Not that this part of New Palestine is much to look at. It’s nothing but swaths and swaths of yellowed grass, interrupted every now and then by a struggling patch of farmland. Every so often we pass a dilapidated building or a seemingly empty town, and maybe there are still people living here. It doesn’t look like War has laid waste to these places, but it’s all so very quiet.

“Are the people here already dead?” I ask.

It feels like they’re dead. Everything’s too still. Not even the wind stirs, like it’s already abandoned this place.

“Not yet,” he says ominously.

How is it feasible for War to stretch his reach this far? The cities he lays siege to, those I understand, but the houses that speckle these forgotten places—how does he get those?

He doesn’t say anything further, and I’m left with a horrible, gnawing worry that he and the other horsemen are truly unstoppable.

But they can be stopped, right? After all, another horseman came before War, and then, at some later time, he vanished.

“What happened to Pestilence?” I ask.

Quiet fear had settled into Jerusalem after the news came that a horseman of the apocalypse was spreading plague through North America. But then a short while later rumors erupted that Pestilence had disappeared. I don’t know if anyone truly believed that—that he’d disappeared, I mean. We’d been fooled by that explanation once before, when the horsemen first arrived.

But Pestilence hadn’t returned after all; War had come instead.

“The conqueror was vanquished,” War says.

“The conqueror?” I repeat. “You mean Pestilence?”

War inclines his head a little.

“I thought you were all immortal,” I say.

“I didn’t say my brother was dead.”

I narrow my eyes, studying War’s profile. How could a horseman be both alive and vanquished?

He glances over at me. “You carry trouble in your eyes, wife. Whatever you’re thinking, unthink it.”

“Tell me about him,” I say. “Pestilence.”

War is quiet for a long time. His kohl-lined eyes far too aware. “You want to know how Pestilence was stopped?”

Of course I do. I had no idea a horsemen could be stopped. A second later, War’s words truly register.

“So he was stopped?” I try to imagine Pestilence chained and immobilized, thwarted from his deadly task.

War settles himself deeper into his saddle. “That’s a story for another day, I’m afraid.” His words are final. “But wife,” he adds, “there is something you should know now.”

I raise my brows. Oh?

War flashes me a fierce look. “My brother failed. I will not.”

I think I’m supposed to be frightened by War’s words, but all I can think is that Pestilence failed. He failed at whatever he was supposed to do.

Shit. The horsemen really can be stopped.

War continues on, unaware of my thoughts. “Pestilence might’ve been a conqueror, but I don’t seek to conquer, savage woman, I seek to destroy.”

It’s late by the time we eventually stop. We’re not at the ocean, but from the few words War’s said on the subject, this expanse of land is where the entire army will set up camp when they arrive tomorrow.

Which means I only have to endure one more night of one-on-one time with War. The thought isn’t nearly so daunting as it was yesterday. Aside from cupping my face, he hasn’t so much as tried to touch me.

However, tonight War lays the pallets noticeably closer to each other. Close enough for us to reach out and hold hands from our respective beds—if we wanted to.

Like yesterday, War still gives me all the blankets, and I still feel guilty about it. I shouldn’t feel guilty. Going cold for one night is the least of what this fucker deserves.

But even once I slip under those blankets, the guilt still trickles its way in. Maybe especially then because the evening air already has a bite to it.

Don’t offer him a blanket, Miriam. Don’t do it. You extend that olive branch and you open the door to being something more than distant travel companions.

I bite my tongue until I no longer feel the urge to share my blankets.

War, for his part, looks completely at home on his threadbare pallet. He lays on his back, his hands behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankles as he stares up at the stars. Again I envy his ease. He seems perfectly at home here, on this random patch of dirt—more at home than I feel, and I’ve lived on this earth a helluva lot longer than he has.

“So,” I begin.

He turns his head to me. “Yes?”

God, that deep voice. My core clenches at the sound of it.

“What were you doing before you were raiding cities?” I ask.

War glances back up at the stars. “I slept.”

Uh … “Where?”

“Here, on earth.”

His answer doesn’t make much sense to me, but then, not much else about him makes sense either—so far, what I’ve learned about him is that he can’t be killed, he doesn’t need food or water, and he doesn’t shit or piss like the rest of us.

I repeat: the horseman doesn’t shit or piss.

I’m telling you, he makes no sense.

War’s voice cuts through the night air. “While I slept, I dreamed. I could hear so many voices. So many things,” he murmurs.

I study his profile. So far, War has been haughty, possessive, silver-tongued, and terrifying. But this is the first time I’ve seen him like this. Full of his otherness. An eerie feeling creeps over me, like he might’ve just been about to spill the secrets of the universe.

He seems to shake himself. “But that is no matter.”

I stare at him for a little longer.

“Tomorrow my army will arrive here.”

“And things will go back to the way they were,” I say.

I imagine my tiny tent. I should feel relief that I’ll be able to put distance between us once more. Instead my stomach twists. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’ve been. You don’t really focus on things like loneliness when you’re just trying to survive each day like I’d been in Jerusalem. But I had felt lonely. I’d felt it every night I fell asleep without my family and woke to silence.

And then War swept into my town and I stopped trying to survive. I opened my arms to death, and it was the horseman who kept me from that fate.

“Things don’t have to go back to the way they were, wife.”

Wife.

The horseman knows exactly how to bait me. I don’t want to be with him, but now I’ve remembered just what it’s like to be with someone. To have open, unvarnished conversations.

My throat works. “They must.”

Chapter 10

I wake in War’s arms.

I know it before I open my eyes—even before I fully shake off sleep. I’m far too warm, and I can feel his heavy limbs draped all over me as I lay on my side. Still, when I blink my eyes open, I’m not prepared for the reality of it.

My face is all but buried against his naked chest. I pull my head away a little. This close to him, all I can see is the crimson glow of his markings and endless olive skin.

How did this happen?

I glance down between us and—damnit, we’re on his pallet, not mine, which means I scooched over to him at some point in the night, sacrificing my blankets for his thin mat and thick muscles.