Famine by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 52

Ana

Death lives.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

My pulse is pounding between my ears, and at the back of my throat I can taste the acrid tang of bile.

“Death?” I echo. “As in … your brother?”

He doesn’t even need to answer. There’s no misinterpreting the Reaper’s words.

Just the thought of the fourth horseman has my skin turning clammy. Death doesn’t seem like a lenient horseman.

“But … I thought that you said …” Famine said he was relinquishing his purpose.

Like Pestilence and War.

Oh God.

The Reaper lifts a hand, hovering it over the ground. From the earth a wispy stalk rises. Within seconds, a small bud forms at its tip. It bursts open, a delicate white flower unfurling.

“I didn’t lose my power,” the horseman murmurs.

“Were you supposed to?” What is going on?

When I first noticed the unnatural storm brewing above us, I came out here wanting to know what pissed the horseman off. But he didn’t look angry then so much as agonized, and if what he’s shared so far is any indication, he was trying to give up his task. Presumably for me.

“Why would you do that?” I ask before he can answer my previous question. “You don’t need to be mortal for me. You hate being mortal.”

His gaze meets mine. “Not anymore. Not with you,” he says.

I take all of him in, rain still pelting the two of us. He’s wearing his armor and his scythe and scales are at his side.

“But it doesn’t matter,” he says. “It didn’t work.”

“It didn’t work?” I echo. “Should it have?”

Famine pushes himself off the ground, the plant slipping off of his forearm. He gives me a strange, intense look.

The Reaper closes the distance between us and cups my face, pinning my hair to my cheeks.

“He’s coming here.”

“Who?” I ask, my heart galloping away.

But I know. I know.

I search the horseman’s face. Tell me everything is okay, I will him. Tell me the world is not about to end.

Famine’s gaze is fierce. “There’s something I need to show you.”

He’s still not acting right.

Famine drops his hands from my face, then moves away to grab his scales. After he scoops them up, he takes my hand, leading me back towards our house.

“Death is awake, and he’s coming here.”

There it is.

“Why would he come here?” I ask. Famine made it pretty clear when he told me about his encounter with War that the horsemen try to keep to their own corners of the world.

“Because I’ve been naughty,” the Reaper says.

“You’re always naughty,” I say. “Why is today any different?”

Other than, you know, Famine trying to relinquish himself of his duty.

“You’ll see.”

That sounds ominous.

We enter our house, and he pulls me towards the kitchen. On the countertop are ingredients from my failed attempts at baking—eggs and flour, butter and milk.

With a single sweep of his arm, Famine sends the ingredients careening off the counter. The glass jar of milk explodes and the eggs splatter, and Famine notices none of it.

Instead, he sets the scales on the cleared surface.

I stare at the bronze device. It’s the one possession of Famine’s I usually forget about. Now, however, he’s giving the thing an inordinate amount of attention.

From a nearby drawer, the Reaper withdraws a knife with a wicked sharp blade.

“What are y—?”

Quick as lightning, he slices his forearm, then holds it directly over one of the bronze pans.

The scale wavers, bobbing up and down, up and down. Like last time, the pan with the horseman’s blood rises higher than its empty companion.

Famine wipes the blade on his sleeve. Then, he grasps my hand.

“Famine.”

His eyes hold mine, and they’re lethally steady. “Just trust me.” Even as he speaks, his cut continues to bleed everywhere.

He doesn’t look away from me, not until I give him a reluctant nod. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do trust him. I trust him with my life.

He takes my index finger, and using the tip of the knife, he pricks it.

Instinctively my hand jerks back, but the horseman holds it fast. Moving it over the scales, he squeezes out one—two—three drops of blood from the tip of my finger, each droplet hitting the saucer across from his. Last time we did this, Famine had weighed my blood against an empty saucer. Now he’s pitting it against his.

I expect my side of the scales to dip as it did before. I expect to see Famine’s blood rise above mine like it did last time.

Instead, the tray holding my blood rises and rises. It shouldn’t be a strange sight. There’s more blood on Famine’s saucer after all; his side is heavier. But his scales have never weighed the literal mass of things.

I suck in a breath. “How … ?”

How could I possibly be holier than you?

“It was my mind all along that ruled the scales, not God’s,” Famine says.

My eyebrows draw together in confusion.

He’s still holding my hand and blood is slipping down my fingers and onto his skin and the look he’s giving me … like he’s trying to will the answer into my head.

“It’s not you who has changed,” he says, “It’s me.”

I search his eyes. “But … you still hate humanity,” I say. Because those scales were never just about me. They were about what I represented—humankind.

“Not anymore,” he says, repeating his earlier words. “Which is why my brother has risen.”

I still don’t understand that. I don’t understand any of this. Famine supposedly tried to give up his task … but maybe it didn’t work? And now the fourth and final horseman has awoken and … he’s coming here? The more I process what’s happening, the sicker I feel.

“What does he want?” I ask.

“There is only one thing Thanatos ever wants,” Famine says. “Death.”