Moving around her, I pull back a flap and peer into her tent. “Bracelets, a toothbrush, a journal, and some eye makeup.” I list off the items I see. At least the folded blanket resting on her pallet looks new.

“I don’t want any of those things,” Zara says vehemently.

I don’t fucking blame you.

“You don’t have to keep any of them.”

She looks at me forlornly. “What happens now?”

Dropping the tent flaps, I meet her gaze reluctantly. “Do you want me to tell you what you’d like to hear, or do you want me to tell you the truth?”

She works her jaw. “The truth.”

I give her a sad look. “You’ll be forced to celebrate the slaughter of your city with the rest of the camp.” Already I can hear the horde gathering in the central clearing. The drums haven’t started up yet, but they will soon.

I exhale. “After the celebration, you go to bed and you’ll wake up in that tent tomorrow and you’ll realize it wasn’t just a nightmare after all. That this is your life. It’ll be up to you what you make of it. But the pain won’t stop. War and his best fighters will hit all the surrounding communities in the next few days, and they’ll kill everyone, and you’ll be helpless to stop it.”

“Bastards,” she swears.

“And then you’ll be given a job—either as a soldier or as a cook or something else, and that’ll be what you do here.”

“And if I don’t?” she challenges.

We both already know the answer to this question.

“Then you’ll probably die.”

Zara glances at me. “You haven’t yet.”

I can tell she’s remembering earlier, when I stopped War from killing her, but all I’m remembering is the feel of that zombie’s hands on my throat, choking the life out of me.

I give Zara a long look. “Yet.”

By the time the sun is setting, the war drums have started up. I can smell someone’s prized animals sizzling over a spit, and people are steadily streaming towards the center of camp, chatting idly like we didn’t just massacre a town. Torches have already been lit and people have changed into festival attire.

I head towards the clearing, driven by my hunger. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, my empty stomach is cramping.

I slip into line for food, and while I wait, I study the crowd. Tonight, I see something I hadn’t before. So many faces hold a desperate edge to them. They smile and act normal but there’s a haunted, hollow look in their eyes that I hadn’t taken the time to notice before.

It was a shit move for me to assume that these people aren’t just as scared and witless as I am. They’re petrified. We’re all petrified—me, Zara, and everyone else.

And we have good reason to be.

Through the haze of the crowd, I see War sitting on his throne, leaning to one side as a phobos rider chats with him.

All of my earlier emotions rise up. He sacked a city, then raised the dead to feast off the scraps of it.

And then he saved me from his ungodly abominations.

The horseman rubs his lower hip as he listens to the rider, his kohl-lined eyes looking as dark as pits.

Swiveling away from him, I grab two plates of food and two drinks and head back to the women’s quarters. The torches burn low here.

“Knock, knock,” I say when I arrive at Zara’s tent.

I don’t bother waiting for her to answer before I duck inside. I remember how little energy I had for manners or anything else the day I arrived.

Zara is using what’s left of the previous owner’s eye makeup to draw images on the dirt floor, though in the fading light, it’s hard to make out exactly what those images are.

I hand a plate of food to her.

She stops drawing to take it from me. “Thank you,” she says. “This was kind of you.”

“I also grabbed you some wine, but …” I give her headscarf a meaningful look. “I don’t know if you want it.

She takes it from me anyway and sets it aside with her plate. Her gaze moves from the food back to my face. She studies me a little. “Why are you being kind to me?”

Why indeed.

I take a sip from my own glass of wine and sit down next to her. I don’t bother asking her if I should leave. I probably should, and I also know the two of us would be all the more miserable for it.

“Because you’re worthy of it. Also, you managed to shoot War, and I’m a little jealous of you for it.”

Zara gives me a small smile, but it quickly falls away when cheering rises from the festivities.

“Why are they happy?” she asks, listening to the sounds.

“The fuck if I know.” I take another sip from my cup.

I can feel her staring at me, weighing my words.

“What?” I finally say.

“If you hate them so much why were you fighting with them?”

I glance at her, lowering my drink. “Why did you choose allegiance over death?” I ask.

She doesn’t say anything to that. There isn’t anything to say. It’s all so very complicated.

I slosh around the liquid in my cup. “I have been fighting,” I admit, “but I’ve been targeting the horseman’s army, not the civilians.”

Zara gives me a sharp look. “You can do that?” She looks intrigued.

“Not with impunity, no.” Eventually someone will catch me and I’ll have to face the consequences of killing War’s army. They don’t really like traitors here.

“But you haven’t gotten punished for it?” Zara presses.

I hesitate. “Not yet.” There it is again, that word—yet. Because it’s inevitable that something bad will happen to all of us.

The two of us are silent for a bit, but eventually, I have to ask—

“Where in God’s name did you find the courage to fire a gun?”

I can’t tell if Zara’s smiling or frowning at the reminder. “I didn’t have a lot left to lose, and I was so mad. So, so mad. I’m still mad. I just grabbed my family’s gun and hunted that asshole down.

Family.

Oh God. I feel my horror spread through me. Of course she had family. And now I’m left to wonder what she saw before she picked up that firearm and decided that fuck it, I’ll take my chances.

“How did you stop the horseman from killing me?” Zara asks then.

It’s such a reasonable question, but there is so much to that question that I don’t want to answer.

“I asked him to spare you,” I say, glad that the darkness shadows my face.

There’s a pause. Then Zara says, “That’s not really what I’m asking.”

I know. What she wants to know is why would War listen to me at all.

I bring my drink to my lips and swallow almost all of it, wincing at the taste.

Just tell her.

“He thinks I’m his wife.”

More silence.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Zara eventually says.

“I think it might eventually mean”—my mouth dries—“sex, but for now, it’s an empty title.”

I think of the times the horseman and I have kissed, and I am so conflicted. So, so conflicted.

Zara’s silent, undoubtedly because I’m making no sense. One should either be married or not married, having sex or not having sex. Anything else deserves a larger explanation.