Page 218 of War

I suck in a breath.

He’d always known.I was the one who’d been a fool in my certainty. I’d basked in my utter confidence that Miriam was mine by divine right and that nothing could change that.

Nothingcanchange that. This isn’t over. It doesn’t have to be.

Surrender.

Nothing comes without sacrifice—this least of all. Miriam was right, love and war cannot coexist. I can have one or the other, but not both.

My sword wasn’t with me when I left the earth, but it’s here with me now, settled in its scabbard like we were never separated. I reach for it. The metal sings as I withdraw the weapon from its sheath.

“So that is your choice,” Thanatos says, curiosity and disappointment rolled into his voice.

“Itisno choice.” I will cast my lot with the mortals. The fallible,complicatedmortals.

I begin to hand my blade over, hilt first. Thanatos reaches to take it from me.

At the last moment, I pull back the sword, withholding it. “The child comes too.”

Death’s dark eyes study me. “What is the point, brother? She was barely a possibility.”

She. A girl then.

“She comes back,” I insist.

Death looks at me with his dark eyes. He’s judging my heart just as much as I’ve judged humankind’s. Eventually he nods. “Enjoy what time you have left with them,” he says honestly. “I hope it is worth it.”

With those words, a change overtakes me.

I’m stripped bare of my bloodlust and my immortality. It lifts like a weight from my shoulders.

I’m no longer proud War but a penitent man.

“You arereleased.”

Chapter 62

Miriam

I blink myeyes open. It’s bright, and my skin tingles. I don’t feel quite right.

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’realive,” 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 becauseI love you.”

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