Famine by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 23

Eventually, we come to an enormous warehouse, something made of corrugated iron sheeting and small, smudged windows. It’s clearly a structure from before, when large quantities of goods needed to be stored and processed.

Now, however, soft candlelight glows from within, and dozens and dozens of people are streaming into the building. By the looks of their formal attire, Famine’s men didn’t round them up so much as they got the word out that the horseman was hosting some sort of celebration tonight.

I don’t know just how many of the city’s residents were actually foolish enough to come. It looks like a lot, but then again, Registro is a large city; perhaps this is just a small portion of its citizens. I hope the vast majority of the town knew better than to fall for this horseman’s tricks. I hope they’re fleeing now, using this time to pack up their things and run.

Still, a wave of nausea rolls through me at the sight of all of the people who did decide to come here tonight, either out of curiosity or misplaced faith.

Have none of them noticed the burning bonfire at Famine’s new estate, or the fact that the people who went to see the horsemen haven’t been heard from since?

“What are you planning?” I say to the Reaper as he rides us up to the front of the building.

“Always so fearful of me,” he muses, pulling his horse to a stop. “Perhaps I simply want to enjoy myself the way humans do.”

He slips off his steed, his scythe at his back. I stare at the curving blade; it looks so much more threatening here amongst all these people.

Famine turns and reaches up for me.

“What are you going to do to them?” I whisper.

“That is not for you to concern yourself with.”

“Famine,” I say, my eyes pleading with him.

His expression is merciless. “Off.”

“I can’t watch any more bloodshed,” I say. “I won’t.”

The horseman grabs me roughly then, dragging me off his steed. I wince a little as my bad shoulder is jostled.

He sets me down, but rather than letting me go, he steps in close. “I’ll do what I want, flower,” he says softly.

And now my earlier trepidation blooms into full-bodied dread.

Famine steers me towards the building, his hand on my uninjured shoulder. I move forward like a prisoner walking the plank.

We head inside, and the people around us move out of our way.

Someone has tried to make the massive warehouse look less like some old pile of corroded metal and more like a ballroom. Bright cloth has been draped around the room and hung from the rafters. Wood and iron chandeliers hang from metal crossbeams, their candles already dripping wax.

Platters of food lay along tables lining the room, and there are basins of water and huge barrels of what must be wine resting next to a pyramid of cups.

Across the room, a lavish chair has been set up—it’s the only seat in the entire building, so it’s clearly meant for Famine.

The horseman steers us towards it. Nearby, several guards loiter. The horseman gestures for them, and several hustle over.

“Get me another chair,” the Reaper demands.

A couple of the men’s eyes go to me, and I can see their confusion. Why does she get special treatment?

Sorry guys, I wish I knew the answer.

They hurry off to do Famine’s bidding, and within minutes another chair is dragged inside and placed next to Famine’s.

“Sit,” the horseman tells me, releasing my shoulder.

I frown at him but take the seat.

The Reaper moves to his own chair, removing the scythe from his back before he sits. He lays his weapon across his legs, lounging back.

“Why are you doing this?” I say, staring out at the sea of people who are quickly filling the room. They keep to the edges, standing in nervous groups. A few brave souls have dared to serve themselves some food, but most people seem to be of the opinion that it’s better to leave the food alone.

Fools! I want to shout at them. Why did you stay when you could have fled? The horseman won’t take pity on you. He doesn’t know what pity is.

Famine arches an eyebrow at me. “I thought you would want me to do something more human. Don’t you mortals love parties?”

That answer only causes my heart to pound harder.

“Look,” he says, gesturing to the tables laden with hors d’oeuvres and drinks. “I haven’t even destroyed the food.”

Yet.

We both know he will. He always does.

Whatever this is, it’s another one of Famine’s cruel tricks.

A band begins to play sambas, and it’s an awful pairing—this joyful music with the frightened faces of Registro’s citizens.

I sit in my seat, beginning to squirm the longer nothing happens.

People—mothers, fathers, friends, neighbors—all of them are beginning to relax. Slowly, the noise in the room rises as people talk to each other.

Without warning, the Reaper grabs his scythe and rises from his throne, his bronze armor glinting in the candlelight.

All at once—silence. I’ve never seen a crowd go quiet that quickly.

He raises his arms. “Eat, dance, be merry,” the horseman says, his gaze sweeping over them.

