“No,” I say again, this time more hopeless.

I hop off Deimos and take several staggering steps as the earth rolls beneath my feet. Around me, I hear people shout as they grab one another.

I glance over my shoulder at War, but his eyes have gone unfocused. He’s not here, but elsewhere. And he looks nothing like the man I’ve come to care for.

The earth rips around me, and bone-white bodies pull themselves from the ground. People scream as soon as they catch sight of the dead rising. There aren’t that many dead in this area of town, but in the distance, I hear rising screams. There must by a nearby cemetery or a mass grave of some sort.

And now the chilling realization sets in: Mansoura was probably hit by war fairly recently, judging from the look of the city. And in war, there are lots of casualties … casualties whose bodies may have been buried within the city.

The dead around me descend on the living with unnatural agility.

I turn back to War. “Stop!”

Nothing.

I stalk towards him.

His horse is already halfway spooked. I debate scaring the steed into a frenzy before I decide instead to force myself up and onto the horse.

I am mad, I think, especially when War’s mount lifts its front legs halfway up in warning. But I claw myself far enough onto the saddle to grab onto War’s armor, and then I begin to drag the two of us back down to earth.

The action is enough to fully frighten the horse. The horseman’s mount rears back, throwing me and War off its back. A split second later, the horse takes off into the melee.

War lays beneath me. His arm is no longer outstretched, his eyes no longer glassy. Yet still the undead don’t fall back to the earth. Whatever powers he drew on, they won’t be stopped by distraction alone.

I lean over him, and I cup the side of his face. “Please, War. Please find your compassion. Please stop.”

“I will not stop, wife. I will never stop. It is you who must surrender to my ways.”

That damn word.

I push myself away from him, suddenly repulsed at the thought of touching him. Of caring for him. He is a blight and a terror to my world.

Around me the town is descending into full blown chaos. The dead kill the living, and every person cut down only lays still for a moment or two. Then they rise again as the vengeful dead. They turn on the living, attacking the very people they sought to protect only seconds before.

Dead husbands kill their wives, dead parents kill their children, dead neighbors kill their friends. A lifetime of relationships—deep, meaningful relationships—are weaponized in an instant.

I barely register the tears tracking down my face. How did we deserve this? What could we have possibly done to deserve this?

The dead ignore me and War completely. It’s almost surreal, and for an instant, I remember what it was like to watch television. To be like a fly on the wall as some great scene unfolded around you. You watched it, like a specter, but you were never touched by it.

I force myself to my feet. In a trance, I pull my bow off my shoulder, and grab an arrow. And I begin to shoot the newly dead.

A mother, a grandfather, a husband, a daughter, a neighbor. They hardly react to the arrows that cut through them. I keep shooting, even as I cry. I shoot until there are no more arrows left to shoot. And still the dead keep killing.

I pull out my dagger from its holster and stride into the fray. The undead don’t fight me. They part like the Red Sea, moving around me to hunt down more innocents. I can’t seem to even get close enough to them to sink my blade into their flesh.

I want to scream.

“You think I wouldn’t know of your treachery?” War calls out behind me.

I turn to face my heavenly husband, and I’m shaking with all my anger and anguish.

“You hadn’t even left camp when my men told me.” He begins to casually close the distance between us, ignoring the carnage around him, even as blood sprays onto his black clothing. “How my wife slipped away—on my horse no less.”

There is only one thing in this world he will spare, one thing he can’t bear to lose. One way he might stop.

Fear washes through me.

Be brave.

I let him get close. It’s only at the last minute that I bring my dagger to my throat.

War stops, still too far away to make a grab for my weapon, but close enough for him to see it pressed to my skin. His eyes widen, just for a fraction of a second. The horseman didn’t foresee this coming.

“Miriam,” War uses his menacing voice, the one that makes you want to piss yourself. And yet there’s a spark of fear in his eyes.

Right now I’m too reckless to care about either.

“Stop the attack,” I demand.

“I will not be threatened,” he warns.

I dig the knife a little deeper, until I feel a sharp prick and warm blood spills from the wound and down my neck.

The horseman’s eyes follow the line of blood, and now he looks like a man watching sand slip through an hourglass.

But I’m the one running out of time. The screams are quieting now; the dead have overwhelmed the living. It’s not going to last much longer.

“Let them live,” I say. I think I’m back to begging.

He doesn’t.

He doesn’t, and I feel my heart break. I didn’t even know it could be broken. Not by War.

I can’t sway him. We are all truly lost.

I feel my tears coming faster now, each one dripping down my face. It obscures the horseman’s form, which is probably how he manages to close the remaining distance between us.

In an instant, he’s looming in front of me. He wraps a hand around the hilt of my knife and tries to pry it from me. He’s being too gentle, holding his strength back, and rather than forfeiting the knife, I move with it, stumbling into War’s body so that now he’s holding both me and the blade. The edge of it still bites my skin.

“Do it,” I say, goading him. “It was so easy for you to kill them all off. Kill me too.”

Now he does use his inhuman strength. War yanks his old dagger away, and I see fury in his eyes.

“You are mad, wife!” he says.

“You can’t do it,” I say, even though I already knew this. “You’re so sure of your cause, and yet you can’t kill me.”

“Of course I can’t, Miriam. God gave you to me!” he bellows. “Do not squander your life to make a point! I promise you, you won’t get it back.”

“You don’t think I know that?” I say softly.

The horseman grabs me, too angry for words. Deimos has loitered nearby, and War stalks over to the creature, carting me along with him. He hoists me onto his mount.

Only hours ago this man was inside me. I remember his eyes on mine; he stared at me like I was some strange miracle.

That was the dream. This is the reality.

He hasn’t joined me on his horse yet, and I stare down at him as the last of the city falls, their cries going silent, one by one.

“You’re only willing to follow your god when you have nothing to lose,” I say. “But when you do, then you defy him? You’re no tragic savior, you’re a weak-willed monster.”

Chapter 43

We ride in silence for a long time, during which War has tried to touch my neck wound twice, only for me to slap his hand away. It feels too much like giving in, letting the horseman heal me.