Famine by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 54

Famine

“Ana!” My voice sounds so far away.

I feel like the earth is disintegrating around me, that I am in free fall.

Can’t breathe.

Can’t think.

In an instant I close the distance between me and Ana. I fall to her side, my arms slipping under her torso. I cradle her in my arms.

There’s no pulse, no sense of life left in her.

“What have you done?” I say to my brother, my gaze pinned on Ana’s face.

I choke on my breath, unable to process—to accept—what I’m seeing.

“Ana,” I say, shaking her like an idiot. I cup her cheek. “Ana.” A tear slips out, hitting her chin.

I press my lips to hers, trying to breathe life back into her. Nothing within her stirs. I could make her body grow, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s simply that the soul residing in it is now gone.

I am being unmade.

Distantly, I’m aware of the gusting winds and the shaking earth. I’m aware that trees are snapping and plants are dying and it’s my doing.

My brother took her, just as he promised. No discussion, no negotiations, no interest in hearing the rest of what I was going to say.

“What have you done?” I repeat.

“You’ve seen death often enough, Famine. I assumed you understood.”

“Bring her back.” I’m beginning to shake. A low, moaning noise tears itself from my throat. “You gave all of my brothers a fair trade. That’s all I want.”

“War and Pestilence were both willing to save humanity. You are not.”

I know for a fact War and Pestilence would’ve happily razed the earth, no questions asked, if it meant keeping their wives. That’s simply the way we work.

My grip on Ana tightens.

Slowly I look up at Thanatos, and I am filled with menace. There is a reason men don’t cross me and live.

“Bring her back,” I demand. Once again the rain is picking up and lightning is flashing overhead, and the earth is openly revolting and every blade of grass around us is dead.

BOO—BOOM! The thunder roars.

My brother stares at me piteously.

“You have my terms.”

I stare down at Ana’s lovely face, and her shining, sightless eyes.

Next to me, Death looms. “My other offer still stands.”

His offer.

His ridiculous, shitty offer.

I let Ana go, her body slipping from my arms, the ache inside me growing and growing.

“I wasn’t lying when I said that hurting her would be the end of everything,” I say as I rise to my feet. Already I can feel the land dying, and the last of Taubaté’s skyscrapers falling to the ground under the quaking earth. The wind swirls around me and hail pelts at the dead foliage.

I hadn’t realized I cast aside my scythe. I pick it up now, spinning it in my hand, and approach my brother.

“You would hurt me?” Death says.

In response, I swing my scythe, aiming for his neck.

Thanatos barely moves in time.

I lean into my follow-through, spinning with the arc of my weapon. I bring the scythe up overhead before arcing it back down, the tip angled to impale Death’s chest.

My brother has to leap back, his expression alarmed.

“Famine—”

Rolling my wrist, I swing the scythe around, seamlessly readying another attack.

One of Thanatos’s black wings snaps out, hitting my arm with enough force to knock the weapon from my grip.

No matter.

I come at him again, bringing my arms up and fisting my hands. I have a dagger strapped to my side, but I don’t bother going for it. I want to feel the burst of pain as my flesh lays into Thanatos.

My arm snaps out, and I punch Death in the chest so hard his silver armor dents inward.

He grunts, but has barely any time to recover before I follow the hit up—

Another damning blow, another dent in his armor.

I am not a man, I am something else, something bigger, and all I feel is pain and anger.

Again and again the blows come, each one landing against Death’s chest and caving in his armor. He barely has time to catch his breath—a sensation that is strange and foreign to him—as he stumbles back.

Fall, damn you.

Lifting a booted foot, I kick out at his knee.

He moves out of the way, his hand at the edge of his armor. I can hear the fastenings ripping clean away as he tears the breastplate off of himself.

“I wouldn’t remove that if I were you,” I say. “This is going to hurt a lot worse.”

Vaguely I remember the first time I felt pain. There’s nothing like it. It’s terrible to endure and a shock to a newly wrought horseman.

Death casts it aside anyway.

“You wish to fight me, brother?” Thanatos says. “Fine.”

He waits for me, and I descend on him again, fists at the ready. I throw another punch, my grief and anger consuming me.

But the blow never lands.

Death catches my closed fist. His dark eyes meet mine as his hold tightens. All at once he twists my hand until—

Snap.