If Famine thought that his words would somehow jumpstart the evening, he thought wrong.

No one moves. People were eating—some were even being merry—but now no one is budging a centimeter. Even the music has stopped. If anything, I think the horseman reminded everyone that this celebration is a little too surreal to be trusted.

Famine sits back in his seat, clutching his weapon like a scepter, a frown on his face. The longer people stay pinned in place, the angrier his expression becomes.

“Damn you all,” he finally says, slamming the base of his scythe down against the cracked concrete floor. “Eat! Be merry! Dance!”

Frightened into compliance, people begin to move, some shuffling towards the tables of food, a few creeping towards the open space in front of the band. I can see the whites of a few people’s eyes.

It’s still silent, so the Reaper points his weapon at the musicians. “You useless sacks of flesh, do your jobs.”

They scramble together, some discordant notes drifting off their instruments as they rush to make music. Once they begin playing a song, people move to the dance floor, woodenly beginning to dance.

My stomach squeezes at the sight and my skin feels clammy, like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t.

The horseman glares at them all, a dark look on his face. That, more than anything, puts me on edge. The way Famine stares at them … like a panther sizing up prey.

All of a sudden, the horseman turns to me, and my heart skips a beat at the predatory look in his eyes.

“Well?” he says.

“Well what?” I ask.

“I was referring to you too. Dance.” He nods to the space ahead of us.

In this mockery of a party? I don’t think so.

“With who?” I say. “You?” I laugh, though the sound rings false. “I’m not just going to go out there alone. Dancing is for couples.”

I don’t actually believe that, but the thought of dancing right now makes me vaguely ill.

Famine arches an eyebrow, a slow, wicked smile spreading across his face. Rather than answering me, he reaches out a hand.

I eye it, then him, then it again. “What are you doing?”

“You wanted a partner.” He says it slowly, like I’m the town idiot.

“You can’t be serious.”

The horseman stands, strapping his weapon to his back once more. He moves in front of me, then extends his hand once more.

Holy shit. He is serious.

I stare at that hand. The petty part of me wants to say no, just to enjoy humiliating the Reaper for a few seconds, but the rational, frightened part of me knows that making a mockery of this man won’t end well for me.

So I take his hand.

This must be another one of the horseman’s tricks. But then he leads me onto the dance floor, where dozens of people are stiffly dancing. They give us wide berth.

“Do you even know how to dance?” I ask.

In response, Famine pulls me to him, placing a hand on my waist. The other clasps my hand.

“You act as though these irrelevant human activities of yours are somehow hard.” As the horseman speaks, he begins to lead me in a dance. It’s nothing formal or structured, and yet his movements have an expert flow to them. He moves like a river over rocks, and again I’m reminded of his otherness.

Haltingly, I follow the Reaper’s lead. I don’t know where to put my free hand. Eventually I rest it on top of an armor covered shoulder.

For a few minutes I simply stare at my feet, trying to figure out the steps. But the more I look at my boots, the more I get distracted by the dark handle of Famine’s dagger.

“They’re not going to disappear,” Famine says, his voice haughty.

I jolt, feeling like I got caught red-handed. I glance up at the horseman, wide-eyed.

“Your feet,” he clarifies.

I stare into his luminous green eyes. The candlelight makes them shine like gemstones.

“This is ridiculous,” I murmur, mostly to drag my mind away from the fact that the candlelight is doing more than just making his eyes glow. Every pleasing plane of his face is highlighted by the light, and his caramel hair shines nearly as brightly as his armor.

“This is your world and your customs,” he says. “I’m merely indulging in them.”

Right about now, I’m supposed to snap out some cunning retort, or look away and disengage. I do neither. I’m pinned under that spellbinding gaze of his.

The intense way Famine is looking at me makes me feel like there’s lightning in my veins. And I can’t help but notice how, despite the cruel curve of his lips, the Reaper is unimaginably handsome.

Finally, I tear my eyes away, staring at everyone and everything else but him.

“Uncomfortable?” he asks, squeezing my hand.

“More than a little,” I admit.

“Good. It means you haven’t forgotten what I am.”

I press my lips together. He thinks that’s the reason I’m uncomfortable? If only he realized that despite how awful he is, I’d still be half down to fuck the smirk off his face. And not for the sake of humanity. Staring at him makes me forget what a shitty person he is.

