he’s ruined me. Because the craze isn’t one-sided. If it were, I’d relish the fact that at any moment I could just walk away and be alright. But I don’t think I could. Not at this point. So instead, I now have to grapple with the fact that I’m enamored by a man who has committed atrocities.

He’s barely slipped out of me when he gathers me against him, holding me close.

Outside, the Egyptian sun is rising, turning the cream walls of our tent a rosy hue. All around me, everything has a hazy, warm glow.

“Two days from now, when battle begins, you will stay here,” War says softly, rubbing circles into my back. “My undead will guard you until I return.”

My body goes rigid. I almost forgot about the upcoming raid.

After Port Said, we traveled inland, heading through the Nile Delta towards the city of Mansoura. Here, several kilometers outside the city’s walls, we made camp.

The land around us is a bit lusher than it was at our earlier stops, but the decaying, rubble-filled state of the towns we passed detracts from its natural beauty. Cars still congest many of the streets, old computers and appliances litter the landscape, burned carcasses of buildings line the road, and many of the recent additions Egypt has made to its cities—such as gas lamps and horse stalls—have already been vandalized.

From everything I’ve seen of these parts, I’d say the people here were suffering long before War came around. They don’t need any more pain.

Seeing my face, War says, “Mansoura must fall, and I will be there.”

I feel my heart plummeting, plummeting. War had put off his godly duties over the last week. I had stupidly hoped he might put them off for longer—much longer.

“You don’t have to,” I whisper. “You could stop.”

He pulls me in close and steals a kiss before I can push him away. “For you I nearly would.”

Nearly.

The last week managed to lure me into a false sense of reality, but the dream is over.

I knew things weren’t going to change. What I hadn’t realized is that I’m suddenly not okay with that.

Be brave, Miriam.

If I want the world to change, I’ll have to do something about it.

“There is something I want to know,” I say carefully. “If you can judge men’s hearts, can you see whether they intend to do evil?”

What are the limits of your abilities, dear horseman?

War’s brow furrows at the change of subject. “Not even I can see the future, Miriam—nor can I read men’s minds. I can only understand their basic essence. And even that can alter with time and intent.”

I trace one of War’s crimson tattoos; the markings look like spilled blood on his chest.

“Do you know my heart?” I ask carefully.

“I do,” he says.

“Is it good?”

“It’s good enough.” For me, the silence seems to add.

It’s good enough.

Good enough for the horseman to believe I truly surrendered to him back in Port Said, which is all he ever really wanted from me, anyway.

The thing is, a good enough heart is not the same as a good one. And that’s unfortunate for War, because a good heart might always tell the truth, but a good enough one won’t.

When I told him I surrendered, well—I lied.

I’ve given up nothing.

The explosion roars through my ears, the force of it knocking me into the water.

Darkness. Nothing. Then—

I gasp in a breath. There’s water and fire and … and … and God the pain—the pain, the pain, the pain. The sharp bite of it nearly steals my breath.

“Mom, Mom, Mom!”

Can’t see her. Can’t see anyone.

“Mom!”

“Miriam!”

I gasp awake, clutching my throat.

War stares down at me, his eyes like onyx. A line forms between his brows. “You were having a nightmare.”

I take several deep gulps of air.

A nightmare. Right.

I wet my lips, sitting up, and the horseman moves back a little, giving me space. My skin is damp with sweat, and strands of my hair are plastered to my cheeks.

It’s been weeks since I last had this nightmare. I had almost forgotten that before War, this particular memory had all too frequently haunted my dreams. I don’t know why it’s decided to take a backseat until now. Maybe lately my mind has just been haunted by newer and more grotesque images.

“What were you dreaming of?” War asks. Just the way he says it makes me think that the horseman doesn’t dream—or that if he does, it’s a very different experience from my own.

My finger traces the scar at my throat. “It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory.”

The water rushes in—

“Of what?” War’s voice is hard as flint, like he wants to do battle with something as insubstantial as a memory.

I swallow.

Might as well tell him.

“Seven years ago Jerusalem was getting overtaken,” I say. Rebels and zealots had fronted an attack on my city. “My mother, sister, and I were escaping. No one was safe in the city, particularly not a half-Jewish, half-Muslim family.”

Those days of tolerance and progress that my parents once spoke of had been snuffed out like a candle.

“My family made it to the coast.” I can still see the shuffle of bodies on the beach. There were so many other families just like ours, desperate to escape war-torn Israel for another place—any place.

“We piled into a motor boat. By then, most engines in Israel had stopped working, and the ones that were still in operation were unreliable at best.”

That was seven years ago. Since then, all engines had stopped running.