I grunt at the sharp, shooting pain of my broken bone. Thanatos releases my fist then, and I clench my teeth, my breath hissing out of me as my arm falls uselessly to my side.

If he thought a mere broken bone would stop me, he thought wrong.

I bring up a booted foot and I kick him square in the chest, the force of my blow so powerful his feet leave the ground.

Death pitches backwards, hitting the earth hard, his wings pinned beneath him. Nearby, his horse whinnies, shuffling away from us.

I’m on my brother in an instant, my good hand going to his throat. His breath comes in ragged gasps, and I can see him wincing from the pain.

I tighten my hold on his neck, and he reaches up with his hands, clawing at my grip. He lets out a strangled noise.

I smile malevolently at him. Now he knows what it means to be powerless.

Under my will, earth splits apart violently, opening up beneath my brother. Mud begins to slip over his wings, pulling him down, down.

I’ll bury him alive. Then he will understand the crushing, suffocating feel of grief.

Right when he’s sure he will die, I will make my own bargain with him, one where Ana lives and I don’t have to destroy the world as payment for it.

Death grabs my good arm, his hold tightening.

In the next instant, I feel … odd. Weak and tingly. I choke a little on the sensation before I realize—

He’s sucking the very life out of me.

It’s the same ability I have, only his is much, much more powerful.

I choke again, my hold loosening around his neck. It’s a struggle simply to breathe as I try to force my body to revive itself.

Death pushes me off him easily then. Now it’s his turn to loom over me. He places a boot on my chest to hold me down.

“Do you still want to fight me?” he says, his black wings spreading wide behind him.

In response, I kick out at him, a blow he easily dodges.

He laughs, bending down to grab me. He drags me up by my shirt. My feet touch the ground for only a moment before I hear the great thundering thump of Death’s wings.

Then he’s lifting us both into the sky, our bodies rising higher and higher.

My breathing is still ragged, and though my anger burns hot, my life is still ebbing away from me.

The weaker I grow, the more my grief batters at me. I feel painfully human.

We rise high above the treetops as Thanatos drives us into the heavens. The sky around us is ablaze with lightening and wind. Hail pummels our skin and our hair sticks to our faces.

We’re covered with mud, the two of us a little worse for the wear.

“Brother,” Thanatos says, his face solemn.

I meet his depthless eyes.

“You may have started this fight,” he says, “but you know it is I who finish all things. Forgive me.”

With that, Death drops me.

For a moment, I’m weightless—so much so that I almost forget I have a form. I am the wind and the rain and the earth once more.

But then the lacerating pain of my injured arm reminds me—I am alive, Ana is not.

It takes the merest thought, and a plant begins to grow. It’s thin and malnourished because I have so little left in me to grow life, but I manage to make it grow tall enough for my purposes.

It reaches out and lovingly catches me from the sky. Its spindly arms lower me until my feet touch the earth.

I’m dusting myself off when Death slams into me, knocking me back down to the ground. I grunt as the pain from my broken arm radiates through me, the agony so sharp my vision clouds.

I blink away the darkness, and once again there’s my brother, looming over me. He gazes down at me, looking as patient and steady as ever, damn him, and his eyes are full of pity.

The pity undoes me.

I’ve burned my anger out. All that’s left is a weakened, broken man whose heart is full of grief.

I tilt my head a little, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Ana. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, but already she’s beginning to truly look like a corpse.

A keening sound works its way up my throat

Everything hurts. It all hurts so damn bad.

“Please, brother,” I say.

Death rearranges himself, pressing a knee on my chest. His dark wings are splayed wide, hiding the sky from me.

“I won’t bring her back, Famine,” he says, gazing down at me. “Not without your agreement. You can hate me, you can fight me, but you cannot change my mind.”

A few years of torture might make Death reconsider, but I won’t dare do to my brother what mortals did to me.

We are not the real problem, after all.

I turn my head and look over at Ana again. Lovely, vivacious Ana.

A tear slides down my cheek.

I won’t let her slip away. Not now. Not ever.

All I want is to have her back in my arms.

That’s all.

My gaze moves to Thanatos. I close my eyes and swallow.

“Alright, brother. You win—I accept. Just bring her back.”