His gaze stays on me as we move, and I fight to ignore it. It helps that every few seconds I accidentally step on Famine’s feet. That’s distracting enough to ignore his gaze.

“Has anyone told you that you are complete shit at dancing?” he asks, drawing my attention back to him.

“I can always count on you for a compliment,” I say sarcastically.

“Why are you so terrible at this?” Famine asks, curious.

“I was paid to fuck people, not to teach them the samba.”

The song ends, and I pull my hands back. The Reaper, meanwhile, is slower to release me, his hand lingering on my waist.

His fingers press in, and he pulls me towards him. “Stay close,” he whispers into my ear.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Why?”

The corner of his mouth curves up. After a moment, his gaze lifts from me, taking in the rest of the room. And just like that, my pulse begins to gallop away.

He brushes past me, returning to his chair, and I’m left on the dancefloor, staring after him.

“What does he have over you?” a male voice asks.

I nearly jump at the sound. I glance over at the man who’s crept up to my side. It’s one of Famine’s guards—I think it might be the same one who was staring at my legs earlier.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“What does he have over you?” the man repeats. “Or are you with him by choice?”

I scrutinize him. “Why do you care?” I say.

The man lifts a shoulder in response, his gaze flitting over my face. He’s taken a little too much interest in me.

I edge away from him.

The Reaper lounges in his chair, one leg thrown over his knee, his fingers drumming along the armrest. His agitation is back. The horseman stares at the room full of people as though they sicken him. It doesn’t seem to matter that he forced them here, or that many of them appear worried.

My heart is racing and my breath is coming fast. I’m acutely aware of the dagger in my boot.

Next to me, Famine’s guard lingers, like he has more to say but he needs to recapture my attention.

I turn to him. “What are you still doing next to me?”

Ugh, I sound like the Reaper. That infernal bastard is rubbing off on me.

The guard opens his mouth, his expression caught somewhere between ire and defensiveness.

“Enough,” Famine says, interrupting us. His voice booms across the room.

The music cuts off and the people end their chatter. In the silence, the hairs along my arms rise.

Finally the guard moves away from me—though he does look reluctant to do so—taking up post near one of the doorways.

I glance over at Famine, who still sits in his chair, his scythe in his hand. That horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach is back.

“Enough of this farce,” he says softer now, his voice velvety and sinister. “You all know who I am. You all seek to placate me. But I see your excess, I recognize the hunger and greed that drives you all. It sickens me.”

Raising his scythe, he pounds its base against the floor.

Beneath our feet, the concrete floor cracks, fissures opening along its surface, each one spreading out from the Reaper like the rays of a sun.

People let out surprised screams and many begin to rush towards the doors, but Famine’s guards are barring the exits.

The horseman smiles.

It’s that grin that cuts through my rising fear.

Stop him.

My heart feels like it’s in my throat as I reach for my dagger. I cut my leg as I withdraw it from my boot, but the pain barely registers over the ringing in my ears.

Stop him before it’s too late.

I stride forward, closing in on Famine. His eyes flick up to me, but his mind is clearly elsewhere.

Stop him. Now.

I step right up to the horseman, and I slam my knife down on Famine’s prone hand with as much force as I can muster. It cuts through flesh and muscle, the blade pinning the horseman to his chair.

Immediately, the earth stops shaking and the fissures halt.

Famine sucks in a sharp breath as I stagger away. He shifts his attention to the wound.

I can hear nothing aside from my own ragged breathing as I wait for him to react.

After several long seconds, the Reaper’s eyes lift, meeting mine. I expect to see anger in them; instead, I see betrayal.

“That was a mistake,” he says he says softly.

Beneath me the floor cracks open once more, and a sharp, vined thing rises from the depths. I only have time to register that at least his ire is now focused on me before the plant wraps itself around me, squeezing and squeezing.

Desperately, I try to rip free from the plant, but the movement only seems to make it tighten its hold. Thorns bloom along the vines, poking me in a dozen different places.

At the sight, someone shrieks, and then it sounds like everyone is shouting. People begin to stampede once more, moving as fast as they can for the exits.

The Reaper lays his scythe across his lap, then reaches for the dagger he’s been impaled with. Calmly, Famine pulls the blade out from his hand, shooting me a considering look as he tosses it aside.

