Already, sweat is beginning to bead along my brow. My hands shake from fear, and right now, I really, really need them steady.

Holding the sword in my grip, I lift it up.

Fuck, this thing is stupid heavy.

Why does he need to have the biggest sword of all? So dumb.

My arms tremble as I raise it up. The top of the grave is right above my head. If I can just get it up there …

I get the tip of it over the edge of the grave, and I shove the rest out as best I can. It takes several agonizing minutes, and by the end of it, I have sweat dripping down my chest and back, but finally, I get the weapon out of the grave.

My attention returns to War. Now that his sword is off him, all that’s left is getting this giant of a man out of this pit without blowing both of us up.

I bite back crazy laughter. It’s an impossible task. I don’t know why I thought I could do this …

Deep breath.

I push away my worries and focus on the task at hand. Removing the explosives from the grave is out of the question, which leaves only one other option: getting War and myself out of the pit unscathed.

Only, there’s no way I’m going to be able to lug the horseman out with my own two hands.

I’d need something stronger to get him out of this grave …

Something like a horse.

“Deimos!” I stage whisper, like raising my voice might set off one of these explosives … which it might. You never know.

Last I saw, War’s horse was lingering nearby, but for all I know, it’s wandered off again … probably to eat the bones of the long dead, or whatever immortal war horses do.

Nothing happens.

“Deimos!” I call a little louder.

Still nothing.

Freaking horses.

“Deimos!” I shout.

I don’t blow up. Praise the heavens.

The horse ambles over, peeking over the edge of the pit at me. His reins slide forward, into the grave, the thin leather strap bumping into the shaft wall. I wince as it causes a little dirt to dislodge and skitter down, some of it dusting a nearby IED.

When nothing else happens, I sigh out a breath. Sweat is beginning to drip down my temples.

My eyes catch on the leather sword holster that wraps around the horseman’s torso. If I can loop my own belt around War’s holster and Deimos’s reins, and if I can manage to buckle the reins to the holster, then Deimos could hoist War from his tomb. Hypothetically.

Even if that part of the plan works, there’s still the issue of somehow incentivizing a horse to actually drag his master up and out of the grave … and then, of course, there’s the issue of the explosives.

It’s disheartening to think that this is the best plan I have.

Damnit.

Be brave.

I remove my belt, tossing my weapons over the edge of the pit, and then I turn back to my horseman.

There’s a place near his neck that’s bare of any explosives. Carefully, I take a step forward, placing my foot on that open bit of earth.

Sweat drips from my brow and onto War’s armor as I lean over him and begin to thread my belt through his leather shoulder straps.

Once I’m finished, I reach for Deimos’s reins, which still hang into the grave shaft. I grab hold of them, winding my belt through them as well.

I lean my leg against War’s body as I begin to buckle my belt.

I think I’ve got this.

I nudge the horseman’s body a little more as I finish strapping it all together. In response, one of War’s arms begins to slide off his chest—

No-no-no-no-no.

I drop the belt and the reins and make a desperate grab for his arm, but I’m not fast enough.

His forearm is about to bump right into—

BOOM!

BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!

Chapter 60

War

I wake, as though from sleep, my eyes wincing open. The mortal sun bears down on me, and the ripe musk of the earth is in my nostrils, along with the scent of spilled blood.

It’s the smell of my first memory, the one that formed me. That and anger. Back in my infancy, I was all cunning and anger. I’ve learned since then some of the finer points of men and war.

For a moment, I cannot place where I am or how I got here. I’m lying in some sort of hole and my skin feels new. This is one of those sensations that I doubt humans have much experience with. New skin.

It all comes back to me then—how I was struck down. My riders lured me into a trap.

I feel my rage, like a spark, catch and grow.

They closed in on me and held me at bay and slit my throat damn near to the bone.

My rage doubles and doubles again. How much time has passed? How long did it take for my body to reform? That is the trouble with skin and bones and blood and muscle. They can only repair themselves so fast, even on one like me.

I begin to push myself up, my body feeling new and old all at once.

A thick mass of flesh slides off of me.

This too, is a familiar sensation. How many fields have I watered with lifeblood and fertilized with flesh? How many men have clawed their way out from beneath such death?

Countless.

I’ve given this way of life up, and yet it will always be there as my first memories of existence.

I push away the body as I sit up.

But then my eyes catch on the delicate wrist and the two hamsa bracelets—

Everything within me stills. Everything but fear. Cold rolled fear.

I let out a noise.

No.

“Miriam?” My hands go to the body, but the limbs—the two that are left—are cold.

I don’t believe it.

It’s not her. She wouldn’t be this foolish. She wouldn’t. Please God, she wouldn’t.

I flip the corpse over, trying to wash away the sight of the soft, feminine limbs. Most of the body has been blown away, but there’s some skin remaining around the neck.

My eyes move to the throat, to the holy scar at its base.

Surrender.

“No,” it comes out as a plea. “Miriam.”

There’s not much of her face remaining. There’s not much of anything remaining.

I don’t expect my throat to tighten and my gut to twist at the sight of it all. I am used to dismemberment. I am not used to caring about the creature dismembered. But I always have with her. Her injuries always made me feel odd. Crazed and helpless and human. So very, disturbingly human.

She can’t be dead.

“Miriam,” I beg, tilting her head back. It flops to the side.

A thousand upon a thousand years and so many countless deaths. None of it had cost me anything.

But this one—

She’s not dead. She can’t be dead. Not her and not …

My eyes slip down to what remains of her torso. A third of it is simply gone, along with all the hopes and dreams it carried.

“No,” I sob. “No, no, no …” I cradle her against me.

Desperate, I press a hand to her skin, willing her wounds to heal. But the flesh won’t stitch back together. It won’t even attempt it. It’s stopped functioning altogether.

For one mad moment, I consider raising her like any other undead. But my heart crumples at the thought. It wouldn’t be her. I’ve reanimated enough bodies to know I’m working with a vessel and nothing more. What made Miriam Miriam is gone. Long gone.