War (The Four Horsemen, #2)(138)

War leans over me, and my eyes focus.

I gasp in a breath at the sight of him, whole and unmarred.

“Wife,” he says, his own voice shocked. And then he pulls me against him.

War buries his face in my neck, and his huge body begins to tremble. It takes me a moment to realize he’s weeping.

“You’re alive,” I say, amazed, running my fingers through the hair on his head. I’d feared that this death was going to be his last.

But how … ?

“You shouldn’t have come for me,” he says, his voice hoarse.

I pull away a little to look at him, and I touch one of his tears. I’ve never seen the horseman weep.

“I love you,” I say. I bottled up those words until it was nearly too late. They rush out of me now. “I will never not come for you because I love you.”

War’s face is naked emotion. Disbelief and joy fill his features, chasing away his tears.

His hands clasp my cheeks and he searches my eyes. “I am having one of your human dreams,” he says. “This is too wonderful to be real.”

“I think this is real.” Right?

I glance around me. We’re not in the grave anymore, but we’re nearby, the dead still scattered around us. I remember that—and I remember trying to save War. I’d been so close, but then his hand slipped. I don’t remember an explosion, but I don’t remember anything else either. My memory simply stops.

“What happened?” I ask.

War’s throat works. “When I woke …” he draws in a shaky breath, “You were gone.” His eyes are wild with emotion. “You came to save me and I couldn’t save you.”

I glance down at my body. My clothes are in charred tatters. Just seeing the state they’re in … there must have been an explosion. One that I don’t remember and never felt.

I take in my outfit again. The fabric is almost completely burned away, and yet my skin remains unblemished.

The abrupt end in my memory … I must’ve been hurt badly enough to black out. Which could only mean that War somehow healed me.

“You did save me,” I reply, confused. How could he say he hadn’t done so? If he hadn’t, there would be wounds, and I would be in pain.

“Not with my own two hands,” he admits.

My brows furrow. I don’t understand.

“Then how?” I ask.

He strokes my hair back. “I am free, Miriam.”

I must’ve hit my head really hard because I’m not following. “Free of what?”

“My purpose.”

It’s as much as he’s admitted before, but this time, I truly process his words. “You really aren’t going to kill anymore?” I say.

He shakes his head. “Not unless it’s to protect you—or our daughter.”

I raise my eyebrows, then glance down at my stomach. “Our daughter?”

He smiles at me, and that smile seems to stretch to every corner of his face. He’s so painfully gorgeous. “Sorry to ruin the surprise.”

Our daughter.

“How did you find out?”

“I told you, I didn’t save you. My brother did.”

“Your brother?” I say quizzically.

“Death.”

With that one word, my light mood vanishes.

There’s only one reason why Death himself would save me.

“I … died?” I can barely force the words out.

War stares at me for a long moment. “For a time.”

Oh God … I died.

I touch my stomach again, panic clawing up my throat. “And the baby—she’s still alive?”

“I made sure of it.”

I begin to weep then—because apparently crying is contagious right now.

I don’t understand. I went from dying to living. As did War. As did our child.

“I surrendered,” I say nonsensically.

War pulls me tight against him. “So did I.”

For a moment, the two of us simply stay like that. His body is as solid as ever; he feels unchanged, and yet things must’ve changed.

“What’s the catch?” I ask him.

Everything I love, I lose. Now, when it seems like I have regained it all, I’m afraid it’ll slip away from me again.

“There is no catch,” War says, “unless you count the fact that now I am well and truly mortal. I will live and age and die as you will.”

When he said he was free of his purpose, he meant it literally.

Whatever happened while I was … gone … it came at a steep personal cost to War. So steep that he lost his immortality.

My heart breaks a little at that. I’ve seen enough of death to last me at least twenty-seven lifetimes.

“And Deimos?” I ask.

“He will endure the same fate.”

“What about the other horsemen?” The ones who haven’t yet walked the earth.

War’s expression turns grim. “My brothers will not stop, and they are even stronger than me.”

So the world still isn’t safe—but it isn’t beyond saving, either. Pestilence and War laid down their weapons. Not all hope is lost.

Besides, that’s a worry for a later time.

I’m alive, War’s alive, and my child’s alive. Oh—and there will be no more killing.