“No one’s going anywhere,” he says casually. Again, his voice seems to carry over the rising mayhem.

Thick, brambly shadows rise beyond the windows, growing and growing like looming specters. Someone in their desperate attempt to escape shatters one of the windows in front of these shadows, and it’s only then that I realize that what I’m seeing outside are bushes—bushes that have grown so dense and tall that they effectively block off the exits.

Outside, the sky flickers, backlighting these plants. An instant later, thunder booms overhead.

Famine stands, grabbing his scythe and spinning it in his hand like he’s getting familiar with its weight. His bronze armor flickers and shines under the candlelight as he moves.

“Come now,” he says to the panicking room. “The party is only just getting started.”

The earth trembles again, and the floor all but crumbles apart. Dozens and dozens of plants rise from the depths, ensnaring person after person, until the entire ballroom seems to be a thrashing jungle of sorts. The screams are almost deafening as people struggle fruitlessly to get out.

I strain against my own plant that binds me tight, the thorns digging into my skin.

“Stop!” I beg the horseman.

Famine glances over at me, an angry glint in his eyes. “You I’ll deal with later.”

He faces the crowd of trapped guests, his attention eliciting another round of petrified screams. Everything about Famine in this moment is menacing—his body, his weapon, his expression.

Outside, lightening continues to flash and thunder continues to boom. Within seconds rain begins pattering on the corrugated iron roof, getting louder by the second.

Slowly the horseman stalks forward, making his way towards a large man with heavy jowls who’s bound up in a squat tree. I see the man struggle to get away, but it’s useless.

The horseman grasps the man’s face, his fingers digging into his cheeks. “Do you want me to stop?” the Reaper asks. I can barely hear him over the pounding rain and the shouts and sobs echoing through the room.

The man nods vigorously.

Famine studies him. “Hmmm … And what would you be willing to do to make me stop?” he asks.

The man squirms under his gaze. “I-I’ll do anything.”

“Will you now?” Famine says. The Reaper glances over at me and arches a brow, like this is some inside joke.

“Are you sure about that?” the Reaper presses, his attention returning to his victim.

The man is visibly sweating, but he manages a nod.

“Alright,” Famine says. “I’ll stop.”

The man looks relieved.

“But.”

I tense. Here it is, the barbed offer I’ve come to expect from the horseman.

“If you want me to save all these people,” Famine says. “I need something from you.”

Famine might be a divine creature, but right now, he sounds like the devil of old.

“Anything,” his captive says again.

“Your life for theirs,” the Reaper says.

My mouth goes dry. The horseman likes doing this—testing the limits of our humanity, all so that he can prove some point about how shitty humans really are.

The man pauses. There’s terror in his eyes. His gaze sweeps over the other people who are likewise caught in the grip of Famine’s lethal plants.

Before the man can respond, the tree that holds him fast now releases him. He stumbles forward, just barely managing to catch himself before he falls.

“Well?” the Reaper says. “On your knees then.” As he speaks, Famine spins his scythe again, the blade glinting in the candlelight.

The man is visibly shaking, his eyes locked on the Reaper’s blade. He doesn’t move to his knees.

Famine takes a step towards him, and the man bolts, heading for the guarded doorway.

“As I thought.”

In six quick strides, the horseman is upon him. The Reaper swings that mighty scythe of his, and in one sweeping stroke he beheads the man.

The room erupts in a fresh wave of screams, these ones louder and more desperate than ever.

My nausea rises as the man’s head hits the ground with a wet thud, and I nearly sick myself at the sight of his mouth opening and closing in shock.

There’s blood everywhere, and the room is filled with the piercing cries of all the other trapped humans.

“You were all given a chance at redemption,” Famine announces, his gaze sweeping over them, “but your will is weak.”

The Reaper moves away from the body, towards another person, this one a woman.

She opens her mouth. “No—”

Her plea is cut short. Famine swings his scythe, separating the woman’s head from her shoulders. Blood sprays as the body collapses into the plant holding her.

My screams now join the others.

The horseman has gotten a taste for death.

Famine moves onto the next person and then the next and the next, that terrible weapon cutting each one down. Mercilessly he executes the trapped townspeople until the floor shines with blood. Those he doesn’t get to are slowly squeezed tighter and tighter by the trees and shrubs until I hear the snap of bones.

And now the cries aren’t just terrified, they’re agonized.

At some point my voice grows hoarse from screaming, and I have to close my eyes against the carnage. It’s all so excessively cruel.

The plant caging me in has grown uncomfortably tight, but unlike some of the other people in the room, it hasn’t broken any bones or crushed my lungs.

It seems like an eternity passes before the warehouse grows silent. The only noise left is the harsh patter of rain and my sobs. Even then, I keep my eyes closed.

I hear the wet thud of Famine’s boots as he walks through blood towards me. A whimper leaves my lips, and a tear tracks down my cheek.

“Open your eyes, Ana.”

I shake my head.

The plant holding me now releases its grip. I’ve been caught up in it for so long that my bloodless legs fold under me, too weak to keep me standing. Before I hit the ground, the Reaper catches me.

Now I do open my eyes and look up at his stormy ones. Behind his head his scythe looms, secured to his back once more.

I can smell the blood on him, and I can feel it in the wet press of his hands on my body.

Another frightened tear slips out. I thought I was brave, stabbing his hand earlier. I foolishly thought that if I hurt him, I might actually be able to direct his anger away from these people and onto me.

Instead I only enflamed his fury.

“You’re the best of humanity I’ve seen so far,” Famine’s voice is silken, “and I have to say, I’m not too impressed.”

With that, he scoops me into his arms and begins heading towards the door, kicking the odd head out of his way as he does so. Bile rises up my throat once more.

“Put me down,” I say, a tremor in my voice.

“So you can stab me again?” He huffs out a laugh. I can hear the soft splash of his boots as they step through puddles of blood. “I don’t think so.”

The only people who are left standing are Famine’s men. They stare stoically at the carnage, but inside they must be freaking out. I know I’m freaking out, and I’ve already seen this many times before.

“Why are you the way you are?” I whisper staring up at his blood-speckled jawline.

Mean. Evil.

That jawline seems to harden as he glances down at me. “Why are you the way you are?” he retorts. “You fucking stabbed me in my hand.”

“So you killed an entire room for it?”

“I was going to kill them anyway.” As he walks, the trees and bushes part, making a walkway of sorts for us.

“How can you possibly be a heavenly thing?” I ask as we leave the building. Outside, the rain is coming down hard, soaking me within seconds. “You meet compassion with violence, and mercy with betrayal.” More tears slip out. “If there’s one thing in my life I regret, it’s saving you. And if I could go back and undo it all, I would.”

“You would choose to not help me?” Famine says, glancing down at me, rain dripping off his face. Just from his tone and the look in his eyes, I know I’ve hit on something sensitive.

“After what you’ve done?” I say. “In an instant.”

“After what I’ve done?” A muscle in Famine’s cheek jumps, and the rain seems to come down harder. “This is not a war I started, it’s just the one I’m ending.”

I glare up at him, my dark hair plastered to my cheeks. “What you’re doing isn’t ending some war, it’s just evil for the sake of evil.”

Overhead, the sky flashes, and for an instant Famine’s face looks inhumanly harsh.

“How dare you judge me—you, who are nothing,” the Reaper says, coming to a stop. “Nothing but self-aware stardust. In a hundred years you and your petty, self-important beliefs will be gone, your memory cast from the earth, and everything that makes you you will be scattered to the winds. And still I will exist as I always have.”

“Am I supposed to be upset by that?” I say. “That in one hundred years you’ll still exist as this, soulless, festering thing, while for once in my life I’ll get some goddamn rest?”

Famine flashes me an angry look. A second later he lifts me up, and for an instant I think he’s going to hurt me just as he has everyone else. But then I realize that his horse is right behind me, blending into the dark night.

He sets me down hard on the seat, and I’ve only just managed to adjust myself when Famine follows me up, his body pressing in close.

Grabbing the reins, he clicks his tongue, and his horse takes off.

The rain and wind whips against my face, but I hardly feel it. I’ve gone numb. Maybe that’s why I don’t immediately notice that Famine’s cutting through fields rather than taking the main road. The crops rise around us like phantoms in the darkness.

The sky flashes, lighting up the world. For an instant I can clearly see stalks of sugarcane around us, but as I stare at them, they begin to wither, their leaves looking like long, curling claws reaching for me.

The sky flashes again and again, and the thunder seems to fill the whole sky. Rain leaks from the heavens like blood from an artery.

It’s a nightmarish ride, made all the worse by the Reaper’s dark, forbidding presence at my back.

I quake when I see our house in the distance, lit up by candlelight. We’re going back, and it’s an awful sensation, to survive all this death—like I’ve missed the boat to the afterlife and all that’s left for me is to waste away here.

The horseman nearly rides us into the house before pulling his horse up short. A few guards meander about the property, but now that we’ve arrived, they start to approach us. They must see something in Famine’s expression, however, because they stop several meters away from us, not daring to come any closer.

The Reaper swings himself off his steed, and before I can so much as move, he reaches up and hauls me off his horse as well.

I glare at him. “I can get off on my own.”

“Can you now? That’s news to me. You’re always harping on getting everyone else off.”

Wait, was that a sex joke?

I don’t have more than a moment to process that before Famine tows me by the wrist into the house, leading me back to the room I was tied up in all day.

Naturally, I fight against his hold, trying to yank my wrist free. It doesn’t deter the horseman. If anything, I get the impression that he wants a knock-down drag-out fight.

When we get to the room, he practically tosses me inside, and I stumble forward before whipping around.

If he wants a fucking fight, I will give him one. Already I’m fantasizing about slamming these big-ass boots into his nutsack.

He follows me into my room, his body dripping with rainwater. I, too am soaking wet, the water sliding down my legs.

“Well?” I say angrily. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

The Reaper scowls at me, looking like he’s about to say something. Instead, he walks back to the door and kicks it shut with his booted heel. Then he wheels about, unholstering his scythe and tossing it on the bed.

“I’ll leave when I want to leave,” he says.

Anger makes my face flush. “Get out.”

He stalks forward, ignoring my words altogether. “You look at me like I’m a monster, but I’m not the one who spent years inflicting torture on a helpless prisoner. The horrors I endured—”

“You think I don’t know pain?” I say over him. My voice comes out louder and angrier than I intend. “I lost both my parents by the time I was a teenager, my aunt abused me, and my cousins did nothing to stop her, but that didn’t prevent me from mourning them all when you killed my entire town.

“And then, left with nothing, I had to fend for myself, and I consider myself lucky that my madam was the one who found me.

“I was seventeen when I started to sell my body. Seventeen. Still just a teenager.”

I step forward as I talk, closing the distance between us. “You think I don’t know pain? Degradation? I could sit here all night telling you about the horrors I’ve endured—the clients who beat me, who raped me, who told me I was worthless all while using me. Just because it hasn’t completely broken me doesn’t mean I don’t understand all the ways we can hurt one another.

“So don’t act like you invented pain. It’s an insult to the rest of us.”

The more I talk, the more Famine’s anger seems to drain from his face. By the time I finish—my chest heaving with my emotions, angry tears pricking at my eyes—his expression is almost soft.

You’ve felt it too, his face seems to say. The horror of suffering. He looks both comforted and oddly devastated by that.

“See?” he says quietly. “Look how awful your kind is, that they would hurt their young. Tell me I am not justified in killing them all.”

I level him a long look. “You’re not justified in killing us all.”

He takes a step forward, his armor brushing against my chest.

“And what do you think I am justified to do, little flower?”

“Leave us be. If we’re awful and doomed to die, we’ll kill ourselves off. If we’re not, then we won’t.” As I speak, one of those angry tears of mine slips out. Hopefully the last one. I’m tired of crying in front of this man.

The Reaper reaches up a hand. He pauses for a moment, staring at that tear, then he wipes it away.

I don’t know what to make of this situation—or of him for that matter. Not two hours ago he gruesomely killed an entire warehouse full of people. Tomorrow he’ll probably finish off the rest of the city. Why is he bothering to be gentle with me? What’s the point?

Famine is still standing way too close, and for a moment, his gaze drops to my lips.

It’s a shock to see the obvious hunger in his eyes.

I know that look.

But just when I think he might act on whatever heated thoughts are running through his head, he takes my hand and leads me out of the room and into the living room, where a large fire roars in the fireplace. He moves us over to it.

“Sit,” he says.

I scowl, but I do as he says.

The Reaper releases my hand, heading into the dimly lit kitchen. He’s gone long enough for me to turn my attention to the fire.

I twist my hair, squeezing the water from the curly locks.

I’m still soaking wet, but the fire more than makes up for the slight chill.

Famine returns with a pitcher, a basin, and a cloth. He comes to my side and sets the items down.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“You’re hurt.”

I do in fact have dozens of little cuts from the nasty plant I was restrained in. And then there’s my injured shoulder.

“Why do you care?” I say.

“I don’t know.” He frowns as he speaks.

The Reaper pours the water from the pitcher into the basin, and dips the cloth in. Then, taking my arm, he begins to clean my wounds, brushing the washcloth over the small, bleeding puncture marks that dot my skin.

This is ridiculous.

I try to withdraw my hand, but the horseman holds it fast, refusing to stop, and I’m left watching him work.

Methodically, he cleans one of my arms, then the other, being extra diligent with my shoulder wound. He then moves on to my neck and chest. As he does so, I catch sight of his injured hand. It’s still open, still bloody, but he’s made no mention of it and gives no indication that it hurts. But it must. I know he feels pain.

And I feel a whisper of shame. Even this monster feels more remorse for what he did to me than I do for what I did to him.

You also haven’t killed hundreds of thousands of people.

There is that.

Famine pauses halfway through, shucking off his armor. Beneath the metal, his wet shirt is plastered to his chest. After a moment, he removes this too.

I jolt a little at the sight of him. For the first time in five years, I see his bare flesh and the strange, glowing green tattoos that are etched onto it.

Lines and lines of them snake around his wrists like shackles, and more rows of them drape over his shoulders and around his pecs, giving the markings the appearance of a heavy plated necklace.

The symbols look like writing, but it’s written in no language I’ve ever seen.

Famine resumes cleaning my wounds, and I continue to stare at his chest. Before, I thought that Famine looked like some mythical prince. Now he looks far more like the archaic, otherworldly creature he is.

“Inniv jataxiva evawa paruv Eziel,” he says.

My breath catches for a moment as the words wash over me, drawing out goosebumps.

“The hand of god falls heavy,” he translates. His eyes flick to mine. “You were wondering what they said, weren’t you?”

I nod, my brows drawing together.

“What langua—”

“The one God speaks.”

I pause, staring at the words a little longer.

“I shall take their crops and cast them out, so that nothing may grow,” Famine continues without my prompting. “And many shall hunger, and many shall perish. For such is the will of God.”

There it is, the proof that this is supposed to happen.

It’s quiet for a long time. Then, softer, Famine says, “I was always meant to be the cruel one.” His eyes flick to me, and for once there’s something more than seething anger in those eerie green irises. “Pestilence, for all his disease, has always been perversely drawn to humans. And War was made from human desires. Terrible as my brothers are, I am worse.”

After all I’ve seen the Reaper do, I believe him. Yet if you had asked me which of the four brothers was most awful, I wouldn’t have placed Famine at the top of that list.

“How could you possibly be worse than Pestilence and War?” I ask.

He finishes cleaning my wounds, then sets the cloth aside. Sitting back on his haunches, he slings his arms over his knees. “Before your kind built fancy buildings and created technology that rivaled God—before that, I existed.”

I’ve heard plenty of stories of the days that preceded the horsemen. But I haven’t heard much about the world before that. The deep past that he’s alluding to.

“Humans would pray to me, they would sacrifice to me, they would kill and die for me.” Famine’s eyes are too bright as he tells me this; he doesn’t look sane. “They gave their lives to me so that I might spare the rest of their kind.”

His words make me think of the man tonight—the one who was asked to die for the rest of us. He wasn’t able to do it, but Famine makes it sound like others once regularly did so.

“And did you?” I ask. “Did you spare them?”

He lifts a shoulder. “Sometimes.”

Sometimes is better than never, which is his current track record. But I get it. This horseman has always been unforgiving and conscienceless. Or maybe thinking of him like that is itself forcing him to fit some human model when he’s telling me that sometimes famine just occurs in nature. Good and evil have nothing to do with it.

“I’m older than many of the mountains we’ve passed,” he says. “I have seen the world before humans ever touched it.”

And he will see the world after humans leave it.

“And what about Death?” I ask, switching topics a little.

“What about him?” the Reaper asks.

“You mentioned how you were worse than Pestilence and War,” I say, “but what about Death?”

Famine holds my gaze for a long minute, then gives me a slight nod, like he’s conceding a point to me. “Nothing is worse than him.”